The catch, of course, is that software is not "property" that is "owned" by the customer. As every EULA today already says, the software itself remains owned by the copyright holder, and one has simply executed a contract giving one certains rights of use.
Of course, in your database example, the data within a database would certainly be the property of the database software customer, so if that's the "property" that you meant you are correct.
I wonder, if UCITA really does pass in most states, if part of a normal disaster recovery backup scheme would have to become exporting databases to some open format, in case the vendor decides to exercise "self-help." I can see it now -- the emergency tape of CSV-formatted data, so that one can "Whirl That Perl" without bringing down the wrath of lawyers...
Actually, I pretty much agree with this analysis -- I wasn't considering regionalisms, and I think you are correct to point out that my new orthodoxy comment is mostly an urban, elite, and bi-coastal phenomenom.
It still seems odd to me, though, to acknowledge that the government and media (the "fourth estate") have abandoned a Christian basis, and yet have people complain about what a Christian-dominated country this is. Along with corporatism, which is simply institutionalised Mammon worship, government and the media would seem to be our dominant national institutions at this point.
1. Tolerance and Multiculturalism: Quit talking bad about women, homosexuals, and preferred social minorities, and you can say anything you want about people who haven't been to college, manual workers, country people, peasants, religious people, unmodern people, old people, and so on. Tolerant and multicultural persons hyphenate their land of origin and their nationality. I, for example, am a Kentuckian-American. -- Wendell Berry, "The Joy of Sales Resistance"
First the US is NOT anti-Christian. The majority of the people go to church/whatever and believe in a god(s).
Well, since you seem to be a nonchristian, this kind of puts you in the odd position of asserting that a bigotry that you would not experience must not exist...
Technically, the USA (and most of the West) would be today post-Christian societies. While American society at one time was formed by some sort of Christian consensus (or at least Deist -- I know perfectly well that not all of the founders were orthodox Christians), the dominant "orthodoxy" today is a secular liberalism with a hearty dose of new age/neopagan/neognostic spirituality.
For some good examples of the ejection of pretty much all religious tradition (not just the Judeo-Christian one) from the public square, I recommend reading Stephen Carter's The Culture of Disbelief : How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion.
At the risk of igniting flamage, the whole school prayer issue illustrates exactly what I mean. Yes, a few decades ago, we did have established prayers in public schools, and I think the courts were right to find this an impermissible establishment of religion. But we've moved beyond that today, where courts are finding that to permit students to exercise religion on campus is to somehow "establish" it. This is hardly "predominance."
Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it. -- G. K. Chesterton, "Autobiography"
I know you read your email, since you've used email as a basis for a number of your essays, and you actually have answered whenever I've emailed you directly. However, I'm pretty sure I've never seen you participate in a Slashdot discussion itself, whether it was one about your own stories, or any other.
Do you actually read the feedback that gets posted as replies?
Ok so it's a little extreme but it still is protected speech because it's totally fiction rigtht?
I think the real world answer is clearly not. The case of Jake Baker at the University of Michigan demonstrates this. Mr. Baker wrote a piece of sadistic "erotica" involving the eventual rape and murder of the woman in the story, and posted in in alt.sex.something-or-other. So far, protected speech, right? Wrong. The name of the "fictional" woman in the story just happened to be that of one of his classmates.
Somebody noted this, alerted Michigan authorities, and Mr. Baker was proscecuted for having issued a threat. Successfully too, IIRC.
Remember, even with the First Amendment free speech guarantee, free speech has never been held to be an absolute right in US law. Shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater, slander and libel, obscenity, and death threats have never enjoyed protection.
The Constitution admittedly has a few defects and blemishes, but it still seems a hell of a lot better than the system we have now. -- Robert Anton Wilson
I've noticed a great way to get flamed on Slashdot is to actually admit to being any sort of theologian...
Given that the way souls actually get embodied into our bodies is somewhat of a mystery, I doubt you'll find any theologians (at least, any within shouting distance of orthodox Christianity -- but I'm sure some newagey-technospiritualist will fill in the gap) willing to stake anything on being able to technologically perform a "soul transfer." I know I won't be signing up for any such thing.
Besides, who needs to muck around with technological immortality when the real thing is available in Christ? All these dreams of immortality via the machine that folks like Kurzweil are selling sound to me a lot like the old Gnostic and Manichean disgust with the flesh and hope to someday be released into some form of pure spirit and intellect.
Bah humbug! I say. I'll take good old-fashioned Incarnational theology any day. Did anyone else notice that while the tone of the article is "gee-whiz!" techno-optimism, the actual content is a rather grim determinism? This Shall Happen. It Is Inevitable. Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated -- And Like It. So much for human freedom, I guess.
Despite world-record advances in automation, robotification, and other "labor-saving" technologies, it is assumed that almost every human being may, at least in the Future, turn out to be useful for something, just like the members of other endangered species. -- Wendell Berry, "The Joy of Sales Resistance"
You might want to look at the license for ACE and TAO. If I understand them correctly, they are BSD-ish in that they allow anyone to use the software without supplying source or having to return modifications.
However, the license also contains a clause where you agree that if you do submit a patch, you implicitly agree to assign copyright to the ACE/TAO maintainers.
ACE and TAO are an interesting open source project -- run by a university research group, with industry support for Dr. Schmidt's group and with private companies offering support, packaging, and custom development.
What do they think "teling them to god" means? Telling them to a priest to recive pennance? But a priest is just a proxy for god (proxy meaning "a person authorized to speak for or represent another")... so by their own words they've condemened their own practices.
Not really. A quick primer on the theory of the confessional, from a Roman Catholic perspective (disclaimer: no, I'm not Catholic, but I think I understand their theology well enough to explain it):
Yes, only God can forgive sin. Jesus, being God, had/has the authority to do this (and did so, as recorded in the Gospels). Now, he also delegated some of this authority to the apostles (see "binding and loosing"), and this is where modern-day bishops and priests claim to stand in persona christi, as proxies for Christ.
No, the Bible does not say that we must only confess our sins to God. "Confess your sins one to another." And the bit about the apostles being empowered to forgive on Christ's behalf is also biblical.
I also think you're misunderstanding what they mean by saying that "Confession can not be done... by proxy." They are not referring to the priest, but to the penitent. In other words, if I've done something wrong and want absolution, I can't send my mom to tell the priest and ask him to pronounce forgiveness for me. I have to go myself and ask for myself.
There's a good argument that "cyber-confession" denies the Incarnational nature of God's grace, and this is why the Catholic Church officially condemns it as invalid and spiritually fraudulent. I think they are right to do so.
"All men thirst to confess their crimes more than tired beasts thirst for water; but they naturally object to confessing them while other people, who have also committed the same crimes, sit by and laugh at them." -- G. K. Chesterton
The idea of taking responsibility for one's words has not taken hold.
Jon, we live in a culture that exalts irresponsibility and "do your own thing, screw everyone else." Why are you shocked that this carries over into online conversations?
"First keep peace with yourself; then you will be able to bring peace to others. A peaceful man does more good than a learned man. Whereas a passionate man turns even good to evil and is quick to believe evil, the peaceful man, being good himself, turns all things to good." -- Thomas à Kempis, "The Imitation of Christ"
Uhh, last time I checked, the government had to compensate private citizens for confiscation of property, such as land taken to build highways.
Yes, in emanent domain(sp?) cases, although that apparantly gets abused as well.
But, in the Ramsey Electronics case (and in the Steve Jackson Games case before), the gov't is not "confiscating" or "seizing" the property. They're "simply" (ha!) taking possession of evidence for a criminal trial.
Of course, this is quite as effective as a judicial "cease and desist" order at closing down a legitimate business. And the beauty of it all is that, when the charges never get filed and the investigation gets dropped N months or years later, the Feds owe NOTHING in compensation, as they return the now-useless items to a nearly bankrupted business. But after all, they didn't actually confiscate the property, just kept it in protective custody for a while. So the requirement to compensate for a "taking" doesn't kick in.
"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, two are called a law firm, and three or more become a Congress." -- John Adams, 1776
Bruce Sterling is an imaginative and competent wordsmith. He has to be, because otherwise it would be more obvious that this piece of nonsense is just that -- nonsense. It's very nice-sounding nonsense, very quotable nonsense, very trendy (by design!) nonsense. But he still is missing the point of where we have been, where we are, and where we are going.
Here is where he goes off-track:
The twentieth century featured any number of -isms. They were fatally based on the delusion that philosophy trumps engineering. It doesnt. In a world fully competent to command its material basis, ideology is inherently flimsy. "Technology" in its broad sense: the ability to transform resources, the speed at which new possibilities can be opened and exploited, the multiple and various forms of command-and-control -- technology, not ideology, is the twentieth centurys lasting legacy.
The problem with this is twofold:
Good engineering in the service of bad philosphy is a problem, not a solution.
It is hubris to believe we are "fully competant" to "command" the "material basis" of this world.
This notion that we need to abandon philosophy and ideology in favor of "pragmatic" or "engineering" solutions -- well, let me phrase it this way. "Because many of our troubles this century have been due to poor philosophy, let us give up on trying to have better philosophy." Forget worrying about what is right and wrong, let's all amuse ourselves with gizmos!
Instead, this is precisely the moment when we ought to be analyzing what was right and what was wrong with the "-isms" of the 20th century. As G. K. Chesterton put it nearer the beginning of the century:
WANTED, AN UNPRACTICAL MAN
Idealism is only considering everything in its practical essence.... But I know that this primary pursuit of the theory (which is but pursuit of the aim) exposes one to the cheap charge of fiddling while Rome is burning. A school... has endeavored to substitute for the moral or social ideals which have hitherto been the motive of politics a general coherency or completeness in the social system which has gained the nick-name of "efficiency." I am not very certain of the secret doctrine of this sect in the matter. But, as far as I can make out, "efficiency" means that we ought to discover everything about a machine except what it is for. There has arisen in our time a most singular fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a theorist. A practical man means a man accustomed to mere daily practice, to the way things commonly work. When things will not work, you must have the thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work at all. It is wrong to fiddle while Rome is burning; but it is quite right to study the theory of hydraulics while Rome is burning. -- G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World
The second faulty assumption here is that we are "fully competant." Clearly, we are not, nor are we likely to be so anytime in the forseeable future. Take global climate -- it's pretty clear at this point that (a) we have the power to muck it up pretty badly, to our own pain and sorrow, and (b) we don't understand completely how it works. Most ecological issues exhibit this same dynamic -- we have the power to destroy, but not the knowledge to understand, and certainly not the wisdom and will to forbear from destroying. When American agriculture produces more bushels of soil erosion than bushels of crops, can it be any more obvious that we are incompetant?
If progress be measured in human enlightenment in the use of resources, the Amish are the most progressive people in society. -- Gene Logsdon, "Practical Skills"
The Amish, in many ways, exemplify Sterling's "clean, supple, healthy means of support for a crowded world." And yet, they achieve this by adhering to a strict ideology, subordinating technological innovation to their chosen vision of a way of life. Meanwhile, all the hip post-modernists, "free" from "-isms", seem caught on the iron treadmill of "rigid, monolithic, poisonous and non-sustainable" techno-determinism proceeding "with that Stalinesque seriousness that demands the brutal sacrifice of millions."
There's more wrong -- for example,
In this new Belle Epoque, this delightful era, we are experiencing a prolonged break in the last centurys even tenor of mayhem
might be true in the Bay Area, but will no doubt come as a great surprise to the people of Kosovo, Iraq, and East Timor. But hey, they're not so "wired," so why worry about them?
Ah, well. I would hope that the foolishness of advocating the "demystification" of Gizmos, while at the same time placing our hope of earthly deliverance in them, would be obvious, even through the clever wording...
For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few sad and certain things. -- G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World
Note to all who think they can convert their Linux PC into a TiVo now, please remember that the GPL requires Philips to release the changes they make to the Linux kernel and all GPL'ed untilities, but not to the TiVo application itself. (Although Philips are going above and beyond the call of duty here, by releasing changes to GPL'ed development tools which are not shipped as part of Tivo, something they are not obligated to do).
From the README --
This directory contains three different archives - "commands", "kernels", and "toolchain". The archives are in GNU "tar" format, and have been compressed using GNU Zip (.gz suffix) and BZIP2 (.bz2 suffix). The.gz and.bz2 versions of each archive are identical except for the compression format - you need only one version of each.
If you're reading this README from our FTP site, and don't want to spend the time to download these archives via your Internet connection, you can receive a copy of the software on CD-ROM if you wish. A nominal copying-and-distribution charge applies if you order the CD-ROM. Please contact "webmaster@tivo.com" for information if you're interested in order a CD-ROM copy of this software.
Please refer to the COPYING file in each directory for detailed information on the license and distribution terms which apply to each specific tool, utility, compiler, kernel, or whatever. Most of this software is under the GPL, while some of it (e.g. libraries) are under the LGPL.
The "commands" archive contains the source code for all of the GPL-licensed programs which are included in the TiVo Personal Television System software. These versions are current as of the 1.2.0 and 1.2.1 versions of the TiVo software.
total 17 dr-xr-xr-x 10 dplatt root 3072 Oct 14 10:56 bash-2.02/ dr-xr-xr-x 2 dplatt root 2048 Oct 14 10:56 cpio-2.4.2/ dr-xr-xr-x 12 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 10:56 e2fsprogs-1.06/ dr-xr-xr-x 9 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 10:56 fileutils-3.16/ dr-xr-xr-x 8 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 10:57 grep/ dr-xr-xr-x 10 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 10:57 gzip-1.2.4/ dr-xr-xr-x 10 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:00 modutils-2.1.85/ dr-xr-xr-x 6 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:00 net-tools-1.432/ dr-xr-xr-x 5 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:00 procps-1.2.9/ dr-xr-xr-x 5 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:00 ps/ dr-xr-xr-x 11 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:01 sh-utils-1.16/ dr-xr-xr-x 3 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:01 sysklogd-1.3.26/ dr-xr-xr-x 10 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:01 textutils/ dr-xr-xr-x 2 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:01 tnlited/
The "kernels" archive contains the source code for the Linux kernel in the TiVo Personal Television System software. The "linuxdist-2.1.24" source tree is configured for use on an Intel X86 development platform. The "linux-2.1" source tree is configured for use on the PowerPC-based hardware system on which the TiVo software actually runs.
total 2 dr-xr-xr-x 15 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 10:58 linux-2.1/ dr-xr-xr-x 15 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:00 linuxdist-2.1.24/
The "toolchains" archive contains the source code for various GNU software development tools and libraries used in the development of the PowerPC-based TiVo software releases. Although the compilers and development utilities are not shipped with the TiVo-based receivers, they are provided here as a courtesy to developers and other curious individuals.
total 14 dr-xr-xr-x 3 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:01 binutils/ dr-xr-xr-x 3 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:03 gcc/ dr-xr-xr-x 5 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:09 gdb/ dr-xr-xr-x 59 dplatt root 8192 Oct 14 11:13 libc/ dr-xr-xr-x 2 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:13 libc-ppc/ dr-xr-xr-x 2 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:13 tcdmem/ dr-xr-xr-x 2 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:13 xppcbt/
The Luddites maintained that the automation of their work would
transform their economy from one of many small independant workers to that of a few owners running sweatshops
result in a lower-quality product than what was produced previous
and that ultimately this destruction of an relatively independant and self-sufficient community was a Bad Thing
Well, 1. and 2. certainly happened, so the only thing left to "debate" is 3., which, except for a few cranks, everybody agrees that it was a Good Thing that the Inevitable March of Progress (with the help of a few well-placed troops) destroyed the economic livelihood and self-sufficiency of a community.
As for "semi-terroristic", please remember that the Luddites, when simple protests didn't work, destroyed the offending property. For this, they were hanged, even on suspicion of Luddism. Thus, history records that the Luddites were a violent sort, as opposed to the calm, dispassionate peaceableness of those who had them executed.
At least you've provided a fine example of the attitude that Wendell Berry described in my previous post. It is apparantly not enough that the Luddites lost their struggle to preserve their way of life; no, their name must be forgotten except for its use as an epithet.
Democracy has one real enemy, and that is civilization. Those utilitarian miracles which science has made are anti-democratic, not so much in their perversion, or even in their practical result, as in their primary shape and purpose. The Frame-Breaking Rioters were right; not perhaps in thinking that machines would make fewer men workmen; but certainly in thinking that machines would make fewer men masters. More wheels do mean fewer handles; fewer handles do mean fewer hands. The machinery of science must be individualistic and isolated. A mob can shout round a palace; but a mob cannot shout down a telephone. The specialist appears and democracy is half spoiled at a stroke. -- G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World
He is glossing over an important fact: The human genome will be decoded.
Usually, it's Jon Katz who is the one guilty of techno-determinism; this time it's his critics.
It is not inevitable that the human genome will be decoded.
Likely? Yes, if things continue. But there's nothing inevitable about it. Y2K or a stray asteroid could wipe out technological society before the HGP completes. The governments of the world could stop funding HGP and outlaw further experimentation. All of the scientists involved could have a change of heart and abandon the project. The future is not know to us, and the progress of the HGP is due to deliberate human effort, not some force of nature.
The question is whether it will be open and available to all, or be the patented intellectual property of a few.
No, the first question is whether this is worth doing at all. That is what Katz (in his unfortunately flame-baited style) is pointing out.
Only after the first question is answered does the second become relevant.
I suppose you will point out that the HGP will almost certainly complete no matter what public debate happens at this point. This is probably true, but it hardly reassures me that my voice is going to be heard on whether the results will be patentable.
We, the Open Source community are some of the best equipped to understand the importance of what may be the most important Open Content project to date.
O, what hubris!
A familiarity with software, and an agreement with the principles of open source, does not confer any special understanding of ethics and especially bioethics. This is arrogant (to think that because we know software, we are better equipped than the biochemists to know what they are doing) and elitist (because I Am A Technologist, my opinion matters more than my mom's).
The victory of industrialism over Luddism was thus overwhelming and unconditional; it was undoubtedly the most complete, significant, and lasting victory of modern times. And so one must wonder at the intensity with which any suggestion of Luddism still is feared and hated. To this day, if you say you would be willing to forbid, restrict, or reduce the use of technological devices in order to protect the community -- or to protect the good health of nature on which the community depends -- you will be called a Luddite, and it will not be a compliment. To say that the community is more important than machines is certainly Christian and certainly democratic, but it is also Luddism and therefore not to be tolerated. -- Wendell Berry, "Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community"
Do we really want to dumb down security guards?
on
Caught Before the Act
·
· Score: 2
While I'm impressed, as an engineer, at some of the cleverly simple hacks used to discriminate events...
... do we really want to dumb down security guards anymore? If security guards are clever and attentive, they might be able to make good use of such a system -- but if they were clever and attentive, who would need such a system in the first place?
In 99.44% of real installations, I see use falling into exactly one of two patterns:
George learns to rely on the system, and anyone whom the computer profiles gets some security guard hassling
George gets annoyed with false positives, and learns to ignore "das blinkenlight."
Meanwhile, we catch a few dumb crooks, the smart crooks learn the holes in the system, and everybody gets trained in the subtle paranoia of knowing that deviation from behavior that doesn't readily compute as "law-abiding" will give you hassles with The Man. This does not strike me as particularly healthy for a people who aspire to be free and democratic.
Democracy has one real enemy, and that is civilization. Those utilitarian miracles which science has made are anti-democratic, not so much in their perversion, or even in their practical result, as in their primary shape and purpose. The Frame-Breaking Rioters were right; not perhaps in thinking that machines would make fewer men workmen; but certainly in thinking that machines would make fewer men masters. More wheels do mean fewer handles; fewer handles do mean fewer hands. The machinery of science must be individualistic and isolated. A mob can shout round a palace; but a mob cannot shout down a telephone. The specialist appears and democracy is half spoiled at a stroke. -- G. K. Chesterton,What's Wrong with the World
Amazingly, this seems to be the same Jon Katz who trashes as "Luddite" anyone who questions the Amazing March of the Internet as 100% positive.
While I know there are a lot of HGP fans on Slashdot, Jon is absolutely right to question such a massive undertaking. We are unleash ing forces that we do not understand. We should not expect the boosteristic view to reflect anything at this point as anything but the passion of the scientists for their own work and of the corporate interests who expect to make gigabucks off of the results.
And in an ideal world, this would have been publicly debated before the resarch was well underway.
For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few sad and certain things. -- G. K. Chesterton
We are learning to do a great many clever things... The next great task will be to learn not to do them. -- G. K. Chesterton
Actually, there are a number of "someones" in the last several generations who have preached a "third way." IIRC, the very term "third way" came from the Distributist movement in England (Chesterton and Belloc) before Blair and Clinton co-opted it to mean economic globalization that's not too commie and not too laissez-faire.:^(
The trouble is, it's tough getting any discussion that involves any nuance, historical perspective, or more than two sides through the media. (Which explains why sports events work so well on TV but serious discussions of real issues don't.)
So, for anyone who really wants to look at a "third way," you could start by trying a google search for Distributism, or at the Chesterton Society page and folling the links. Distributism is an economoic system promoted by G. K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc in England at the beginning of the century, which favors widespread private ownership of property and capital, vs. the concentration of property in private (capitalist) or state (socialist) systems. The Outline of Sanity is probably the best introduction to Chestertonian Distributism, although it seems to be only available in dead trees edition, so you'll have to check a paper library or bookstore.
Besides the English Distributists, there's a whole wing of American "agrarian" writers who advocate pretty much the same thing. My favorite is Wendell Berry. Berry is a champion of local enterprise and ecological sensitivity, and is a great antidote to WTO globalism.
For a great big collection of alternatives to McWorld, try The Case Against the Global Economy : And for a Turn Toward the Local . It includes pieces by Jerry Mander, Jeremy Rifkin, Wendell Berry, Ralph Nader, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and many others, including much discussion of NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO.
Summary: It's not that nobody has thought of a "third way." The problem is not lack of imagination for envisioning alternatives to the global rat-race. If you truly want an alternative, start making it happen!
I say that men have not been compelled by iron economic laws, but in the main by the coarse and Christless cynicism of other men. -- G. K. Chesterton, "A Utopia of Usurers"
Why can't you be specific about why you believe his statements are not racist, sexist, homophobic, etc?
Simply Real Life(tm) constraints on how much time I have to give to this conversation.
Seems like she already started it and you had no real response. I'd really love to see what you have to say that could possibly make those statements seem like something other than a bigot's display of his true colors (npi).
Yes and yes; and I was acknowledging that. That darn Real Life(tm) again. But I have a few minutes now, so I'll give it another try.
Anti-Semite: this one is so baseless that it's almost funny. I note that darkrose didn't bother trying to back this particular one up, other than by allusion to Farrakhan. I would hope that all I should have to do is point to the number of Jewish friends, collegues, and admirers of Buchanan whose response to the charge of anti-Semitism is "Huh? I may disagree with Pat, but he's no anti-Semite." Farrakhan? Please. Buchanan's religion teaches that all people are of equal dignity before God and that anti-Semitism is a sin; Farrakhan's teaches that whites and Jews are of the Devil. The two don't even belong in the same breath. Unless one uses that strange definition of "anti-Semite" as "one who occaisionally criticizes the national policies of Israel or of the pro-Israel lobby in the USA," in which case practically half the Jews of the world are "anti-Semites."
Homophobe: too often a code word for "thinks homosexuality is wrong", something which is certainly true of Buchanan. So I don't give this one much credit -- by that definition, I'm "homophobic" -- never mind that I'm not "phobic" about anyone, and (cliche'd as it is) some of my best friends really are gay. The relationship between AIDS and (male) gay sex is hardly "phobia", it's hard epidemiological data (although we do have the fun fact that "if AIDS is God's judgement, lesbians must be the Chosen People"). But this is a whole topic I hate to even mention, given the likelihood of any "debate" on sexuality degenerating rapidly into (1) namecalling and (2) a black hole for time.
Racist: doubt it, given his open admiration for Alan Keyes. I would like to see some context for the quoted comment on Sharpesville; but as for the European roots of the USA and the relative ease of assimilation, those seem to me to simply be statements of reality, not evidence of racism. Acknowledgement that the USA began as a European transplant and still retains much of that character, opposition to affirmative action and 'multiculturalism' do not equate to racism.
Sexist: let me simply suggest that Buchanan is hardly the first or only person to notice that capitalistic competitiveness is not exactly friendly to women or femininity. Especially for women who wish to exercise their traditional calling as mothers. But again, a good discussion of capitalism and gender is well beyond the scope of what I have time for on Slashdot.
David Duke: please, this is guilt by association. I find it highly plausible that Duke did crib from Buchanan's economic platform. That doesn't make Buchanan a Klansman. Given that Buchanan seems to be the only national politician addressing a number of the issues important to blue-collar and rural folk (many of whom happen to be white), doesn't it make sense that a Klansman trying to gain respectability (Duke) would do just that?
There, some specifics to chew on. I have now more than exhausted my time for such fun; so I'm going to have to let everyone else have the last word.
Both the characteristic modern parties believed in a government by the few; the only difference is whether it is the Conservative few or Progressive few. It might be put, somewhat coarsely perhaps, by saying that one believes in any minority that is rich and the other in any minority that is mad. -- G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World
Well, at least you are willing to deal in specifics...
... is a hatemonger to me, and I will continue to call him that.
And you will continue to be wrong.
Ah, well. At least you're willing to back up what you say, which means we could actually have a reasonable debate on this subject.
... no man ought to write at all, or even to speak at all, unless he thinks that he is in truth and the other man in error. -- G. K. Chesterton, "Heretics"
Re your comments on the Holocaust: the American public didn't know about the full extent of the atrocity, but it's fairly well documented that Allied military intelligence certainly did.
True, but in a sense irrelevant -- because the decisions by FDR and others to put the USA on an anti-German course were made in the late '30s, well before Allied intelligence knew, well before the "final solution" had begun in force. It is simply incorrect to look back and think that the USA entered WWII to save the victims of the Holocaust. We didn't.
Finally, Buchanan is not being demonized for daring to question the prevailing orthodoxy. He's being demonized for being a racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic bigot.
Somehow, your second sentence doesn't support your first...
Yes, I've looked at the collection of out-of-context quotes. As I said originally, I am not going to try to defend all things Pat. On the other hand, he is certainly not a hate-monger. I've bumped into real hate-mongers before (yes, Virginia, there are really neo-Nazis on the 'net), and Pat just isn't one of them. Try disagreeing using specifics rather than namecalling and demonization next time.
"These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own." -- G. K. Chesterton
Of course slavery was an issue; what is wrong is the idea that it was the only issue, or even the primary issue. As Lincoln put it, the war was to "preseve the Union." I truly doubt most of the Northern volunteers in 1860 had the abolition of slavery on their minds. And a number of Southerners had their personal doubts about slavery, but chose to fight for the South anyhow. It was only mid-war, when the Thaddeus Stephens and the "Radical Republicans" made their case, that the focus changed, and it became certain that a Northern victory would result in the abolition of slavery.
As for Hitler and the Nazis, you are thanking God for the wrong reasons. People like Hitler have risen to power in the last few decades; the USA has either supported or opposed such dictators as convenient. While some of German atrocities were understood in the late '30s (such as the annexation of Poland), the full extent of the evil of the Holocaust was not known to the American public until well after the war was over. As for FDR having a "moral" obligation to oppose Hitler; perhaps, but those same morals didn't stop him from being buddies with "Uncle Joe" Stalin, as bloody-handed a dictator as Adolf ever was.
Please note that I didn't say that I thought we should not have entered the war on the side of Britain; what I said was that it's an issue worth debating. I haven't read Pat's book, so I don't know the details of his argument. But I'm concerned that he's being demonized for simply daring to question whether that was the right policy to have followed mid-century. Sheesh -- Slashdotters will lionize Dr. Singer for suggesting that we kill handicapped kids, because it "makes people think," but we dare not tolerate discussion of US interventionism!
"... it is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer. That is why, in recent literature, there has been so little argument and so much sneering." -- G. K. Chesterton, "Saint Thomas Aquinas"
Note the irony that "xenophobic zealot" Buchanan is not taking any action against the www.buchanan2000.com site, yet the "mainstream" and "moderate" George W is acting as an enemy of free political speech.
And what does an anti-Buchanan site have to do with www.gwbush.com anyway? Other than as an unpaid political announcement. I suppose in fairness somebody should provide the link to Buchanan's official campaign site.
[Note: I am not a defender of all things Buchanan -- I would be a fool to try, as I really don't know that much about him, other than the bogeyman image he gets from the press, whom I trust about as far as I can throw. But just for fun, let me note that the observation that men tend towards obessive focus and drive, women toward generalization and relationship, and the relationship of this tendancy to modern capitalist enterprise is hardly new or unique to Buchanan. The War Between the States was not in the beginning about slavery, per the repeated declarations of President A. Lincoln (note that Kentucky, a slave state, and the slave territory of West Virginia stayed with the Union). This is simple history, and Buchanan is correct on that point. It is also worth arguing whether American involvement in WWII was good -- please note that FDR had set us on our course of supporting Britain against Germany in '38 and '39, well before German atrocities were known (or even begun).]
I do profess to be impartial in the sense that I should be ashamed to talk such nonsense about the Lama of Thibet as they do about the Pope of Rome -- G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
I also love Veggietales, but I'd have to be realistic and say that their animation does not 'EASILY' match Pixar. Technically, the rendering is graphical quality is still a ways off.
Quite true, although now that they're successful enough to have a real budget, their rendering quality had really improved.
Strange but True: The reason Vischer and Nawrocki picked hopping vegetables for their first film, Where's God When I'm S-Scared?, was because they didn't have enough computing *oomph* available as garage-shop animators to do anything other than basic geometric shapes. So, in a fit of manic genius, they decided on vegetables as easy to render. And the rest is history, as they say...
While Vischer, Nawrocki, and Vischer may not have the budget for renderfarms that Pixar has, they are warped comic geniuses, which is something money can't buy. (Hmm... I wonder if CmdTaco would accept a movie review of The Toy That Saved Christmas?)
(applause rises from crowd of armless, handless vegetables) "How are we clapping?" "I have no idea."
Slashdot Mirror
or remotely disable their wholly owned property?
The catch, of course, is that software is not "property" that is "owned" by the customer. As every EULA today already says, the software itself remains owned by the copyright holder, and one has simply executed a contract giving one certains rights of use.
Of course, in your database example, the data within a database would certainly be the property of the database software customer, so if that's the "property" that you meant you are correct.
I wonder, if UCITA really does pass in most states, if part of a normal disaster recovery backup scheme would have to become exporting databases to some open format, in case the vendor decides to exercise "self-help." I can see it now -- the emergency tape of CSV-formatted data, so that one can "Whirl That Perl" without bringing down the wrath of lawyers ...
Actually, I pretty much agree with this analysis -- I wasn't considering regionalisms, and I think you are correct to point out that my new orthodoxy comment is mostly an urban, elite, and bi-coastal phenomenom.
Of course, I'm posting from deep in the heart of "flyover." :^)
It still seems odd to me, though, to acknowledge that the government and media (the "fourth estate") have abandoned a Christian basis, and yet have people complain about what a Christian-dominated country this is. Along with corporatism, which is simply institutionalised Mammon worship, government and the media would seem to be our dominant national institutions at this point.
Wow. I guess I'm behind the times. Stop reading Jon for a while, and he actually starts participating ...
Well, since you seem to be a nonchristian, this kind of puts you in the odd position of asserting that a bigotry that you would not experience must not exist ...
Technically, the USA (and most of the West) would be today post-Christian societies. While American society at one time was formed by some sort of Christian consensus (or at least Deist -- I know perfectly well that not all of the founders were orthodox Christians), the dominant "orthodoxy" today is a secular liberalism with a hearty dose of new age/neopagan/neognostic spirituality.
For some good examples of the ejection of pretty much all religious tradition (not just the Judeo-Christian one) from the public square, I recommend reading Stephen Carter's The Culture of Disbelief : How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion.
At the risk of igniting flamage, the whole school prayer issue illustrates exactly what I mean. Yes, a few decades ago, we did have established prayers in public schools, and I think the courts were right to find this an impermissible establishment of religion. But we've moved beyond that today, where courts are finding that to permit students to exercise religion on campus is to somehow "establish" it. This is hardly "predominance."
I know you read your email, since you've used email as a basis for a number of your essays, and you actually have answered whenever I've emailed you directly. However, I'm pretty sure I've never seen you participate in a Slashdot discussion itself, whether it was one about your own stories, or any other.
Do you actually read the feedback that gets posted as replies?
I think the real world answer is clearly not. The case of Jake Baker at the University of Michigan demonstrates this. Mr. Baker wrote a piece of sadistic "erotica" involving the eventual rape and murder of the woman in the story, and posted in in alt.sex.something-or-other. So far, protected speech, right? Wrong. The name of the "fictional" woman in the story just happened to be that of one of his classmates.
Somebody noted this, alerted Michigan authorities, and Mr. Baker was proscecuted for having issued a threat. Successfully too, IIRC.
Remember, even with the First Amendment free speech guarantee, free speech has never been held to be an absolute right in US law. Shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater, slander and libel, obscenity, and death threats have never enjoyed protection.
I've noticed a great way to get flamed on Slashdot is to actually admit to being any sort of theologian ...
Given that the way souls actually get embodied into our bodies is somewhat of a mystery, I doubt you'll find any theologians (at least, any within shouting distance of orthodox Christianity -- but I'm sure some newagey-technospiritualist will fill in the gap) willing to stake anything on being able to technologically perform a "soul transfer." I know I won't be signing up for any such thing.
Besides, who needs to muck around with technological immortality when the real thing is available in Christ? All these dreams of immortality via the machine that folks like Kurzweil are selling sound to me a lot like the old Gnostic and Manichean disgust with the flesh and hope to someday be released into some form of pure spirit and intellect.
Bah humbug! I say. I'll take good old-fashioned Incarnational theology any day. Did anyone else notice that while the tone of the article is "gee-whiz!" techno-optimism, the actual content is a rather grim determinism? This Shall Happen. It Is Inevitable. Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated -- And Like It. So much for human freedom, I guess.
You might want to look at the license for ACE and TAO. If I understand them correctly, they are BSD-ish in that they allow anyone to use the software without supplying source or having to return modifications.
However, the license also contains a clause where you agree that if you do submit a patch, you implicitly agree to assign copyright to the ACE/TAO maintainers.
ACE and TAO are an interesting open source project -- run by a university research group, with industry support for Dr. Schmidt's group and with private companies offering support, packaging, and custom development.
Good luck, whatever you do.
What do they think "teling them to god" means? Telling them to a priest to recive pennance? But a priest is just a proxy for god (proxy meaning "a person authorized to speak for or represent another")... so by their own words they've condemened their own practices.
Not really. A quick primer on the theory of the confessional, from a Roman Catholic perspective (disclaimer: no, I'm not Catholic, but I think I understand their theology well enough to explain it):
Yes, only God can forgive sin. Jesus, being God, had/has the authority to do this (and did so, as recorded in the Gospels). Now, he also delegated some of this authority to the apostles (see "binding and loosing"), and this is where modern-day bishops and priests claim to stand in persona christi, as proxies for Christ.
No, the Bible does not say that we must only confess our sins to God. "Confess your sins one to another." And the bit about the apostles being empowered to forgive on Christ's behalf is also biblical.
I also think you're misunderstanding what they mean by saying that "Confession can not be done ... by proxy." They are not referring to the priest, but to the penitent. In other words, if I've done something wrong and want absolution, I can't send my mom to tell the priest and ask him to pronounce forgiveness for me. I have to go myself and ask for myself.
There's a good argument that "cyber-confession" denies the Incarnational nature of God's grace, and this is why the Catholic Church officially condemns it as invalid and spiritually fraudulent. I think they are right to do so.
Jon, we live in a culture that exalts irresponsibility and "do your own thing, screw everyone else." Why are you shocked that this carries over into online conversations?
"Perl" is not trademarked by Larry Wall. "Linux" is trademarked by Linux Torvalds.
Therefore, Linus has both legal standing and a legal obligation to defend the Linux(TM) trademark. Larry does not, in the case of Perl (no (TM)).
Yes, in emanent domain(sp?) cases, although that apparantly gets abused as well.
But, in the Ramsey Electronics case (and in the Steve Jackson Games case before), the gov't is not "confiscating" or "seizing" the property. They're "simply" (ha!) taking possession of evidence for a criminal trial.
Of course, this is quite as effective as a judicial "cease and desist" order at closing down a legitimate business. And the beauty of it all is that, when the charges never get filed and the investigation gets dropped N months or years later, the Feds owe NOTHING in compensation, as they return the now-useless items to a nearly bankrupted business. But after all, they didn't actually confiscate the property, just kept it in protective custody for a while. So the requirement to compensate for a "taking" doesn't kick in.
Bruce Sterling is an imaginative and competent wordsmith. He has to be, because otherwise it would be more obvious that this piece of nonsense is just that -- nonsense. It's very nice-sounding nonsense, very quotable nonsense, very trendy (by design!) nonsense. But he still is missing the point of where we have been, where we are, and where we are going.
Here is where he goes off-track:
The problem with this is twofold:
This notion that we need to abandon philosophy and ideology in favor of "pragmatic" or "engineering" solutions -- well, let me phrase it this way. "Because many of our troubles this century have been due to poor philosophy, let us give up on trying to have better philosophy." Forget worrying about what is right and wrong, let's all amuse ourselves with gizmos!
Instead, this is precisely the moment when we ought to be analyzing what was right and what was wrong with the "-isms" of the 20th century. As G. K. Chesterton put it nearer the beginning of the century:
The second faulty assumption here is that we are "fully competant." Clearly, we are not, nor are we likely to be so anytime in the forseeable future. Take global climate -- it's pretty clear at this point that (a) we have the power to muck it up pretty badly, to our own pain and sorrow, and (b) we don't understand completely how it works. Most ecological issues exhibit this same dynamic -- we have the power to destroy, but not the knowledge to understand, and certainly not the wisdom and will to forbear from destroying. When American agriculture produces more bushels of soil erosion than bushels of crops, can it be any more obvious that we are incompetant?
The Amish, in many ways, exemplify Sterling's "clean, supple, healthy means of support for a crowded world." And yet, they achieve this by adhering to a strict ideology, subordinating technological innovation to their chosen vision of a way of life. Meanwhile, all the hip post-modernists, "free" from "-isms", seem caught on the iron treadmill of "rigid, monolithic, poisonous and non-sustainable" techno-determinism proceeding "with that Stalinesque seriousness that demands the brutal sacrifice of millions."
There's more wrong -- for example,
might be true in the Bay Area, but will no doubt come as a great surprise to the people of Kosovo, Iraq, and East Timor. But hey, they're not so "wired," so why worry about them?Ah, well. I would hope that the foolishness of advocating the "demystification" of Gizmos, while at the same time placing our hope of earthly deliverance in them, would be obvious, even through the clever wording ...
Note to all who think they can convert their Linux PC into a TiVo now, please remember that the GPL requires Philips to release the changes they make to the Linux kernel and all GPL'ed untilities, but not to the TiVo application itself. (Although Philips are going above and beyond the call of duty here, by releasing changes to GPL'ed development tools which are not shipped as part of Tivo, something they are not obligated to do).
From the README --
This directory contains three different archives - "commands", "kernels", and "toolchain". The archives are in GNU "tar" format, and have been compressed using GNU Zip (.gz suffix) and BZIP2 (.bz2 suffix). The .gz and .bz2 versions of each archive are identical except for the compression format - you need only one version of each.
If you're reading this README from our FTP site, and don't want to spend the time to download these archives via your Internet connection, you can receive a copy of the software on CD-ROM if you wish. A nominal copying-and-distribution charge applies if you order the CD-ROM. Please contact "webmaster@tivo.com" for information if you're interested in order a CD-ROM copy of this software.
Please refer to the COPYING file in each directory for detailed information on the license and distribution terms which apply to each specific tool, utility, compiler, kernel, or whatever. Most of this software is under the GPL, while some of it (e.g. libraries) are under the LGPL.
The "commands" archive contains the source code for all of the GPL-licensed programs which are included in the TiVo Personal Television System software. These versions are current as of the 1.2.0 and 1.2.1 versions of the TiVo software.
total 17
dr-xr-xr-x 10 dplatt root 3072 Oct 14 10:56 bash-2.02/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 dplatt root 2048 Oct 14 10:56 cpio-2.4.2/
dr-xr-xr-x 12 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 10:56 e2fsprogs-1.06/
dr-xr-xr-x 9 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 10:56 fileutils-3.16/
dr-xr-xr-x 8 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 10:57 grep/
dr-xr-xr-x 10 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 10:57 gzip-1.2.4/
dr-xr-xr-x 10 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:00 modutils-2.1.85/
dr-xr-xr-x 6 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:00 net-tools-1.432/
dr-xr-xr-x 5 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:00 procps-1.2.9/
dr-xr-xr-x 5 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:00 ps/
dr-xr-xr-x 11 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:01 sh-utils-1.16/
dr-xr-xr-x 3 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:01 sysklogd-1.3.26/
dr-xr-xr-x 10 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:01 textutils/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:01 tnlited/
The "kernels" archive contains the source code for the Linux kernel in the TiVo Personal Television System software. The "linuxdist-2.1.24" source tree is configured for use on an Intel X86 development platform. The "linux-2.1" source tree is configured for use on the PowerPC-based hardware system on which the TiVo software actually runs.
total 2
dr-xr-xr-x 15 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 10:58 linux-2.1/
dr-xr-xr-x 15 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:00 linuxdist-2.1.24/
The "toolchains" archive contains the source code for various GNU software development tools and libraries used in the development of the PowerPC-based TiVo software releases. Although the compilers and development utilities are not shipped with the TiVo-based receivers, they are provided here as a courtesy to developers and other curious individuals.
total 14
dr-xr-xr-x 3 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:01 binutils/
dr-xr-xr-x 3 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:03 gcc/
dr-xr-xr-x 5 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:09 gdb/
dr-xr-xr-x 59 dplatt root 8192 Oct 14 11:13 libc/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:13 libc-ppc/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:13 tcdmem/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 dplatt root 1024 Oct 14 11:13 xppcbt/
The Luddites maintained that the automation of their work would
- transform their economy from one of many small independant workers to that of a few owners running sweatshops
- result in a lower-quality product than what was produced previous
- and that ultimately this destruction of an relatively independant and self-sufficient community was a Bad Thing
Well, 1. and 2. certainly happened, so the only thing left to "debate" is 3., which, except for a few cranks, everybody agrees that it was a Good Thing that the Inevitable March of Progress (with the help of a few well-placed troops) destroyed the economic livelihood and self-sufficiency of a community.As for "semi-terroristic", please remember that the Luddites, when simple protests didn't work, destroyed the offending property. For this, they were hanged, even on suspicion of Luddism. Thus, history records that the Luddites were a violent sort, as opposed to the calm, dispassionate peaceableness of those who had them executed.
At least you've provided a fine example of the attitude that Wendell Berry described in my previous post. It is apparantly not enough that the Luddites lost their struggle to preserve their way of life; no, their name must be forgotten except for its use as an epithet.
Usually, it's Jon Katz who is the one guilty of techno-determinism; this time it's his critics.
It is not inevitable that the human genome will be decoded.
Likely? Yes, if things continue. But there's nothing inevitable about it. Y2K or a stray asteroid could wipe out technological society before the HGP completes. The governments of the world could stop funding HGP and outlaw further experimentation. All of the scientists involved could have a change of heart and abandon the project. The future is not know to us, and the progress of the HGP is due to deliberate human effort, not some force of nature.
No, the first question is whether this is worth doing at all. That is what Katz (in his unfortunately flame-baited style) is pointing out.
Only after the first question is answered does the second become relevant.
I suppose you will point out that the HGP will almost certainly complete no matter what public debate happens at this point. This is probably true, but it hardly reassures me that my voice is going to be heard on whether the results will be patentable.
O, what hubris!
A familiarity with software, and an agreement with the principles of open source, does not confer any special understanding of ethics and especially bioethics. This is arrogant (to think that because we know software, we are better equipped than the biochemists to know what they are doing) and elitist (because I Am A Technologist, my opinion matters more than my mom's).
While I'm impressed, as an engineer, at some of the cleverly simple hacks used to discriminate events ...
... do we really want to dumb down security guards anymore? If security guards are clever and attentive, they might be able to make good use of such a system -- but if they were clever and attentive, who would need such a system in the first place?
In 99.44% of real installations, I see use falling into exactly one of two patterns:
Meanwhile, we catch a few dumb crooks, the smart crooks learn the holes in the system, and everybody gets trained in the subtle paranoia of knowing that deviation from behavior that doesn't readily compute as "law-abiding" will give you hassles with The Man. This does not strike me as particularly healthy for a people who aspire to be free and democratic.
Amazingly, this seems to be the same Jon Katz who trashes as "Luddite" anyone who questions the Amazing March of the Internet as 100% positive.
While I know there are a lot of HGP fans on Slashdot, Jon is absolutely right to question such a massive undertaking. We are unleash ing forces that we do not understand. We should not expect the boosteristic view to reflect anything at this point as anything but the passion of the scientists for their own work and of the corporate interests who expect to make gigabucks off of the results.
And in an ideal world, this would have been publicly debated before the resarch was well underway.
Actually, there are a number of "someones" in the last several generations who have preached a "third way." IIRC, the very term "third way" came from the Distributist movement in England (Chesterton and Belloc) before Blair and Clinton co-opted it to mean economic globalization that's not too commie and not too laissez-faire. :^(
The trouble is, it's tough getting any discussion that involves any nuance, historical perspective, or more than two sides through the media. (Which explains why sports events work so well on TV but serious discussions of real issues don't.)
So, for anyone who really wants to look at a "third way," you could start by trying a google search for Distributism, or at the Chesterton Society page and folling the links. Distributism is an economoic system promoted by G. K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc in England at the beginning of the century, which favors widespread private ownership of property and capital, vs. the concentration of property in private (capitalist) or state (socialist) systems. The Outline of Sanity is probably the best introduction to Chestertonian Distributism, although it seems to be only available in dead trees edition, so you'll have to check a paper library or bookstore.
Besides the English Distributists, there's a whole wing of American "agrarian" writers who advocate pretty much the same thing. My favorite is Wendell Berry. Berry is a champion of local enterprise and ecological sensitivity, and is a great antidote to WTO globalism.
For a great big collection of alternatives to McWorld, try The Case Against the Global Economy : And for a Turn Toward the Local . It includes pieces by Jerry Mander, Jeremy Rifkin, Wendell Berry, Ralph Nader, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and many others, including much discussion of NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO.
Summary: It's not that nobody has thought of a "third way." The problem is not lack of imagination for envisioning alternatives to the global rat-race. If you truly want an alternative, start making it happen!
Why can't you be specific about why you believe his statements are not racist, sexist, homophobic, etc?
Simply Real Life(tm) constraints on how much time I have to give to this conversation.
Seems like she already started it and you had no real response. I'd really love to see what you have to say that could possibly make those statements seem like something other than a bigot's display of his true colors (npi).
Yes and yes; and I was acknowledging that. That darn Real Life(tm) again. But I have a few minutes now, so I'll give it another try.
Anti-Semite: this one is so baseless that it's almost funny. I note that darkrose didn't bother trying to back this particular one up, other than by allusion to Farrakhan. I would hope that all I should have to do is point to the number of Jewish friends, collegues, and admirers of Buchanan whose response to the charge of anti-Semitism is "Huh? I may disagree with Pat, but he's no anti-Semite." Farrakhan? Please. Buchanan's religion teaches that all people are of equal dignity before God and that anti-Semitism is a sin; Farrakhan's teaches that whites and Jews are of the Devil. The two don't even belong in the same breath. Unless one uses that strange definition of "anti-Semite" as "one who occaisionally criticizes the national policies of Israel or of the pro-Israel lobby in the USA," in which case practically half the Jews of the world are "anti-Semites."
Homophobe: too often a code word for "thinks homosexuality is wrong", something which is certainly true of Buchanan. So I don't give this one much credit -- by that definition, I'm "homophobic" -- never mind that I'm not "phobic" about anyone, and (cliche'd as it is) some of my best friends really are gay. The relationship between AIDS and (male) gay sex is hardly "phobia", it's hard epidemiological data (although we do have the fun fact that "if AIDS is God's judgement, lesbians must be the Chosen People"). But this is a whole topic I hate to even mention, given the likelihood of any "debate" on sexuality degenerating rapidly into (1) namecalling and (2) a black hole for time.
Racist: doubt it, given his open admiration for Alan Keyes. I would like to see some context for the quoted comment on Sharpesville; but as for the European roots of the USA and the relative ease of assimilation, those seem to me to simply be statements of reality, not evidence of racism. Acknowledgement that the USA began as a European transplant and still retains much of that character, opposition to affirmative action and 'multiculturalism' do not equate to racism.
Sexist: let me simply suggest that Buchanan is hardly the first or only person to notice that capitalistic competitiveness is not exactly friendly to women or femininity. Especially for women who wish to exercise their traditional calling as mothers. But again, a good discussion of capitalism and gender is well beyond the scope of what I have time for on Slashdot.
David Duke: please, this is guilt by association. I find it highly plausible that Duke did crib from Buchanan's economic platform. That doesn't make Buchanan a Klansman. Given that Buchanan seems to be the only national politician addressing a number of the issues important to blue-collar and rural folk (many of whom happen to be white), doesn't it make sense that a Klansman trying to gain respectability (Duke) would do just that?
There, some specifics to chew on. I have now more than exhausted my time for such fun; so I'm going to have to let everyone else have the last word.
Well, at least you are willing to deal in specifics ...
And you will continue to be wrong.
Ah, well. At least you're willing to back up what you say, which means we could actually have a reasonable debate on this subject.
True, but in a sense irrelevant -- because the decisions by FDR and others to put the USA on an anti-German course were made in the late '30s, well before Allied intelligence knew, well before the "final solution" had begun in force. It is simply incorrect to look back and think that the USA entered WWII to save the victims of the Holocaust. We didn't.
Somehow, your second sentence doesn't support your first ...
Yes, I've looked at the collection of out-of-context quotes. As I said originally, I am not going to try to defend all things Pat. On the other hand, he is certainly not a hate-monger. I've bumped into real hate-mongers before (yes, Virginia, there are really neo-Nazis on the 'net), and Pat just isn't one of them. Try disagreeing using specifics rather than namecalling and demonization next time.
I have studied some history.
Of course slavery was an issue; what is wrong is the idea that it was the only issue, or even the primary issue. As Lincoln put it, the war was to "preseve the Union." I truly doubt most of the Northern volunteers in 1860 had the abolition of slavery on their minds. And a number of Southerners had their personal doubts about slavery, but chose to fight for the South anyhow. It was only mid-war, when the Thaddeus Stephens and the "Radical Republicans" made their case, that the focus changed, and it became certain that a Northern victory would result in the abolition of slavery.
As for Hitler and the Nazis, you are thanking God for the wrong reasons. People like Hitler have risen to power in the last few decades; the USA has either supported or opposed such dictators as convenient. While some of German atrocities were understood in the late '30s (such as the annexation of Poland), the full extent of the evil of the Holocaust was not known to the American public until well after the war was over. As for FDR having a "moral" obligation to oppose Hitler; perhaps, but those same morals didn't stop him from being buddies with "Uncle Joe" Stalin, as bloody-handed a dictator as Adolf ever was.
Please note that I didn't say that I thought we should not have entered the war on the side of Britain; what I said was that it's an issue worth debating. I haven't read Pat's book, so I don't know the details of his argument. But I'm concerned that he's being demonized for simply daring to question whether that was the right policy to have followed mid-century. Sheesh -- Slashdotters will lionize Dr. Singer for suggesting that we kill handicapped kids, because it "makes people think," but we dare not tolerate discussion of US interventionism!
Note the irony that "xenophobic zealot" Buchanan is not taking any action against the www.buchanan2000.com site, yet the "mainstream" and "moderate" George W is acting as an enemy of free political speech.
And what does an anti-Buchanan site have to do with www.gwbush.com anyway? Other than as an unpaid political announcement. I suppose in fairness somebody should provide the link to Buchanan's official campaign site.
[Note: I am not a defender of all things Buchanan -- I would be a fool to try, as I really don't know that much about him, other than the bogeyman image he gets from the press, whom I trust about as far as I can throw. But just for fun, let me note that the observation that men tend towards obessive focus and drive, women toward generalization and relationship, and the relationship of this tendancy to modern capitalist enterprise is hardly new or unique to Buchanan. The War Between the States was not in the beginning about slavery, per the repeated declarations of President A. Lincoln (note that Kentucky, a slave state, and the slave territory of West Virginia stayed with the Union). This is simple history, and Buchanan is correct on that point. It is also worth arguing whether American involvement in WWII was good -- please note that FDR had set us on our course of supporting Britain against Germany in '38 and '39, well before German atrocities were known (or even begun).]
Quite true, although now that they're successful enough to have a real budget, their rendering quality had really improved.
Strange but True: The reason Vischer and Nawrocki picked hopping vegetables for their first film, Where's God When I'm S-Scared? , was because they didn't have enough computing *oomph* available as garage-shop animators to do anything other than basic geometric shapes. So, in a fit of manic genius, they decided on vegetables as easy to render. And the rest is history, as they say ...
While Vischer, Nawrocki, and Vischer may not have the budget for renderfarms that Pixar has, they are warped comic geniuses, which is something money can't buy. (Hmm ... I wonder if CmdTaco would accept a movie review of The Toy That Saved Christmas ?)