BTW, if you're the author of this, or you know the author, drop me a line. I've had it up on my website for a while, and I'd really like to ask him for permission to have it there.
Privacy is not the only area where the USA talks big, but has actually fallen behind other countries.
America claims to be the "Land of the Free", but a greater percentage of its citizens are in prison than in any other democracy.
Speaking of democracy, isn't that one of the things that Americans think is so great about their country?
Do I even need to mention the farce that they called an election? The world leader in technology, inventor of the internet, and they don't even have a modern voting system. It would funny if it wasn't so sad.
Since the elections, I've heard people (particularly Republicans) state that America is not a democracy, its a republic. Fine, but don't try to pretend the people have any say.
Human Rights...
Don't even get me started on this one. What other civilized country still excecutes people? This is something that 3rd world countries are great at, as well as places like China and Iraq. But the USA? How can a country that is so ahead economically, be so behind in social policy and human rights?
(My guess is that it has something to do with religion, but thats just me...)
Let say it takes 3 seconds to process each item of spam in your mailbox. The spammer has just wasted 3 seconds of your time. No problem, right?
Spammer has sent this spam to 1 million people, wasting 3 seconds of each of their time...
Thats 3 million wasted seconds, or about 37 days.
How would you feel if the spammer kidnapped you and held you for 37 days? Thats exactly what he is doing, only its distributed between a million people.
I think 6 months in jail for a 37 day kidnapping is not enough.
Don't forget that they are also anti-atheist. They went to court several years ago for the right to discriminate against atheists. The case involved a ten year old boy who refused to swear the part of the Scout oath which included God, since he didn't believe in God.
Personally, I think that any organization could benefit from the membership of a ten year old with enough strenth of character to refuse to swear falsely.
A Zimbabwe politician was quoted as saying that children should study this event closely for it shows that election fraud is not only a third world phenomena.
1. Imagine that we read of an election occuring anywhere in the third world in which the self-declared winner was the son of the former prime minister and that former prime minister was himself the former head of that nation's secret police (CIA).
2. Imagine that the self-declared winner lost the popular vote but won based on some old colonial holdover (electoral college) from the nation's pre-democracy past.
3. Imagine that the self-declared winner's 'victory' turned on disputed votes cast in a province governed by his brother!
4. Imagine that the poorly drafted ballots of one district, a district heavily favoring the self-declared winner's opponent, led thousands of voters to vote for the wrong candidate.
5. Imagine that that members of that nation's most despised caste, fearing for their lives/livelihoods, turned out in record numbers to vote in near-universal opposition to the self-declared winner's candidacy.
6. Imagine that hundreds of members of that most-despised caste were intercepted on their way to the polls by state police operating under the authority of the self-declared winner's brother.
7. Imagine that six million people voted in the disputed province and that the self-declared winner's 'lead' was only 327 votes. Fewer, certainly, than the vote counting machines' margin of error.
8. Imagine that the self-declared winner and his political party opposed a more careful by-hand inspection and re-counting of the ballots in the disputed province or in its most hotly disputed district.
9. Imagine that the self-declared winner, himself a governor of a major province, had the worst human rights record of any province in his nation and actually led the nation in executions.
10. Imagine that a major campaign promise of the self-declared winner was to appoint like-minded human rights violators to lifetime positions on the high court of that nation
This single article reversed 180 degrees my opinion of Mr. Gates.
I previously believed him to be a greedy, naieve, power-hungry egomaniac. If this article is accurate, and he will be giving away his money for food and medicine instead of for computers (which are pretty useless if you don't have anything to eat) then maybe slashdot should look into not portraying his as such an evil person. Maybe he has finally matured?
(I know this goes completely against the conventional wisdom on Slashdot, but read the article, maybe submit it as a story here... show that even geeks can be open-minded)
Microsoft has enough money to go on some real witch-hunts. The Microsoft Gestapo would be a force to be reckoned with. This has to stop. JonKatz needs to write an article or something.
I read somewhere that if you played perfectly, you could win at Minesweeper almost every time. Is this true? Does it require a certain number of squares to be uncovered before this theory kicks in?
And just curious, what is everyone's (non-cheating) high score at expert level?
According to this page, there are 16 candidates for President who will appear on the ballot in at least one state. They are:
Cathy Gordon Brown (TN Only)
Harry Browne (All except AZ & PR)
Patrick J. Buchanan (All except DC, MI & PR)
George Dubya Bush (All 52)
Earl Dodge (CO Only)
Al Gore (All 52)
John Hagelin (38 States)
James Harris (14 States)
Denny Lane (VT Only)
David McReynolds (CO, FL, IA, NJ, RI, VT, WA)
Monica Moorehead (FL, RI, WA, WI)
Ralph Nader (44 States)
Howard Phillips (41 States)
L. Neil Smith (AZ Only)
Randall Venson (TN Only)
Louie G. Youngkeit (UT Only)
So of these 16 candidates, 7 have a mathematical chance of winning. Why not have a debate between the 5 who are not Gush and Bore? That would be an interesting debate... probably a source of some ideas that we would never hear from the Republicrats. Has anyone made an effort to get these 5 people (Browne, Buchanan, Hagelin, Nader and Phillips) all together in one place? Make it a choice between them!
Last year, nominations were opened up, and a total of 216 names were submitted (including some that have since withdrawn, such as McCain and Bradley).
According to this page http://fecweb1.fec.gov/pages/2000geballot.htm there are 16 candidates who are on the ballot in at least one state. 7 of these are on the ballot in enough states to make it mathematically possible for them to win the election. Without Gush and Bore, you still have a 5-way race.
Browne
Buchannon
Hagelin
Nader
Phillips
Back to my original question, which of these 5 would you vote for, if they were the only ones running, and you had to vote.
I've actually thought about this, and, as an athiest, I have started to concsiously change the phrases I use.
Whenever I'm about to use a phrase like "Thank God" or "Bless you", I stop myself, think about what I really want to say, and if it is nessesary to say something, I choose a statement that does not mention any fictional entities.
(BTW, the part about lying to get elected: That was a joke... for all you humor impaired slashdotters)
What if, instead of asking "Who are you going to vote for?" one poll was done that simply asked:
"Of the 216 candidates for President, who would you prefer the winner to be?"
I bet the numbers for Nader would be alot higher. Maybe even higher than for Gore.
If people started to realize that it was Gore who was taking the votes away from Nader, and not the other way around, things might be very different.
(Same might apply for Browne or Buchannon vs Bush)
Slashdot Mirror
Mod this up dammit!
The analogy to the printing press and the church is one that needs to be driven home with everyone.
BTW, if you're the author of this, or you know the author, drop me a line. I've had it up on my website for a while, and I'd really like to ask him for permission to have it there.
Aren't Power Rangers just Voltron reincarnated?
My point is, a small crime against many people is equivilent (but not equal to) a large crime against few people.
So if you commit a very small crime, against millions of people, you should still go to jail for a very long time.
(On the other hand, if you smoke a joint, which is a crime against *nobody*, then you should not go to jail at all)
Privacy is not the only area where the USA talks big, but has actually fallen behind other countries.
America claims to be the "Land of the Free", but a greater percentage of its citizens are in prison than in any other democracy.
Speaking of democracy, isn't that one of the things that Americans think is so great about their country?
Do I even need to mention the farce that they called an election? The world leader in technology, inventor of the internet, and they don't even have a modern voting system. It would funny if it wasn't so sad.
Since the elections, I've heard people (particularly Republicans) state that America is not a democracy, its a republic. Fine, but don't try to pretend the people have any say.
Human Rights...
Don't even get me started on this one. What other civilized country still excecutes people? This is something that 3rd world countries are great at, as well as places like China and Iraq. But the USA? How can a country that is so ahead economically, be so behind in social policy and human rights?
(My guess is that it has something to do with religion, but thats just me...)
(Excuse me while I put on my flamesuit now...)
Let say it takes 3 seconds to process each item of spam in your mailbox. The spammer has just wasted 3 seconds of your time. No problem, right?
Spammer has sent this spam to 1 million people, wasting 3 seconds of each of their time...
Thats 3 million wasted seconds, or about 37 days.
How would you feel if the spammer kidnapped you and held you for 37 days? Thats exactly what he is doing, only its distributed between a million people.
I think 6 months in jail for a 37 day kidnapping is not enough.
Let say it takes 3 seconds to process each item of spam in your mailbox. The spammer has just wasted 3 seconds of your time. No problem, right?
Spammer has sent this spam to 1 million people, wasting 3 seconds of each of thier time...
Thats 3 million wasted seconds, or about 37 days.
How would you feel if the spammer kidnapped you and held you for 37 days? Thats exactly what he is doing, only its distributed among a million people.
I think 6 months in jail for a 37 day kidnapping is not enough.
What would the outcome have been if George W. Bush had been President during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Al Gore?
Ronald Reagan?
Harry Truman?
What if George W. Bush had been president during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Ronald Reagan?
Would we be here today?
IMHO, rationalism only won out because you had a rational president. I doubt any other President of the last 50 years would have been as rational.
Was it just me, or was /. just down for a long time?
Don't forget that they are also anti-atheist. They went to court several years ago for the right to discriminate against atheists. The case involved a ten year old boy who refused to swear the part of the Scout oath which included God, since he didn't believe in God.
Personally, I think that any organization could benefit from the membership of a ten year old with enough strenth of character to refuse to swear falsely.
iBook.
They will run OS X, as well as several flavours of Yoo-Nix.
What would be the ethical implications if this is CmdrTaco's own collection that he is selling, and advertising it here on Slashdot?
http://partners.nytim es. com/2000/11/25/science/25NANO.html
A Zimbabwe politician was quoted as saying that children should study this event closely for it shows that election fraud is not only a third world phenomena.
1. Imagine that we read of an election occuring anywhere in the third world in which the self-declared winner was the son of the former prime minister and that former prime minister was himself the former head of that nation's secret police (CIA).
2. Imagine that the self-declared winner lost the popular vote but won based on some old colonial holdover (electoral college) from the nation's pre-democracy past.
3. Imagine that the self-declared winner's 'victory' turned on disputed votes cast in a province governed by his brother!
4. Imagine that the poorly drafted ballots of one district, a district heavily favoring the self-declared winner's opponent, led thousands of voters to vote for the wrong candidate.
5. Imagine that that members of that nation's most despised caste, fearing for their lives/livelihoods, turned out in record numbers to vote in near-universal opposition to the self-declared winner's candidacy.
6. Imagine that hundreds of members of that most-despised caste were intercepted on their way to the polls by state police operating under the authority of the self-declared winner's brother.
7. Imagine that six million people voted in the disputed province and that the self-declared winner's 'lead' was only 327 votes. Fewer, certainly, than the vote counting machines' margin of error.
8. Imagine that the self-declared winner and his political party opposed a more careful by-hand inspection and re-counting of the ballots in the disputed province or in its most hotly disputed district.
9. Imagine that the self-declared winner, himself a governor of a major province, had the worst human rights record of any province in his nation and actually led the nation in executions.
10. Imagine that a major campaign promise of the self-declared winner was to appoint like-minded human rights violators to lifetime positions on the high court of that nation
Shit.
0 7/election.hacker.reut/index.html
;
It looked right in the preview.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/
Read this:9 03,393015,00.html
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6
This single article reversed 180 degrees my opinion of Mr. Gates.
I previously believed him to be a greedy, naieve, power-hungry egomaniac. If this article is accurate, and he will be giving away his money for food and medicine instead of for computers (which are pretty useless if you don't have anything to eat) then maybe slashdot should look into not portraying his as such an evil person. Maybe he has finally matured?
(I know this goes completely against the conventional wisdom on Slashdot, but read the article, maybe submit it as a story here... show that even geeks can be open-minded)
Open Source, Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Microsoft has enough money to go on some real witch-hunts. The Microsoft Gestapo would be a force to be reckoned with. This has to stop. JonKatz needs to write an article or something.
This urban legend surfaces from time to time. It is debunked here
I read somewhere that if you played perfectly, you could win at Minesweeper almost every time. Is this true? Does it require a certain number of squares to be uncovered before this theory kicks in?
And just curious, what is everyone's (non-cheating) high score at expert level?
According to this page, there are 16 candidates for President who will appear on the ballot in at least one state. They are:
Cathy Gordon Brown (TN Only)
Harry Browne (All except AZ & PR)
Patrick J. Buchanan (All except DC, MI & PR)
George Dubya Bush (All 52)
Earl Dodge (CO Only)
Al Gore (All 52)
John Hagelin (38 States)
James Harris (14 States)
Denny Lane (VT Only)
David McReynolds (CO, FL, IA, NJ, RI, VT, WA)
Monica Moorehead (FL, RI, WA, WI)
Ralph Nader (44 States)
Howard Phillips (41 States)
L. Neil Smith (AZ Only)
Randall Venson (TN Only)
Louie G. Youngkeit (UT Only)
So of these 16 candidates, 7 have a mathematical chance of winning. Why not have a debate between the 5 who are not Gush and Bore? That would be an interesting debate... probably a source of some ideas that we would never hear from the Republicrats. Has anyone made an effort to get these 5 people (Browne, Buchanan, Hagelin, Nader and Phillips) all together in one place? Make it a choice between them!
Last year, nominations were opened up, and a total of 216 names were submitted (including some that have since withdrawn, such as McCain and Bradley).
According to this page http://fecweb1.fec.gov/pages/2000geballot.htm there are 16 candidates who are on the ballot in at least one state. 7 of these are on the ballot in enough states to make it mathematically possible for them to win the election. Without Gush and Bore, you still have a 5-way race.
Browne
Buchannon
Hagelin
Nader
Phillips
Back to my original question, which of these 5 would you vote for, if they were the only ones running, and you had to vote.
I've actually thought about this, and, as an athiest, I have started to concsiously change the phrases I use.
Whenever I'm about to use a phrase like "Thank God" or "Bless you", I stop myself, think about what I really want to say, and if it is nessesary to say something, I choose a statement that does not mention any fictional entities.
(BTW, the part about lying to get elected: That was a joke... for all you humor impaired slashdotters)
What if, instead of asking "Who are you going to vote for?" one poll was done that simply asked:
"Of the 216 candidates for President, who would you prefer the winner to be?"
I bet the numbers for Nader would be alot higher. Maybe even higher than for Gore.
If people started to realize that it was Gore who was taking the votes away from Nader, and not the other way around, things might be very different.
(Same might apply for Browne or Buchannon vs Bush)