We record race, religion, nationality, income, education, criminal background, and in many cases if a gun is owned.
There was some objection to this a while back. Lawmakers tried to calm everyone by saying that it is used to help minorities--and it is.
But it reminds me, and many others, of Nazi Germany. To fund a church, you had to list your religion and earmark money on your tax form for it. This was *not* used to help people.
No one in America expects mass killings, but since most programs that use this data, while intended to help--hurt (such as the inner city housing programs), it might just be better to assume everyone is the same and treat them that way.
Re:Some real reasons to be concerned about census.
on
Jedi == Religion In NZ
·
· Score: 1
I've seen an interview (on BookTV) with the author(s) of that book. It seemed lacking.
Did IBM actually make the punch cards?
Were any of them smoking guns? The ones that were called such during the interview looked pretty much normal. These were tax forms (with religion as an option) and ID cards listing nationality, cause of death, religion, method of capture...
Did the pres. of IBM know that the holocaust was taking place? The earliest America found out about it was after the taking of Berlin...
If so, did he have reason to believe that IBM technology was used for anything more than regular accounting?
I thought it was left vs really left... or maybe right and a bit up vs right and and further up...
Doesn't it bother anyone that something as complicated as political philosophies are thought of as a 1-Dimension left-to-right line?
But not only is it left vs right... it's conservative vs liberal! Supposedly meaning the same thing as left and right--but not actually--while further making any solid classifications ambiguous.
And with the conservatives being about 60% liberal and the liberals being about 60% conservative (leaving out if these are lefties or righties--much less the variance they exhibit) this makes calling names very difficult. For some reason, the 40% that's named right is the only part anyone really cares about.
Just curious: How can you be in favor of making human robots to do manual labor, but be against making "real" clones of people? And just how can cloning be misused, if not for HUMAN ROBOTS!!
This is my understanding of cloning (correct me if I'm wrong).
Clones are in every way identical to a normal human--they are normal humans. They gestate in a womb, grow from child to adult, and carry no memories or ideas from the gene donor.
If you do believe in a God, it's hard to believe he/she would say: "Well, I didn't see those people being born, so I couldn't give them souls. Should have used my system with the eggs and sperm. And, by the way--twins don't have souls! HA!!"
And if Hitler were cloned, we wouldn't have anything to worry about. Everything evil about him was learned. His clone now days would more likely be saying "Would you like fries with that?" than "Die Jews die."
The really important questions are: "Who gets to be cloned?", "How many times?", "For what reasons?", and "Can I clone anyone? (Without permission?)" If my friend clones my son, do I--or my son--have any rights? Is the clone family--if it's given birth by another women who wants it? What if my friend isn't my friend, but blackmails me with the threat of killing my son's clone?
How do you enforce laws against countries raising armies of government-educated clones?
If someone clones me without my knowing, am I financially responsible for that clone? I can see kids on talk shows asking "Who's my donor?" instead of "Who's my father?"
Currently the best test for a site to avoid is if it says "IE 3/4/5 required.", "Netscape 4/5/6 required." or "Resolution must be 1024x768." Even worse is the appearance of JavaScript and Java--the black plague and ebola of web sites.
Many of the features of my browser are used in nearly every other page I visit, but I'll be hard pressed to find one example of good use for many of them. JavaScript, for example, is used everywhere, but *very* rarely for anything usefull. Some 20% of users turn it off, not because of imcompatibilites, but it's uselessness and annoyance (popups). Frames are another example--they're shunned by the design community not because of any reason but their abuse.
I've found that the less features of my browser a page uses: the easier it is to navigate, the faster it downloads and works, the better impression it displays, and the higher likelihood I'll find information instead of gimmiks.
What will forcing standards complient everything do to the web? Will design get worse as designers are free to abuse even more "features"? Will it be more difficult to tell the difference between a well designed site and crap?
But could things actually get better? What's the reasoning behind that view? With this new freedom given to designers, to freely use any feature without fear of imcompatibility, be rightly unabused by those who don't need any more features--AKA: most designers?
"If sites decide to change to a manner in which you can't view them but a majority of other people can you lose out not them."
<i>Then</i> we'll get new browsers. No sooner.
But wait! There's no big reason for sites to do that now. With the 4.0 browsers sites can display information in more ways than are usefull--efficiently.
If you've ever designed a site, you'll likely share the experience that incompatibilites exist in some "features"; but once you remove the unnecessary and wastefull parts of your website and achieve something approaching elegance, you'll see the incompatibilites only exist in things <b>you should never have put into a site in the first place</b>!
If forcing 5.0 browsers on us means anything to me, it's slow browsing and freedom for bad design.
The PS1 was supposed to be C only (and it had great C libraries from launch) but soon many titles had optimized ASM in small portions--Crash Bandicoot was entirely in ASM!
The same will probibly happen with the PS2. While it is a multiprocessor system, I doubt anything will be 100% pure ASM, but with the absence of a good C library like the PS1 had, eventually many functions will likely be given to some ASM procedures.
He said things about starting to type and a word processor popping up, and pushing buttons to start programs; but when these ideas were interpreted in the only way I can imagine them interpreted, he says that's wrong.
Does anyone have any idea what he is really talking about? Never mind how these things might be implimented--just describe the intended behavoir to me.
After we put Katz to death in some painful and public way we can really rant about this. It's tangent time.
Like Katz admits, the Clinton era made quite a few major technology mistakes. Most every one involved siding with corporations instead of protecting rights. This is expected of any administration in this very new situation.
I'm not a Republican myself--I'm a centrist-indie--and I agree with the Democrats on about half of the many important issues, but the Republicans do deserve some defense.
1. Republicans are actually no more corporate than Democrats. They are bought at the same rate and in the same number.
This image starts, and should end, with la-sa Fair. (Spelling?) Clinton went as far as Republicans do--he did not become involved in labor and market disputes such as in Iron mining, etc. Going that far is a big mistake--it gave the R's their image--but it kept the economy strong through the Clinton years.
2. Republicans are not all Bible-reading moral crusaders. Those are just the loud ones... These people always seem to take attention away from rational justifications for policies and just make everyone look stupid.
3. Republicans follow Democrats in the way of censorship. It's my understanding that Democrats are for filtering the Internet in schools and libraries, rating or banning movies and music, stopping Napster, putting various chips into things, and setting the language that is "politically correct." Joe Lieberman and Tipper Gore all but burn books themselves...
4. Morality and technology ARE by nature linked. Can you perform harmful experiments on unknowing subjects? Can you use my organs--while I'm still alive?! Is it the same with an unborn child's t-cells? A woman's eggs? These are REAL ethics questions and can't just be brushed off.
5. The Republicans are the straw man. When they say affirmative action is not effective and they may have more effective ideas, they are called racists. When they say abortion is actually murder-- and not anyone's right--they are against women's rights. When they say the numbers are on the side of the NRA they are called extremists of all kinds.
Agree or disagree with them, but PLEASE do it rationally! What I see are a lot of people that haven't seen what a good Republican believes.
I've met two really good Democrats in my time. They really made me want to be one. I've met four really good Republicans. (The numbers are by pure chance.) But the common Democrat is an irrational, self-righteous, arrogant and simple-minded fool. None of this is because of what they believe, but why.
Above the blind faith and bandwagon for their cause is the mystery of what anyone else believes and the ghost stories they tell of why. "If you don't believe this, you're wrong. You hate all the nice people and have some evil reason to go against what everyone knows is right." they say. They live their lives knowing only one way and comparing only to a cartoon of a shadow of a ghost story of any other thinking.
Yes, the common Republican is about the same, but that's not my audience. This is my big rant for today. Question your beliefs; keep them all if they find true. But most importantly, find as many alternative beliefs as you can. Question them. Study the numbers and experiments yourself. Make your own decisions. Believe any thing you want, but do so for a reason.
I'd have to agree with 2Cows that OpenBSD's install was tough.
I've installed FreeBSD on my home computer and my laptop and had a very pleasurable experience; but I've also tried OpenBSD and couldn't even get the damn install to run.
My personal wish is for IT to be efficient energy transmission. I'd laugh when an energy receiver is turned on and I think "What does it do? It doesn't move... or light up..." It would replace a dirty and dangerous thing, upset billion-dollar companies, change the world, require changes in cities.... And paranoid safety-freaks (or corp.-owned politicians) might try to prevent people from using it...
But I doubt it is.
The inventor's history, the clues, and some reason can allow us to infer a few things.
1. It's fairly simple. Less than a car, more than a bicycle. Don't get me wrong, this range is open to some pretty complex things.
2. It hasn't been tried before or thought of for this application. (Scooters anyone? Little personal cars? All done before. All failed with consumers.)
3. It's less dangerous than the alternative. (If it replaces cars, it's LESS dangerous. Flying, especially with rotating blades, may be considered MORE dangerous.)
4. It's attraction will be usefullness and function, not simple "coolness" factors. Not a solution in search of a problem. (How else do you acheive the required income he predicts?)
5. Revolutionary could mean "e-mail" revolutionary, not necessarily "cure for cancer" or "teleportation" or "unified theory" revolutionary.
6. No revolutionary components (on the smallest scale). Likely it will have circuits never put together before and sections never built before, but he didn't invent a new transister or actuator. (Nothing based on completely new components goes for $2000 with a profit.)
7. It's likely mechanical, or fundimentally mechanical.
A few questions still remain:
1. Why are college campuses specifically mentioned for retro-fitting?
2. If it's not mechanical, what other technologies is he knowledgable enough of?
3. Why might people not be allowed to use it? The revolutionary and utopian aspects that are praised make me wonder.
4. What does "architect cities around it" mean?
5. How will it change a person's way of thinking? About what?
6. I assume the meeting was indoors and in an office or workplace. This and the duffel bag clue tell me it is less than half the size of a car. Maybe 1/4 the size or less. Assumptions that it will be replacing cars or commercial aircraft are made suspect...
7. Are metro and pro paired in a client/server fashion or cheap/expensive?
8. Why *so* secretive. This is worse than transmeta!
9. Does the word "transmeta" make anyone here lose faith in the word "revolutionary"?
Re:Pro-Drug Rants are a bit simplistic
on
"Traffic"
·
· Score: 1
The argument is that tobacco and alcohol are two of the worst drugs available and they are legal while mild drugs with few negative consequences are illegal.
No one is calling for the legalization of any hard drugs. Just a reality check on what is legal and illegal. A good portion of the law is simply backwards.
And even if you don't support legalizing pot, you must support restraining our police. Personally, I don't want the government to confiscate everything I own because of an anonymous tip, and I don't want to spend years and thousands of dollars to sue the state to get it back.
It disturbs me that cities fly helicopters with heat-detecting equipment over random homes to check for growing rooms. It disturbs me that civil rights can be violated and laws broken by police while many turn a blind eye because "we've got to fight this war."
And the whole time, these drugs aren't even that bad for you. Marijuana in the form most people smoke now has ~100 times the harmfull chemicals cigaretts have. After processing and filtering, it's less than cigaretts. And since no one will smoke 10 packs of pot a day, I think it's safe to say replacing cigaretts with marijuana is a good idea. Heck, while your legal smokes increase stress, pot decreases it! Nicotine addiction is also known to be many, many, many factors greater than pot addiction. (Those questioned at rehab clinics cite crack and heroin as being much easier to quit than nicotine.)
A processed and packaged drug is always better than some mystery pill. Plus, legalization allows for accurate knowledge of who is taking what--and how much. Since most drug users are trying to escape depression (etc.) a psychological councelor dealing may be better than some pusher.
If you ask me, anti-drug rants are a bit simplistic. "It's bad for you" just doesn't cut it.
The electoral college was created to do mainly 2 things:
1. Prevent the president from having more power than congress--so he's elected as a summation of votes of the type that elect congress (by state).
2. Give smaller states a reason for existing. Without the electoral college, the candidates would campaign in New York, L.A., and Chicago--but not many more cities (and certainly not states).
Gore's popular vote, and his victory in the larger states is what the electoral college was INTENDED to prevent. The power is not supposed to come directly from the people, and it's not good for the country to only appeal to big cities.
This seems like a cut-paste response from Bush--and definately not tailored for/.
Bushie, be sure of what crowd you're talking to. Sure, Gore lies like an old French hoar earning her wage, but he can at least sculpt his lies for his audience.
It pains me, I'm going to vote for you. Not because you're particularly smart, or charismatic, or have any clue--but because you were at least in tune enought to say "I don't trust the government."
Compare that to paraphrased Gore: "It's my job and duty to make sure you all live OK, and have a job (maybe even state supplied), live in equal class (classes are bad...), and realize the economy-pumping power of this commune model I believe in."
Just focus on being, even somewhat, a Classical Liberal and jab at Gore for being a Statist and someone who's found the constitution to be good toilet paper. And please, please, please... don't open your mouth again without thinking.
Slashdot Mirror
I've read books with no punctuation--even one with no E's in it.
But never in all caps. 'Just doesn't look right.
I'm not claiming it was just a Nazi thing. I'm just showing an obvious misuse of imformation.
Countries like America?
We record race, religion, nationality, income, education, criminal background, and in many cases if a gun is owned.
There was some objection to this a while back. Lawmakers tried to calm everyone by saying that it is used to help minorities--and it is.
But it reminds me, and many others, of Nazi Germany. To fund a church, you had to list your religion and earmark money on your tax form for it. This was *not* used to help people.
No one in America expects mass killings, but since most programs that use this data, while intended to help--hurt (such as the inner city housing programs), it might just be better to assume everyone is the same and treat them that way.
I've seen an interview (on BookTV) with the author(s) of that book. It seemed lacking.
Did IBM actually make the punch cards?
Were any of them smoking guns? The ones that were called such during the interview looked pretty much normal. These were tax forms (with religion as an option) and ID cards listing nationality, cause of death, religion, method of capture...
Did the pres. of IBM know that the holocaust was taking place? The earliest America found out about it was after the taking of Berlin...
If so, did he have reason to believe that IBM technology was used for anything more than regular accounting?
cooling the chip will automagically speed it up.
asynch chips go as fast as the hardware can when the software needs it
I thought it was left vs really left... or maybe right and a bit up vs right and and further up...
Doesn't it bother anyone that something as complicated as political philosophies are thought of as a 1-Dimension left-to-right line?
But not only is it left vs right... it's conservative vs liberal! Supposedly meaning the same thing as left and right--but not actually--while further making any solid classifications ambiguous.
And with the conservatives being about 60% liberal and the liberals being about 60% conservative (leaving out if these are lefties or righties--much less the variance they exhibit) this makes calling names very difficult. For some reason, the 40% that's named right is the only part anyone really cares about.
My two favorite online comics are "explodingdog comes to earth" and "the parking lot is full."
http://www.explodingdog.com/
http://www.plif.com/
Metal Gear Solid was not well told and it had a bad story. But GOD-DAMMIT! It was a FUN game!
The point is: F-U-N. Fun through story, gameplay, and even graphics. But graphics (or even story) with no gameplay or fun = bad game.
I can license the Doom3 engine and make the worst game you've ever seen! It's not the graphics. It's the game.
Just curious: How can you be in favor of making human robots to do manual labor, but be against making "real" clones of people? And just how can cloning be misused, if not for HUMAN ROBOTS!!
i just *know* this will degrade into an abortion flame...
This is my understanding of cloning (correct me if I'm wrong).
Clones are in every way identical to a normal human--they are normal humans. They gestate in a womb, grow from child to adult, and carry no memories or ideas from the gene donor.
If you do believe in a God, it's hard to believe he/she would say: "Well, I didn't see those people being born, so I couldn't give them souls. Should have used my system with the eggs and sperm. And, by the way--twins don't have souls! HA!!"
And if Hitler were cloned, we wouldn't have anything to worry about. Everything evil about him was learned. His clone now days would more likely be saying "Would you like fries with that?" than "Die Jews die."
The really important questions are: "Who gets to be cloned?", "How many times?", "For what reasons?", and "Can I clone anyone? (Without permission?)" If my friend clones my son, do I--or my son--have any rights? Is the clone family--if it's given birth by another women who wants it? What if my friend isn't my friend, but blackmails me with the threat of killing my son's clone?
How do you enforce laws against countries raising armies of government-educated clones?
If someone clones me without my knowing, am I financially responsible for that clone? I can see kids on talk shows asking "Who's my donor?" instead of "Who's my father?"
no, the x-files didn't start to suck when duchovny left--it sucked when the stopped making episodes about aliens.
what are we supposed to do with vampires and people that walk through walls? it's no fun.
"!=" does not mean "did not come from"
you are retufing a statement no one made.
why all the liberal conspiracy stuff? i don't get it.
Currently the best test for a site to avoid is if it says "IE 3/4/5 required.", "Netscape 4/5/6 required." or "Resolution must be 1024x768." Even worse is the appearance of JavaScript and Java--the black plague and ebola of web sites.
Many of the features of my browser are used in nearly every other page I visit, but I'll be hard pressed to find one example of good use for many of them. JavaScript, for example, is used everywhere, but *very* rarely for anything usefull. Some 20% of users turn it off, not because of imcompatibilites, but it's uselessness and annoyance (popups). Frames are another example--they're shunned by the design community not because of any reason but their abuse.
I've found that the less features of my browser a page uses: the easier it is to navigate, the faster it downloads and works, the better impression it displays, and the higher likelihood I'll find information instead of gimmiks.
What will forcing standards complient everything do to the web? Will design get worse as designers are free to abuse even more "features"? Will it be more difficult to tell the difference between a well designed site and crap?
But could things actually get better? What's the reasoning behind that view? With this new freedom given to designers, to freely use any feature without fear of imcompatibility, be rightly unabused by those who don't need any more features--AKA: most designers?
"If sites decide to change to a manner in which you can't view them but a majority of other people can you lose out not them."
<i>Then</i> we'll get new browsers. No sooner.
But wait! There's no big reason for sites to do that now. With the 4.0 browsers sites can display information in more ways than are usefull--efficiently.
If you've ever designed a site, you'll likely share the experience that incompatibilites exist in some "features"; but once you remove the unnecessary and wastefull parts of your website and achieve something approaching elegance, you'll see the incompatibilites only exist in things <b>you should never have put into a site in the first place</b>!
If forcing 5.0 browsers on us means anything to me, it's slow browsing and freedom for bad design.
The PS1 was supposed to be C only (and it had great C libraries from launch) but soon many titles had optimized ASM in small portions--Crash Bandicoot was entirely in ASM!
The same will probibly happen with the PS2. While it is a multiprocessor system, I doubt anything will be 100% pure ASM, but with the absence of a good C library like the PS1 had, eventually many functions will likely be given to some ASM procedures.
He said things about starting to type and a word processor popping up, and pushing buttons to start programs; but when these ideas were interpreted in the only way I can imagine them interpreted, he says that's wrong.
Does anyone have any idea what he is really talking about? Never mind how these things might be implimented--just describe the intended behavoir to me.
you forgot Cool Devices
After we put Katz to death in some painful and public way we can really rant about this. It's tangent time.
Like Katz admits, the Clinton era made quite a few major technology mistakes. Most every one involved siding with corporations instead of protecting rights. This is expected of any administration in this very new situation.
I'm not a Republican myself--I'm a centrist-indie--and I agree with the Democrats on about half of the many important issues, but the Republicans do deserve some defense.
1. Republicans are actually no more corporate than Democrats. They are bought at the same rate and in the same number.
This image starts, and should end, with la-sa Fair. (Spelling?) Clinton went as far as Republicans do--he did not become involved in labor and market disputes such as in Iron mining, etc. Going that far is a big mistake--it gave the R's their image--but it kept the economy strong through the Clinton years.
2. Republicans are not all Bible-reading moral crusaders. Those are just the loud ones... These people always seem to take attention away from rational justifications for policies and just make everyone look stupid.
3. Republicans follow Democrats in the way of censorship. It's my understanding that Democrats are for filtering the Internet in schools and libraries, rating or banning movies and music, stopping Napster, putting various chips into things, and setting the language that is "politically correct." Joe Lieberman and Tipper Gore all but burn books themselves...
4. Morality and technology ARE by nature linked. Can you perform harmful experiments on unknowing subjects? Can you use my organs--while I'm still alive?! Is it the same with an unborn child's t-cells? A woman's eggs? These are REAL ethics questions and can't just be brushed off.
5. The Republicans are the straw man. When they say affirmative action is not effective and they may have more effective ideas, they are called racists. When they say abortion is actually murder-- and not anyone's right--they are against women's rights. When they say the numbers are on the side of the NRA they are called extremists of all kinds.
Agree or disagree with them, but PLEASE do it rationally! What I see are a lot of people that haven't seen what a good Republican believes.
I've met two really good Democrats in my time. They really made me want to be one. I've met four really good Republicans. (The numbers are by pure chance.) But the common Democrat is an irrational, self-righteous, arrogant and simple-minded fool. None of this is because of what they believe, but why.
Above the blind faith and bandwagon for their cause is the mystery of what anyone else believes and the ghost stories they tell of why. "If you don't believe this, you're wrong. You hate all the nice people and have some evil reason to go against what everyone knows is right." they say. They live their lives knowing only one way and comparing only to a cartoon of a shadow of a ghost story of any other thinking.
Yes, the common Republican is about the same, but that's not my audience. This is my big rant for today. Question your beliefs; keep them all if they find true. But most importantly, find as many alternative beliefs as you can. Question them. Study the numbers and experiments yourself. Make your own decisions. Believe any thing you want, but do so for a reason.
I'd have to agree with 2Cows that OpenBSD's install was tough. I've installed FreeBSD on my home computer and my laptop and had a very pleasurable experience; but I've also tried OpenBSD and couldn't even get the damn install to run.
My personal wish is for IT to be efficient energy transmission. I'd laugh when an energy receiver is turned on and I think "What does it do? It doesn't move... or light up..." It would replace a dirty and dangerous thing, upset billion-dollar companies, change the world, require changes in cities.... And paranoid safety-freaks (or corp.-owned politicians) might try to prevent people from using it...
But I doubt it is.
The inventor's history, the clues, and some reason can allow us to infer a few things.
1. It's fairly simple. Less than a car, more than a bicycle. Don't get me wrong, this range is open to some pretty complex things.
2. It hasn't been tried before or thought of for this application. (Scooters anyone? Little personal cars? All done before. All failed with consumers.)
3. It's less dangerous than the alternative. (If it replaces cars, it's LESS dangerous. Flying, especially with rotating blades, may be considered MORE dangerous.)
4. It's attraction will be usefullness and function, not simple "coolness" factors. Not a solution in search of a problem. (How else do you acheive the required income he predicts?)
5. Revolutionary could mean "e-mail" revolutionary, not necessarily "cure for cancer" or "teleportation" or "unified theory" revolutionary.
6. No revolutionary components (on the smallest scale). Likely it will have circuits never put together before and sections never built before, but he didn't invent a new transister or actuator. (Nothing based on completely new components goes for $2000 with a profit.)
7. It's likely mechanical, or fundimentally mechanical.
A few questions still remain:
1. Why are college campuses specifically mentioned for retro-fitting?
2. If it's not mechanical, what other technologies is he knowledgable enough of?
3. Why might people not be allowed to use it? The revolutionary and utopian aspects that are praised make me wonder.
4. What does "architect cities around it" mean?
5. How will it change a person's way of thinking? About what?
6. I assume the meeting was indoors and in an office or workplace. This and the duffel bag clue tell me it is less than half the size of a car. Maybe 1/4 the size or less. Assumptions that it will be replacing cars or commercial aircraft are made suspect...
7. Are metro and pro paired in a client/server fashion or cheap/expensive?
8. Why *so* secretive. This is worse than transmeta!
9. Does the word "transmeta" make anyone here lose faith in the word "revolutionary"?
The argument is that tobacco and alcohol are two of the worst drugs available and they are legal while mild drugs with few negative consequences are illegal.
No one is calling for the legalization of any hard drugs. Just a reality check on what is legal and illegal. A good portion of the law is simply backwards.
And even if you don't support legalizing pot, you must support restraining our police. Personally, I don't want the government to confiscate everything I own because of an anonymous tip, and I don't want to spend years and thousands of dollars to sue the state to get it back.
It disturbs me that cities fly helicopters with heat-detecting equipment over random homes to check for growing rooms. It disturbs me that civil rights can be violated and laws broken by police while many turn a blind eye because "we've got to fight this war."
And the whole time, these drugs aren't even that bad for you. Marijuana in the form most people smoke now has ~100 times the harmfull chemicals cigaretts have. After processing and filtering, it's less than cigaretts. And since no one will smoke 10 packs of pot a day, I think it's safe to say replacing cigaretts with marijuana is a good idea. Heck, while your legal smokes increase stress, pot decreases it! Nicotine addiction is also known to be many, many, many factors greater than pot addiction. (Those questioned at rehab clinics cite crack and heroin as being much easier to quit than nicotine.)
A processed and packaged drug is always better than some mystery pill. Plus, legalization allows for accurate knowledge of who is taking what--and how much. Since most drug users are trying to escape depression (etc.) a psychological councelor dealing may be better than some pusher.
If you ask me, anti-drug rants are a bit simplistic. "It's bad for you" just doesn't cut it.
The electoral college was created to do mainly 2 things:
1. Prevent the president from having more power than congress--so he's elected as a summation of votes of the type that elect congress (by state).
2. Give smaller states a reason for existing. Without the electoral college, the candidates would campaign in New York, L.A., and Chicago--but not many more cities (and certainly not states).
Gore's popular vote, and his victory in the larger states is what the electoral college was INTENDED to prevent. The power is not supposed to come directly from the people, and it's not good for the country to only appeal to big cities.
The electoral college did it's job.
This seems like a cut-paste response from Bush--and definately not tailored for /.
Bushie, be sure of what crowd you're talking to. Sure, Gore lies like an old French hoar earning her wage, but he can at least sculpt his lies for his audience.
It pains me, I'm going to vote for you. Not because you're particularly smart, or charismatic, or have any clue--but because you were at least in tune enought to say "I don't trust the government."
Compare that to paraphrased Gore: "It's my job and duty to make sure you all live OK, and have a job (maybe even state supplied), live in equal class (classes are bad...), and realize the economy-pumping power of this commune model I believe in."
Just focus on being, even somewhat, a Classical Liberal and jab at Gore for being a Statist and someone who's found the constitution to be good toilet paper. And please, please, please... don't open your mouth again without thinking.