News people are political creatures at heart and they push coverage of issues according to their agenda. It's like they are on a giant "power
trip" where they believe that what ever they write or say will influence millions to their point of view.
Oh, how I long for the day when this was true, that the biggest problem with the news was the political bias of journalists.
Today it does not matter, because journalists don't call the shots, entertainment moguls who own their asses call the shots. Add to that the fact that nobody takes TV "reporters" seriously anymore, because they are all doing stories about the "Survivor" TV show and crap like that. Besides, everybody knows they are just good-looking fops who have a knack for reading a teleprompter as if they wrote the stories.
Print journalists don't matter either, because nobody pays for a newspaper subscription anymore, unless they are really into Dear Abbey and Kathy cartoons. Gannet News Services owns about half of America's "local" papers anyway, and each and every one of them is chock full of worthless puff pieces that were written to grab people's attention.
Journalism is dead. It has been for so long that people are starting to wonder if there ever really was such a thing.
It's a single event, worthy of one day of coverage, followed by perhaps a second day of coverage when the courts found that the cops were subduing an uncooperative thug who pouned through four cops at once before the infamous amature video started filming. Maybe even a third story, about the Bush inquiry into whether his civil rights had been violated, might be in order.
That's three days of news stories... stretched out to a year and a half of up-to-the-minute courtroom drama and hysterics.
Lots of guys get hammered to the ground for resisting arrest every day in the US. What made Rodney King such a big news story was that there was sensational video footage of it happening, which translated into huge ratings for the news shows. I put it on the same level as gladitorial combat. It's nothing but the use of human blood and suffering as a means to entertain the masses.
Let's look at the stories which dominated the press over the last few years:
A teenage tramp shoots her sleazy lover's wife in the face. A crazy woman cuts her bully boyfriend's penis off. An olympic hopeful asks a thug to injure one of her rivals. A football player stabs his wife and her lover to death. A White House aide shoots himself. The LA police beat the living crap out of some guy. Two nut-job suburban kids went on a shooting spree. The President gets a hummer when he was talking on the phone.
To put is simply, who gives a rats ass about any of this stuff?
National news broadcasts were cutting into perfectly good Deep Space Nine re-runs to give me updates on "the O.J. Trial". Dammit! People kill their cheating ex-spouses every day in this sad world, but when a Heisman Trophy winner does it, it somehow warrents 24/7 coverage for a freakin' year!?
The Clinton administration has been facing accusations of electoral fraud, lying under oath, sexual harrassment, massive security leaks, taking bribes from foreign powers, cover-ups and "lost" files, gathering FBI data based on an Enemies List, using IRS audits as a weapon for revenge (4 of the 5 "jane doe" women have been audited in the last two years), and even crooked land deals... some may be true, some may not, but it is certainly worth looking into. Instead, we get months of talk about the President's indescretions with a chubby young intern with a cigar fetish. I don't care who that stupid cracker is fooling around with! Good for him; he's gettin' some! Find out that he's selling secrets to the Chinese, or that he knew the asprin factory he bombed in the Sudan wasn't a terrorist camp, then maybe you have a story. Otherwise, don't bother me with sensationalistic crap.
I don't watch "the news" anymore because they report on a lot of stuff that doesn't matter, and hardly ever cover stuff that does.
I have heard as much, but prefer to imagine that there is a big red button. What's the point in running for President if you can't have a big red button that blows up the world?
The people who invented CSS never dreamt that it would not be reverse-engineered; Any good assembly programmer could pull that off, and probably lots of other people besides.
I wonder if that is really true... I'm sure the people who decided to use CSS never imagined it, but I can't help but suspect that the guy they hired to write it was some bearded, hippie, *nix guru who decided to write an encryption scheme that was just good enough for him to complete the contract and move on to the next job, all the while chuckling under his breath at the thought of how quickly it would come crumbling down.
It reminds me of P.J. O'Rourke's theory about how the Presidential "football" probably can't launch any missiles... Picture this: You are a scientist geek working away in your white lab coat, when a military guy who is just like the kind of person who beat the crap out of you in High School storms in and says "hey four-eyes, build a gadget so the President can blow up the world!" Would you do it? Or would you just fill a box with impressive-looking circuits and a big, red button?
Not only that, but he is probably correct. I don't think Judge Kaplan does know his head from his ass.
In fact, given what it produces, I'm not sure there is much difference to tell between his head and his ass.
Hey Judge! You just passed a ruling that might allow (to use a hypothetical example) "http://www.dumbfuckjudge.com", while forbidding "a href=http://www.dumbfuckjudge.com" in angle brackets. That's the only difference, you moron. Everybody who uses the web at all knows how to paste a text reference, so this doesn't stop anybody, and creates a new restriction that is completely unreasonable. Get off the damned bench! You are a disgrace to American Law.
Personally, I would never consider linking to DeCSS, seeing as it has now been made illegal, but I strongly object to this trampling of the First Amendment.
"anarcho-socialism" is an oxymorn: Socialism is total government control of the economy. Anarchy is the total lack of a controlling government.
I think you meant to say "anarcho-communism", which is a silly pipe-dream, but at least it's not self-contradictory.
Personally, I think anarchy is a really bad idea, for the simple reason that there is no force in place to prevent a subsequent rise of Feudalism. Any time you have anarchy, winners will emerge and start grabbing for power.
I prefer the libertarian philosophy of a government which is limited by constitutional mandates to protect the rights of the individual.
yeah ok what ever, when i can i buy a 1GHz chip on the open market ? Oh wait i can buy an 1GHz athlon right now !!
That's a pretty good point. Is anybody else getting a little annoyed with the way Intel has edged into the Vaporchip business?
Every couple of months for the last year or so, they show off another demo of a chip that blows everything away, promise we will see it Real Soon Now, and continue to mass-produce chips that are slower than the competition.
Anyone can make a single chip that is faster than what is on the market right now... the question that matters is, "what is the fastest chip you can mass-produce?"
I'm sure your name one person who lives in North America and South America collectively.;)
Seriously, though, if you mean "what term should I use to collectively refer to all of the people in North America and all of the people in South America"?
Well, what would you use to refer to all of the people in Europe and all of the people in Australia?
Answer: there isn't one word for them, because it's two completely different groups of people.
Same thing. In a pinch you could say "North and South Americans" (not to be confused with northern and southern Americans, representing both sides of the Mason-Dixon line in the USA), or you can just say "North Americans and South Americans".
In any case, calling Americans "USians" is just stupid. We are not from a place caled USia. We are from a country called America. End of debate.
Right, and (IIRC) that seemed to indicate that the most likely problem was a torpedo misfire... the bay was closed, causing the torpedo to explode in the tube.
The idea of a new 200MPH torpedo turning and homing back on them seems a little far-fetched to me. I think I will wait for the investigations before drawing any conclusions.
I get the sense we are talking past each other here. Both of our points are valid. 1) The French blockade (and the aid of other nations, to a lesser extent) was essential to victory. 2) It was a glorious win for America and a humiliating loss for the British Empire.
How are the party platforms for the parties from which Gore and Bush come "not... important"? Those platforms dictate their behavior while in office.
Completely false. Bill Clinton, as President, governed according to a philosophy that was completely counter to the Democratic Party platform in 1992. In fact, it was Clinton's "third way" politics that shaped the Democratic Party platform, not the other way around.
If Gore is elected, he will also slowly transform his party, rather than the other way around. The same goes for Bush.
Nader, Browne, and other third-party guys, on the other hand, are running to advance their parties, and the agenda of their repsective parties.
(Buchannan being the obvious exception... he cares nothing about the Reform Party, and just wants to remain in the spotlight as long as he can.)
A vote for Nader is really a vote for what Nader says he stands for, since he stands behind the Green platform.
Also not entirely true. Nader has been making overtures to other political fringe groups, hoping his personal political orientation will attract their interests. When you look closely, it becomes clear that his ideas and the agenda of the Green Party are two different things. If the Green Party gets their 5% with him on the ballot, it is their movement, not his, that reaps the rewards.
The vague sense that I get from your post is that two choices are more than enough.
Strike three! I am seriously looking at voting third-party this year... but I am doing it with my eyes open. If I vote for Nader, Browne, or whoever the Independence Party finally puts up, it will be because I am interested in advancing the movement, not because I was charmed by the charisma of one man who will be irrelevant to the debate in 10 years.
Like I said before, Nader has even PUBLICLY ADMITTED that winning is not his goal. Major party status for the Green Party is his goal. If you want the Green Party to have major party status in 2004, then a vote for Nader is a great idea. This election is probably the best shot they have ever had in the history of the party. If you are hoping for a Nader vote to accomplish something else, you are fooling yourself.
The American Revolution was won due to the hard work and peserverence of Washington and his troops, aided only by the occasional lucky break until finally the French provided aid.
No war was ever won without luck and allies.
Regardless of the participation of the French, the fact remains that America revolted agains the most powerful empire in the world, and won. There's nothing "John Wayne-esque" about it.
(As an aside, I always hate it when foreigners equate John Wayne with their worst perceptions of American nationalistic fervor. He was involved in a lot of great movies about the horrors of war, the plight of the native tribes, and the universal value of humanity. Not a lot of people know that John Ford was the first movie director ever made an honorary tribal member, and probably was the first to be allowed to film on reservation land. Inspite of all this, he is forever branded as a metaphor for American jingoism, just because a handful of his better known war movies dare to express patriotism.)
You make a darn good point here. I wasn't a subscriber of my.mp3.com, but a lot of people loved it.
Personally, I think we should write to various fair use crusaders from both parties (Orin Hatch of Utah is emerging as one potential champion...), and say the following:
My.MP3.com was the first widely-used method of simply space-shifting digital music via the net. The purpose was to allow users to access the content of albums
which they purchaced from anywhere. In many ways, using this service is no different than making a tape of your CD to listen to in the car. As current law exists, such a service can not be performed without paying additional fees to the record companies. It should be clear to you that this violates the spirit of "fair use", and the law should be reformed to reflect the rights of the consumers.
While I am unconcerned about the fate of specific companies like MP3.com, I am very interested in my own personal rights to make remote archives of music that I buy, and to retain my rights concerning whatever media content I purchace.
I ask that you take the lead in revisiting copyright laws like the DMCA in the next Congressional session, and keep me posted on your progress. Enclosed find a check for $50 to aid in your future re-election efforts.
Yes, the french navy was critical to victory, but the fact is that you had the greatest military in the world at the time and you got your ass kicked.
Don't feel too bad, the same thing happened to us in Viet Nam 200 years later.
As for whether it was a decisive victory... I haven't paid any taxes to the British crown lately, so I guess that means you lost... completely. Pretty cut and dried, really.
The problem with Nader is that he won't win and he knows it.
Nader has came right out and said, on several occations, that the reason he is running is to help the Green Party get major party status (which entitles them to government assistance).
This means a vote for Nader is not really a vote for what Ralph Nader says he stands for, but a vote for the Green Party platform, because it is the party, not the man, who stands to rise in stature from a good Nader performance. What Nader would do if elected should not be a factor in your choice, because he won't be.
This is a dramatic contrast from Bush and Gore, who each has a good chance of winning, and who belong to already strong parties. Their party platforms are not at all as important as what they would do in office.
In otherwords, vote Green, Reform, Independence, or Libertarian if you support the goals of the party, vote Bush or Gore if you support the man. All other decisions are less-well-informed.
And if you had taken a moment to digest my comment, you would have noticed that I was just applying a little wit and levity to a dry an humorless statement. I was going for "Funny", not "Insightful".. This is another lazy knee-jerk reaction to perceived criticism..
...turned people away from the old USian small community ideal...
There is no such thing as a "USian". People who live in the United States of America are called "Americans".
Other people living on the same continent (like Canadians and Mexians) can be referred to as "North Americans", but not "Americans", because the contintent they live on is "North America", not "America". Many Canadians and Mexicans are proud of being Canadians and Mexicans and would prefer you don't think of them as "Americans".
For the entire history of our nation, beginning when we opened a can of whoop-ass on King George's redcoats, we have called ourselves "Americans". Your "politically-correct" revisionism is not going to change that.
Now stop being so pretensious.
Unfortunately in capitalism people are seen less as individuals with their own special contributions to make,
Seen by whom? Certainly not by corporations. Corporations are artificial economic constructs. They don't "see" anything. If there is a failure of perception it is yours, in that capitalism has proven to be more favorable to the individual than any collectivist system, for the obvious reason that capitalism is not collectivist.
than as parts of an assembly line, valued for little more than what they produce.
Unlike socialism, where people are valued for... what they produce. Or communism, where people are valued for... what they produce.
For most of us "computer history" is just a recent memory.
Yes, I will never forget what a hottie Ada Lovelace was in her younger days. I really miss her.
For the sarcasm impaired: Even if you are an aging boomer who was writing for mainframes back in the 60's, most of "computer history" happened long before you were born.
Perhaps this kid can teach you a thing or two after all, v4mpyr.:)
The fires were due to a new "LithIon" battery desing that Apple was experimenting with. Once the problem surfaced, they switched to ordinary NiMH's, and things were back to normal. The whole sorry history of it is available at LowEndMac, who awarded it the dreaded "Road Apple" prize.
If I had one of these dogs, I would take the buyback deal for sure. 5300 sucks; Pismo rocks. Little other analysis needed.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, how I long for the day when this was true, that the biggest problem with the news was the political bias of journalists.
Today it does not matter, because journalists don't call the shots, entertainment moguls who own their asses call the shots. Add to that the fact that nobody takes TV "reporters" seriously anymore, because they are all doing stories about the "Survivor" TV show and crap like that. Besides, everybody knows they are just good-looking fops who have a knack for reading a teleprompter as if they wrote the stories.
Print journalists don't matter either, because nobody pays for a newspaper subscription anymore, unless they are really into Dear Abbey and Kathy cartoons. Gannet News Services owns about half of America's "local" papers anyway, and each and every one of them is chock full of worthless puff pieces that were written to grab people's attention.
Journalism is dead. It has been for so long that people are starting to wonder if there ever really was such a thing.
That's three days of news stories... stretched out to a year and a half of up-to-the-minute courtroom drama and hysterics.
Lots of guys get hammered to the ground for resisting arrest every day in the US. What made Rodney King such a big news story was that there was sensational video footage of it happening, which translated into huge ratings for the news shows. I put it on the same level as gladitorial combat. It's nothing but the use of human blood and suffering as a means to entertain the masses.
The American Bush Corporation?
Yea, baby! Yea!
(I have now reached my quota of really bad puns for the month.)
A teenage tramp shoots her sleazy lover's wife in the face.
A crazy woman cuts her bully boyfriend's penis off.
An olympic hopeful asks a thug to injure one of her rivals.
A football player stabs his wife and her lover to death.
A White House aide shoots himself.
The LA police beat the living crap out of some guy.
Two nut-job suburban kids went on a shooting spree.
The President gets a hummer when he was talking on the phone.
To put is simply, who gives a rats ass about any of this stuff?
National news broadcasts were cutting into perfectly good Deep Space Nine re-runs to give me updates on "the O.J. Trial". Dammit! People kill their cheating ex-spouses every day in this sad world, but when a Heisman Trophy winner does it, it somehow warrents 24/7 coverage for a freakin' year!?
The Clinton administration has been facing accusations of electoral fraud, lying under oath, sexual harrassment, massive security leaks, taking bribes from foreign powers, cover-ups and "lost" files, gathering FBI data based on an Enemies List, using IRS audits as a weapon for revenge (4 of the 5 "jane doe" women have been audited in the last two years), and even crooked land deals... some may be true, some may not, but it is certainly worth looking into. Instead, we get months of talk about the President's indescretions with a chubby young intern with a cigar fetish. I don't care who that stupid cracker is fooling around with! Good for him; he's gettin' some! Find out that he's selling secrets to the Chinese, or that he knew the asprin factory he bombed in the Sudan wasn't a terrorist camp, then maybe you have a story. Otherwise, don't bother me with sensationalistic crap.
I don't watch "the news" anymore because they report on a lot of stuff that doesn't matter, and hardly ever cover stuff that does.
I have heard as much, but prefer to imagine that there is a big red button. What's the point in running for President if you can't have a big red button that blows up the world?
To do so is now illegal, so don't.
I wonder if that is really true... I'm sure the people who decided to use CSS never imagined it, but I can't help but suspect that the guy they hired to write it was some bearded, hippie, *nix guru who decided to write an encryption scheme that was just good enough for him to complete the contract and move on to the next job, all the while chuckling under his breath at the thought of how quickly it would come crumbling down.
It reminds me of P.J. O'Rourke's theory about how the Presidential "football" probably can't launch any missiles... Picture this: You are a scientist geek working away in your white lab coat, when a military guy who is just like the kind of person who beat the crap out of you in High School storms in and says "hey four-eyes, build a gadget so the President can blow up the world!" Would you do it? Or would you just fill a box with impressive-looking circuits and a big, red button?
In fact, given what it produces, I'm not sure there is much difference to tell between his head and his ass.
Hey Judge! You just passed a ruling that might allow (to use a hypothetical example) "http://www.dumbfuckjudge.com", while forbidding "a href=http://www.dumbfuckjudge.com" in angle brackets. That's the only difference, you moron. Everybody who uses the web at all knows how to paste a text reference, so this doesn't stop anybody, and creates a new restriction that is completely unreasonable. Get off the damned bench! You are a disgrace to American Law.
Personally, I would never consider linking to DeCSS, seeing as it has now been made illegal, but I strongly object to this trampling of the First Amendment.
I think you meant to say "anarcho-communism", which is a silly pipe-dream, but at least it's not self-contradictory.
Personally, I think anarchy is a really bad idea, for the simple reason that there is no force in place to prevent a subsequent rise of Feudalism. Any time you have anarchy, winners will emerge and start grabbing for power.
I prefer the libertarian philosophy of a government which is limited by constitutional mandates to protect the rights of the individual.
I never said there was a continent called "America". Quite the opposite, in fact. I was dispelling the deranged notion that there was one.
What I said was that the continent that the USA is on is called "North America", not "America".
Anyway it's not self-centered to want your country to be properly identified. I don't go around calling people from London "UKians".
That's a pretty good point. Is anybody else getting a little annoyed with the way Intel has edged into the Vaporchip business?
Every couple of months for the last year or so, they show off another demo of a chip that blows everything away, promise we will see it Real Soon Now, and continue to mass-produce chips that are slower than the competition.
Anyone can make a single chip that is faster than what is on the market right now... the question that matters is, "what is the fastest chip you can mass-produce?"
"Son, there are only two kinds of boats in the ocean. Submarines... and targets."
Seriously, though, if you mean "what term should I use to collectively refer to all of the people in North America and all of the people in South America"?
Well, what would you use to refer to all of the people in Europe and all of the people in Australia?
Answer: there isn't one word for them, because it's two completely different groups of people.
Same thing. In a pinch you could say "North and South Americans" (not to be confused with northern and southern Americans, representing both sides of the Mason-Dixon line in the USA), or you can just say "North Americans and South Americans".
In any case, calling Americans "USians" is just stupid. We are not from a place caled USia. We are from a country called America. End of debate.
The idea of a new 200MPH torpedo turning and homing back on them seems a little far-fetched to me. I think I will wait for the investigations before drawing any conclusions.
'nuff said.
Completely false. Bill Clinton, as President, governed according to a philosophy that was completely counter to the Democratic Party platform in 1992. In fact, it was Clinton's "third way" politics that shaped the Democratic Party platform, not the other way around.
If Gore is elected, he will also slowly transform his party, rather than the other way around. The same goes for Bush.
Nader, Browne, and other third-party guys, on the other hand, are running to advance their parties, and the agenda of their repsective parties.
(Buchannan being the obvious exception... he cares nothing about the Reform Party, and just wants to remain in the spotlight as long as he can.)
A vote for Nader is really a vote for what Nader says he stands for, since he stands behind the Green platform.
Also not entirely true. Nader has been making overtures to other political fringe groups, hoping his personal political orientation will attract their interests. When you look closely, it becomes clear that his ideas and the agenda of the Green Party are two different things. If the Green Party gets their 5% with him on the ballot, it is their movement, not his, that reaps the rewards.
The vague sense that I get from your post is that two choices are more than enough.
Strike three! I am seriously looking at voting third-party this year... but I am doing it with my eyes open. If I vote for Nader, Browne, or whoever the Independence Party finally puts up, it will be because I am interested in advancing the movement, not because I was charmed by the charisma of one man who will be irrelevant to the debate in 10 years.
Like I said before, Nader has even PUBLICLY ADMITTED that winning is not his goal. Major party status for the Green Party is his goal. If you want the Green Party to have major party status in 2004, then a vote for Nader is a great idea. This election is probably the best shot they have ever had in the history of the party. If you are hoping for a Nader vote to accomplish something else, you are fooling yourself.
No war was ever won without luck and allies.
Regardless of the participation of the French, the fact remains that America revolted agains the most powerful empire in the world, and won. There's nothing "John Wayne-esque" about it.
(As an aside, I always hate it when foreigners equate John Wayne with their worst perceptions of American nationalistic fervor. He was involved in a lot of great movies about the horrors of war, the plight of the native tribes, and the universal value of humanity. Not a lot of people know that John Ford was the first movie director ever made an honorary tribal member, and probably was the first to be allowed to film on reservation land. Inspite of all this, he is forever branded as a metaphor for American jingoism, just because a handful of his better known war movies dare to express patriotism.)
Personally, I think we should write to various fair use crusaders from both parties (Orin Hatch of Utah is emerging as one potential champion...), and say the following:
Don't feel too bad, the same thing happened to us in Viet Nam 200 years later.
As for whether it was a decisive victory... I haven't paid any taxes to the British crown lately, so I guess that means you lost... completely. Pretty cut and dried, really.
Nader has came right out and said, on several occations, that the reason he is running is to help the Green Party get major party status (which entitles them to government assistance).
This means a vote for Nader is not really a vote for what Ralph Nader says he stands for, but a vote for the Green Party platform, because it is the party, not the man, who stands to rise in stature from a good Nader performance. What Nader would do if elected should not be a factor in your choice, because he won't be.
This is a dramatic contrast from Bush and Gore, who each has a good chance of winning, and who belong to already strong parties. Their party platforms are not at all as important as what they would do in office.
In otherwords, vote Green, Reform, Independence, or Libertarian if you support the goals of the party, vote Bush or Gore if you support the man. All other decisions are less-well-informed.
And if you had taken a moment to digest my comment, you would have noticed that I was just applying a little wit and levity to a dry an humorless statement. I was going for "Funny", not "Insightful".. This is another lazy knee-jerk reaction to perceived criticism..
There is no such thing as a "USian". People who live in the United States of America are called "Americans".
Other people living on the same continent (like Canadians and Mexians) can be referred to as "North Americans", but not "Americans", because the contintent they live on is "North America", not "America". Many Canadians and Mexicans are proud of being Canadians and Mexicans and would prefer you don't think of them as "Americans".
For the entire history of our nation, beginning when we opened a can of whoop-ass on King George's redcoats, we have called ourselves "Americans". Your "politically-correct" revisionism is not going to change that.
Now stop being so pretensious.
Unfortunately in capitalism people are seen less as individuals with their own special contributions to make,
Seen by whom? Certainly not by corporations. Corporations are artificial economic constructs. They don't "see" anything. If there is a failure of perception it is yours, in that capitalism has proven to be more favorable to the individual than any collectivist system, for the obvious reason that capitalism is not collectivist.
than as parts of an assembly line, valued for little more than what they produce.
Unlike socialism, where people are valued for... what they produce. Or communism, where people are valued for... what they produce.
Actually, thanks to the recent DeCSS ruling, I think we are more likely to blame politics for our disconnection with technology.
Yes, I will never forget what a hottie Ada Lovelace was in her younger days. I really miss her.
For the sarcasm impaired: Even if you are an aging boomer who was writing for mainframes back in the 60's, most of "computer history" happened long before you were born.
Perhaps this kid can teach you a thing or two after all, v4mpyr. :)
If I had one of these dogs, I would take the buyback deal for sure. 5300 sucks; Pismo rocks. Little other analysis needed.