I am a longtime (longtime) Linux and UNIX user, but after initially being the platform of choice for Webbing (I remember using term + Mosaic long before you could take Windows on the WWW) Linux/Unix of the last few years has been behind IE/Windows in the user interface department, in part because of a browser experience that was just plain *slower* on the same hardware. Anyone who dual-boots has likely experienced this.
With FireFox 2.0's new forward/back method, in combination with SwiftFox and FasterFox (there is a 2.0-compatible version out there, just do a Google search), the Linux browsing experience is finally faster in every way (including back/forward) than the Windows/IE version. It's like the universe has realigned itself according to what always should have been.
For years now, I have been more than willing to buy a $10 album. I don't need a CD at all. Offer me:
- Songs and PDF cover art in a ZIP file or other format I can access from any OS - encoded in a non-DRM format like MP3 or OGG, at high quality - in a single-click download that bills my credit card.
I have bought several independent albums this way. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to make this kind of purchase of a major label album, but have instead just bought nothing rather than have to make my way all the way to some retailer, then all the way back home, then rip the damn thing myself--in combination, an all-afternoon project if you want an album.
With a $10 album download as a ZIP file containing MP3s, they'd get essentially the same price that they're getting already, without having to manufacture material goods, and they'll sell more albums (at least to me). It's paying for convenience. The ability to go to one site, complete a simple process, pay a known price, and have instant gratification beats any kind of P2P file sharing or any retail format. But somehow it just doesn't happen.
Instead they want us to choose between inconvenience (driving to the store, ripping it yourself) and inconvenience (DRM, proprietary software and downloads, having to buy one song at a time to get an entire album). So in the end many of us buy nothing at all.
I think the core of your question is about giving away Windows licenses for free. We love developers, period. We're also not about to give away Windows client licenses.
"You want access to our commanding market share of users? Then you'll damn well have to buy our product and become one of them. No cross-platform development for you."
I have a 5.25" 2/3 height (yes, 2/3 height, one-bay-and-a-half) removable SyQuest drive here with a couple of old disks. It no longer works, but it connects to any industry standard "MFM controller" (you remember, dual cables, a 14-pin data cable and a 34-pin control cable, really an "IBM PC style" hard drive adapter is probably more descriptive) and has a large glass window with a foam seal. The disks are 5MB each; to change them, you open the window pull the old one out, and put the new one in--with the PC off, of course.
I also have a truly massive dual-Bernoulli box here, with dual 5MB drives. These connect to a proprietary Iomega ISA controller over a large cable. The box is exactly the same size as the original IBM 5150 PC case, but the front is completely open and the two drives occupy its entirety. They have huge doors. The 5MB disks are the size of large paperback books or maybe slightly smaller than dinner plates. The thing weighs more than fort Knox.
I don't personally know which was first, but I was personally using both of these way back in the mid '80s as a BBS operator who needed backup and storage rotation media, and I had already got them secondhand from local universities, etc. at that time.
Put them to work in a special prison computer room where they have to filter SPAM out of government email boxes by hand, one click at a time, 10 hours/day. Every time they let a SPAM message through or accidentally can a good message, they get 24 hours in solitary confinement without food. No, make that they get 24 hours in solitary confinement and have to eat nothing but hunks of SPAM for the rest of the week.
They should receive 1 year of time in prison doing this for every 1 year they were SPAMming on the outside.
This sounds like scientific management all over again.
If a company buys this argument and moves to 30" displays in the interest of increased productivity, they're going to expect to see that increase. When I worked at eBay there was a lot of emphasis on measuring the speed of computing operations (not as the computer did them, but as the human carried them out) in addition to measuring our productivity vis-a-vis the job we were actually supposed to be doing.
It is nothing new for companies to want to measure employees' use of time, as time is money (this being of course the fundamental equivalence of capitalism). But the more finely granular the unit of time measurement becomes in the productivity per unit time measurement, the more regimentation begins to seem like tyranny and the identity of the subject becomes unimportant in the face of the domination imposed by the measurement of the process itself.
You cannot mechanise the body, because humans are not inorganic machines. Of course due to the nature of capitalism we'll continue to try to cling to this 19th century notion in order to avoid "wasted" time. You know, time spent making a given motion more comfortable for the human that is carrying it out, as opposed to more fast and repetitios until that human breaks down in some way and is replaced with another. Or, say, time actually spent living and reflecting on living. God forbid.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to individual selection of a large display in order to work in whatever way they prefer (whether faster, more comfortable, etc.) But the point at which companies begin to buy bigger displays specifically in hopes of realizing an "n seconds per operation per employee gain that translates into q dollars" is the old Fordist model at its worst.
Because CrossOver is so much faster and more convenient that it puts the rest to shame. I have VMWare and use it when I have to. But if I had to choose between one of the two, CrossOver wins hands down.
Look at what's happening in Europe as the muslims are flooding in and reproducing faster than the natives. Pretty soon, you'll see them adopting Sharia there. If you want to see a country become destabilized as they lose the core values that binds them all together, good luck in the ensuing anarchy.
Way to sound like a bigot. More importantly, this is what societies do, you know? Things change. Demographics change. Some people reproduce quickly, others slowly. As populations shift, practices and policies shift. That's called (drumroll) democracy. Sorry to burst your bubble, I know you thought democracy was this violent, totalitarian stuff that Bush was promoting, but no, it's just policies more or less following the lead of changes in the population.
The "core values that bind them all together" that you refer to... You would preserve these, work to keep them, and if you had to manipulate the population demographics or reproduction a little, keep some people down in order to make sure that others others don't lose the singular culture that they already have, that would be okay, right? Of course, that would just be eugenics, but hey, we're all conservatives here. Sich heil and all that.
it ain't the military... the military is a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on socialism
First off, the ratio is decidedly un-drop-in-the-bucket-like, more like 2:1, social services vs. military industry/expenditure. Next, realize that social services money isn't being taxed out of the economy, it's going right back into it when it pays for drugs, housing, food, and all the other things that constitute a social safety net. ON THE OTHER HAND, the resources portion of that military money goes out and get blown up and shot down with every pretty missile, smart-bomb, or fast-plane explosion and burned right out the tailpipe (or similar appendages on planes, tanks, jeeps, submarines, aircraft carriers, personnel carriers...) leaving dollars for non-American economies. Still more of it is multiplicative, i.e. spend $millions$ hitting an Iraqi village, and you get the privelege of spending $many more millions$ on medical care and resources to rebuild it, only this time the money doesn't go back into the general blue and white collars of the American economy, it goes to the few fat cats at the top of the multinational economy in specialized industries that can operate overseas.
And if you think we have a socialist political-economic system in the United States, then you have lost every bit as much perspective as people think you arch-conservatives have.
Always the conservatives are screaming about "balance." Reality itself is not "fair and balanced." The Republicans are destroying the country, the environment, and the Earth. Not the Democrats. So get over it. The very notion that media needs to be "balanced" is how we got into this position in the first place.
Media is supposed to report on what is happening. Not make you feel better about your political views if they suck, or make you feel as though you're just as good as everyone else if you're not.
Radical? Absolutely, breaking with tradition and global consensus on nearly every issue and decision. What does this have to do with our form of government? The US and Brittain broke with "global consensus" when they stood up to Nazi Germany. Did that make them Fascists? The USSR did the same from the 1950's to the mid 80's. I had no idea they were fascists either!
No, but it does make them radical, which is one criterion for fascism.
Corporatist? They let major corporations sit in on policy authorship. The revolving door between the military-industrial aristocracy and government authority is at record levels. Assuming this were true, how is this is unique to the Bush administration? Oil companies pretty much rule Saudi Arabia via Saudi royalty, are they fascists too?
Again, it is not unique. But it is a second criterion met.
Authoritarian? See bills referenced here and consider it a nascent, but rapidly growing, authoritarianism with a strong will to power. Again, that fact that we are having this converstaion via servers based on the US disproves your point.
And for how much longer is precisely the point of this story and this debate. It is what is at issue: some of us want to stop yet another criterion from being met.
Nationalism? You've got to be kidding me, you dispute this? This is the most racist, jingoistic, willfully xenophobic, flag-waving, God-appropriating culture since Nazi germany. Your ability to even get a job, a loan, or get admitted to a school is based on your willingness to sing the praises of Bush and wrap yourself in the flag. Again, if true, how is this unique to the Bush administration? Also, how is having a cabinet more divers than any other administration make this one racists? Isn't flagwaving a prerequisite for the job of the Presidency? Nazi Germany was God-appropriating? (and) GWB is more so than, say, Jimmy Carter? Finally, I work at a major (really big) computer manufacturer here in the US. I work with a guy that has a red star tatoo and wears shirts with Castro's picture or some other sort of communist propaganda on it every day. How was he able to get his job, his car loan, his mortgage and everything else he has or does with that sort of thing if he was unwilling to sing the praises of Bush and wrap himself in the flag.
Again, strong nationalism is one more criterion. I'll let Slashdot readers make their own determinations about whether a culture of nationalism in the U.S. currently exists and whether it impacts things like social capital and the ability to curry favor, service, or employment.
Militarism? Well, let's see. A war in Afghanistan, a unilateral war against Iraq just for amusement, third front in Iran almost a given within the next year, with noises about Syria, North Korea, and China if they continue to annoy Taiwan. An almost continuous preoccupation in the policy infrastructure and public discourse with war, the portrayal of war, the policy of war, or the conditions of war. This entire nation is a military. Again, how is this different than a war in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Japan, Iwo Jima, Burma, North Africa and everywhere else we fought in WWII? Were Roosevelt and Churchill Fascists? As to the entire nation being "a military", I have not seen a tank roll down a public street since... well, never. I have never seen a military checkpoint outside a military base anywhere in the US. For that matter, it was quite a shock to see armed military in our airports after 9-11.
Again, one more criterion. I've seen tanks, and troop carriers, rolling down the highway, and I've seen assault rifles on uniformed personnel in bus terminals and at airports. More to the point, the current cost of the Iraq enterprise exceeds $500bn and is growing at $2bn weekly. Whether the public likes it or not, they are the military, and their labor and wages are going to sustain it. It does not operate in a vacuum and would not be able to continue to operate with
Except that Al Qaeda doesn't want to kill all the Jews. Destroy Israel, yes. But Israel is a nation, not an ethnicity, and the crux of the issue for Al Qaeda is not ethnic as it was for Hitler. There are more Jews outside of Israel than in it, and Al Qaeda has not shown an interest in trying to hunt down and liquidate jews around the world as a matter of course.
Wow. I disagree with you strenuously on every point.
Radical? Absolutely, breaking with tradition and global consensus on nearly every issue and decision.
Corporatist? They let major corporations sit in on policy authorship. The revolving door between the military-industrial aristocracy and government authority is at record levels.
Authoritarian? See bills referenced here and consider it a nascent, but rapidly growing, authoritarianism with a strong will to power.
Nationalism? You've got to be kidding me, you dispute this? This is the most racist, jingoistic, willfully xenophobic, flag-waving, God-appropriating culture since Nazi germany. Your ability to even get a job, a loan, or get admitted to a school is based on your willingness to sing the praises of Bush and wrap yourself in the flag.
Militarism? Well, let's see. A war in Afghanistan, a unilateral war against Iraq just for amusement, third front in Iran almost a given within the next year, with noises about Syria, North Korea, and China if they continue to annoy Taiwan. An almost continuous preoccupation in the policy infrastructure and public discourse with war, the portrayal of war, the policy of war, or the conditions of war. This entire nation is a military.
Anti-anarchism? Anarchism being libertarian leftism, this country has less patience for anarchism than almost anything else.
Anti-communism? Except discussions about to communism, socialism, Marxism, or U.S. economic imperialism.
Anti-liberalism? Liberalism being the general enlightenment-centric approach to individual liberty, market freedom, etc. The U.S. is exceedingly anti-liberal in its marketplace tendencies, as many on Slashdot have bemoaned. It is not at all laissez-faire in its tendency in the marketplace, but fosters close relationships with corporate interests and manages the market carefully through the manipulation of currency and global debt.
And to vote or decide your policy positions based on that lack of information, how about just reading the bills? You're right, the media does a poor job of covering lawmaking. In fact, I'd say it does almost no job at all. But don't just decide to be uninformed until further notice. Because while everyone is doing that, time's a-passing and so are new laws.
Torture/Habeas law (now passed, ready for signing) here. House bill on wiretapping (passed house) here.
Notice that it doesn't explicitly "remove" your citizenship. What it does is remove the courts' jurisdiction to hear you challenge the government's assertion that you're an alien enemy combatant rather than a citizen, even if you've been an American all your life until now. They say you're an alien enemy combatant, it becomes truth simply because there is no way under law to undo it once it's said. And then they can torture you.
Obviously they were annoyed with the supreme court's recent rulings on detention and trial, so they just wrote the court's jurisdiction over the entire process right out of the law.
As it is written, even if you have a passport, a draft card, and a slice of applie pie in your pocket when they pick you up, it doesn't matter, because not only do you not get a day in court, the courts have no jurisdiction to rule on your status anyway, beginning the very moment the government determines that you're an alien enemy combatant, regardless of whether you were picked up in Afghanistan or Denver.
Bush: "You're an enemy combatant, not a citizen. I decided. Off to the torture chambers with you." You: "Yes I am TOO a citizen! I get a trial! I can't be tortured!" Bush: "Too late, I already said you're not. Neener neener. [To guard:] Take him away." You: "But I can prove it! I demand to show my proof of citizenship to a judge. When is my day in court?" Bush: "Um, sorry, but judges only have jurisdiction over citizens."
[Guard takes you away and starts the torture.]
That, and the fact that we are legalizing torture at all, regardless of who it is, is what makes this bill scary. And now law (assuming the president doesn't suddenly go insane and veto it).
-------------
SEC. 6. HABEAS CORPUS MATTERS.
(a) In General- Section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, is amended--
(1) by striking subsection (e) (as added by section 1005(e)(1) of Public Law 109-148 (119 Stat. 2742)) and by striking subsection (e) (as added by added by section 1405(e)(1) of Public Law 109-163 (119 Stat. 3477)); and
(2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who--
`(A) is currently in United States custody; and
`(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
`(2) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (10 U.S.C. 801 note), no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien detained by the United States who--
`(A) is currently in United States custody; and
`(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.'.
(b) Effective Date- The amendments made by subsection (a) shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act, and shall apply to all cases, without exception, pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act which relate to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of detention of an alien detained by the United States since September 11, 2001.
First let me begin with "fascism." Rather than cover old ground again, everyone can just read my other post in this story about fascism and decide for themselves whether facist is an appropriate term for the Bush administration.
Now, on to the show.
"Appealing to fear isn't OK, ever."
Wrong. Appealing to an appropriate level of fear is a moral imperative if the fear is of a real threat. To watch someone face a real threat unbeknownst to them and not suggest to them that they should be afraid and do something about it would be morally unforgivable. What's at issue here is the "appropriate level of fear" that we should appeal to. The government suggests ZERO fear of them, and INFINITE fear of Al Qaeda, which runs not only counter to logic in the face of the size and reach of each, but also counter to actual history of abuse (the government having exercised more of it). The appropriate level of fear to which to appeal is likely a little bit in the case of Al Qaeda (about enough that you can call it "conscious awareness" but not much more) and a healthy portion in the case of the government (enough that you can call it "vigilance and a tendency toward activism" I should think).
"that's the same logic that the President is using to scare people into giving him power" "logically fallacious bullshit"
It's not logically fallacious at all. You haven't pointed out the fallacy. It is not true that simply because the logic is incorrect in the case of the fear of terrorists, it must therefore also be incorrect in the case of the fear of government abuse. This is because the terrorists are not the government, ergo, an argument about the relative power of the government does not become fallacious simply because a similarly structured argument about the relative power of the terrorists is found to be fallacious.
And the terrorists are not the government. How about a thought experiment:
You post two things on the Yahoo! News discussion board that are not explicit threats. One would make Osama Bin Laden want to kill you if he found out about it, and the other would make Bush want to kill you if he found out about it.
In the case of OBL:
- Osama would likely never find out about it, as he'd have to stumble across it on the 'net during one of his marathon Yahoo! News-reading sessions
- If he did by some obscene cosmic conicidence find out about it, he'd gnash his teeth a lot at the fact that he had no idea where you lived or who you are
- Even if he somehow managed (and this boggles the mind) to find out who you are and where you lived, he'd still have a logistical exercise in trying to set up a hit on you here from all the way over there
- In truth, no matter how angry at you he was, he'd never bother, because it isn't worth the expense, complexity, or small potential reward of carrying out the exercise when compared to the risk of its failure
In the case of Bush:
- Given what we know now, it's likely in the national system the moment you post it, filed under "possible subversive, open up a file on him"
- Given corporate willingness to bow to government requests for data, they'd likely have your real name and address if they wanted it within a day or two, if not sooner
- Given the torture bill that just passed yesterday, they could decide that you are now an enemy combatant and can be picked up and tortured; the moment they decide this, you are legally outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts
- Now all that remains is for them to pick you up; a simple matter, just phone the local police and have them deliver you to the feds
- You are gone forever
That is the difference that makes one source of fear minor (terrorists) and the other source of fear major (government). You have made the mistake of assuming that the structure of an argument was invalid on its face
I absolutely can't believe that such a term has come into common use. It boggles the mind. For everyone, here is a definition of fascism from Wikipedia:
"Fascism is a radical political ideology that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, nationalism, militarism, anti-anarchism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism."
Sound like any government we know?
Now, for the historical parallels to Germany, that everyone who doesn't know their history ridicules. Please feel free to read about:
The Weimar Republic (compare to today's polical and esp. economic situation) The Reichstag Fire (compare to 9/11) The Enabling Act (compare to current legislation on torture, wiretapping, habeas, etc.)
Does any of this sound familiar? Hello? Perhaps people need to realize that those comparing Nazi Germany and the United States are not pulling the comparison out of thin air... unlike those trying to compare Al Qaeda and the Nazis, which have absolutely nothing to do with one another.
The U.S. government is here, it has an infrastructure and oversight over communications, the economy, law enforcement, social services, and the most potent reservoir of arms (small and large) in the world. It engages in transactions of every kind (economic, social, political) numbering in the billions every week.
The "terrorists" are an ill-defined, not-very-well-armed group of people that the government would like you to be afraid of. They engage in at most several hundred random transactions all over the world in a given year.
The U.S. oligarchy would like to use fear of the terrorists to keep you and the public from fearing what they are doing. Whether this takes the form of your being so afraid of the terrorists that you can't focus on anything else, or whether it takes the form of your deciding that there is nothing at all to be afraid of/all fears are equally invalid, they don't care.
They're just happy you're not watching to see what they're doing. Anyone who reads the bills in question and doesn't realize that this is a power grab has a truly naive belief in American Exceptionalism and the uniquely benign nature of the American military-industrial aristocracy vis-a-vis those in the rest of the world.
There is a big difference between the government and the terrorists: the government is big, it's powerful, and now it owns you.
begin to complain? You seem to be saying that until they arrive in jackboots to carry you off, it's too early to complain. Well I have news for you: once they arrive in jackboots to carry you off, it's too late to complain.
For those who saw my post yesterday about the Senate torture/habeas corpus bill... An amendment toning the bill down was rejected early in the day, and then the bill in its full-strength, scary form was passed and will be signed into law by the President shortly:
Slashdot Mirror
I am a longtime (longtime) Linux and UNIX user, but after initially being the platform of choice for Webbing (I remember using term + Mosaic long before you could take Windows on the WWW) Linux/Unix of the last few years has been behind IE/Windows in the user interface department, in part because of a browser experience that was just plain *slower* on the same hardware. Anyone who dual-boots has likely experienced this.
With FireFox 2.0's new forward/back method, in combination with SwiftFox and FasterFox (there is a 2.0-compatible version out there, just do a Google search), the Linux browsing experience is finally faster in every way (including back/forward) than the Windows/IE version. It's like the universe has realigned itself according to what always should have been.
For years now, I have been more than willing to buy a $10 album. I don't need a CD at all. Offer me:
- Songs and PDF cover art in a ZIP file or other format I can access from any OS
- encoded in a non-DRM format like MP3 or OGG, at high quality
- in a single-click download that bills my credit card.
I have bought several independent albums this way. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to make this kind of purchase of a major label album, but have instead just bought nothing rather than have to make my way all the way to some retailer, then all the way back home, then rip the damn thing myself--in combination, an all-afternoon project if you want an album.
With a $10 album download as a ZIP file containing MP3s, they'd get essentially the same price that they're getting already, without having to manufacture material goods, and they'll sell more albums (at least to me). It's paying for convenience. The ability to go to one site, complete a simple process, pay a known price, and have instant gratification beats any kind of P2P file sharing or any retail format. But somehow it just doesn't happen.
Instead they want us to choose between inconvenience (driving to the store, ripping it yourself) and inconvenience (DRM, proprietary software and downloads, having to buy one song at a time to get an entire album). So in the end many of us buy nothing at all.
notexto
I think the core of your question is about giving away Windows licenses for free. We love developers, period. We're also not about to give away Windows client licenses.
"You want access to our commanding market share of users? Then you'll damn well have to buy our product and become one of them. No cross-platform development for you."
I have a 5.25" 2/3 height (yes, 2/3 height, one-bay-and-a-half) removable SyQuest drive here with a couple of old disks. It no longer works, but it connects to any industry standard "MFM controller" (you remember, dual cables, a 14-pin data cable and a 34-pin control cable, really an "IBM PC style" hard drive adapter is probably more descriptive) and has a large glass window with a foam seal. The disks are 5MB each; to change them, you open the window pull the old one out, and put the new one in--with the PC off, of course.
I also have a truly massive dual-Bernoulli box here, with dual 5MB drives. These connect to a proprietary Iomega ISA controller over a large cable. The box is exactly the same size as the original IBM 5150 PC case, but the front is completely open and the two drives occupy its entirety. They have huge doors. The 5MB disks are the size of large paperback books or maybe slightly smaller than dinner plates. The thing weighs more than fort Knox.
I don't personally know which was first, but I was personally using both of these way back in the mid '80s as a BBS operator who needed backup and storage rotation media, and I had already got them secondhand from local universities, etc. at that time.
Put them to work in a special prison computer room where they have to filter SPAM out of government email boxes by hand, one click at a time, 10 hours/day. Every time they let a SPAM message through or accidentally can a good message, they get 24 hours in solitary confinement without food. No, make that they get 24 hours in solitary confinement and have to eat nothing but hunks of SPAM for the rest of the week.
They should receive 1 year of time in prison doing this for every 1 year they were SPAMming on the outside.
This sounds like scientific management all over again.
If a company buys this argument and moves to 30" displays in the interest of increased productivity, they're going to expect to see that increase. When I worked at eBay there was a lot of emphasis on measuring the speed of computing operations (not as the computer did them, but as the human carried them out) in addition to measuring our productivity vis-a-vis the job we were actually supposed to be doing.
It is nothing new for companies to want to measure employees' use of time, as time is money (this being of course the fundamental equivalence of capitalism). But the more finely granular the unit of time measurement becomes in the productivity per unit time measurement, the more regimentation begins to seem like tyranny and the identity of the subject becomes unimportant in the face of the domination imposed by the measurement of the process itself.
You cannot mechanise the body, because humans are not inorganic machines. Of course due to the nature of capitalism we'll continue to try to cling to this 19th century notion in order to avoid "wasted" time. You know, time spent making a given motion more comfortable for the human that is carrying it out, as opposed to more fast and repetitios until that human breaks down in some way and is replaced with another. Or, say, time actually spent living and reflecting on living. God forbid.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to individual selection of a large display in order to work in whatever way they prefer (whether faster, more comfortable, etc.) But the point at which companies begin to buy bigger displays specifically in hopes of realizing an "n seconds per operation per employee gain that translates into q dollars" is the old Fordist model at its worst.
wings generate lift
birds have wings
Because CrossOver is so much faster and more convenient that it puts the rest to shame. I have VMWare and use it when I have to. But if I had to choose between one of the two, CrossOver wins hands down.
Look at what's happening in Europe as the muslims are flooding in and reproducing faster than the natives. Pretty soon, you'll see them adopting Sharia there. If you want to see a country become destabilized as they lose the core values that binds them all together, good luck in the ensuing anarchy.
Way to sound like a bigot. More importantly, this is what societies do, you know? Things change. Demographics change. Some people reproduce quickly, others slowly. As populations shift, practices and policies shift. That's called (drumroll) democracy. Sorry to burst your bubble, I know you thought democracy was this violent, totalitarian stuff that Bush was promoting, but no, it's just policies more or less following the lead of changes in the population.
The "core values that bind them all together" that you refer to... You would preserve these, work to keep them, and if you had to manipulate the population demographics or reproduction a little, keep some people down in order to make sure that others others don't lose the singular culture that they already have, that would be okay, right? Of course, that would just be eugenics, but hey, we're all conservatives here. Sich heil and all that.
it ain't the military... the military is a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on socialism
First off, the ratio is decidedly un-drop-in-the-bucket-like, more like 2:1, social services vs. military industry/expenditure. Next, realize that social services money isn't being taxed out of the economy, it's going right back into it when it pays for drugs, housing, food, and all the other things that constitute a social safety net. ON THE OTHER HAND, the resources portion of that military money goes out and get blown up and shot down with every pretty missile, smart-bomb, or fast-plane explosion and burned right out the tailpipe (or similar appendages on planes, tanks, jeeps, submarines, aircraft carriers, personnel carriers...) leaving dollars for non-American economies. Still more of it is multiplicative, i.e. spend $millions$ hitting an Iraqi village, and you get the privelege of spending $many more millions$ on medical care and resources to rebuild it, only this time the money doesn't go back into the general blue and white collars of the American economy, it goes to the few fat cats at the top of the multinational economy in specialized industries that can operate overseas.
And if you think we have a socialist political-economic system in the United States, then you have lost every bit as much perspective as people think you arch-conservatives have.
The slant is so obvious.
Always the conservatives are screaming about "balance." Reality itself is not "fair and balanced." The Republicans are destroying the country, the environment, and the Earth. Not the Democrats. So get over it. The very notion that media needs to be "balanced" is how we got into this position in the first place.
Media is supposed to report on what is happening. Not make you feel better about your political views if they suck, or make you feel as though you're just as good as everyone else if you're not.
I am entirely unwilling to spend on someone so completely and utterly beyond the level of truth-seeking and well into the realm of agenda-pushing
Well, then I need say nothing more in response to you.
Radical?
Absolutely, breaking with tradition and global consensus on nearly every issue and decision.
What does this have to do with our form of government? The US and Brittain broke with "global consensus" when they stood up to Nazi Germany. Did that make them Fascists? The USSR did the same from the 1950's to the mid 80's. I had no idea they were fascists either!
No, but it does make them radical, which is one criterion for fascism.
Corporatist?
They let major corporations sit in on policy authorship. The revolving door between the military-industrial aristocracy and government authority is at record levels.
Assuming this were true, how is this is unique to the Bush administration? Oil companies pretty much rule Saudi Arabia via Saudi royalty, are they fascists too?
Again, it is not unique. But it is a second criterion met.
Authoritarian?
See bills referenced here and consider it a nascent, but rapidly growing, authoritarianism with a strong will to power.
Again, that fact that we are having this converstaion via servers based on the US disproves your point.
And for how much longer is precisely the point of this story and this debate. It is what is at issue: some of us want to stop yet another criterion from being met.
Nationalism?
You've got to be kidding me, you dispute this? This is the most racist, jingoistic, willfully xenophobic, flag-waving, God-appropriating culture since Nazi germany. Your ability to even get a job, a loan, or get admitted to a school is based on your willingness to sing the praises of Bush and wrap yourself in the flag.
Again, if true, how is this unique to the Bush administration?
Also, how is having a cabinet more divers than any other administration make this one racists? Isn't flagwaving a prerequisite for the job of the Presidency? Nazi Germany was God-appropriating? (and) GWB is more so than, say, Jimmy Carter? Finally, I work at a major (really big) computer manufacturer here in the US. I work with a guy that has a red star tatoo and wears shirts with Castro's picture or some other sort of communist propaganda on it every day. How was he able to get his job, his car loan, his mortgage and everything else he has or does with that sort of thing if he was unwilling to sing the praises of Bush and wrap himself in the flag.
Again, strong nationalism is one more criterion. I'll let Slashdot readers make their own determinations about whether a culture of nationalism in the U.S. currently exists and whether it impacts things like social capital and the ability to curry favor, service, or employment.
Militarism?
Well, let's see. A war in Afghanistan, a unilateral war against Iraq just for amusement, third front in Iran almost a given within the next year, with noises about Syria, North Korea, and China if they continue to annoy Taiwan. An almost continuous preoccupation in the policy infrastructure and public discourse with war, the portrayal of war, the policy of war, or the conditions of war. This entire nation is a military.
Again, how is this different than a war in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Japan, Iwo Jima, Burma, North Africa and everywhere else we fought in WWII? Were Roosevelt and Churchill Fascists? As to the entire nation being "a military", I have not seen a tank roll down a public street since... well, never. I have never seen a military checkpoint outside a military base anywhere in the US. For that matter, it was quite a shock to see armed military in our airports after 9-11.
Again, one more criterion. I've seen tanks, and troop carriers, rolling down the highway, and I've seen assault rifles on uniformed personnel in bus terminals and at airports. More to the point, the current cost of the Iraq enterprise exceeds $500bn and is growing at $2bn weekly. Whether the public likes it or not, they are the military, and their labor and wages are going to sustain it. It does not operate in a vacuum and would not be able to continue to operate with
How is "No, Al Qaeda does not want to kill all Jews." nuanced? It isn't, it's a quite basic disagreement with your position. Make a point or don't.
Except that Al Qaeda doesn't want to kill all the Jews. Destroy Israel, yes. But Israel is a nation, not an ethnicity, and the crux of the issue for Al Qaeda is not ethnic as it was for Hitler. There are more Jews outside of Israel than in it, and Al Qaeda has not shown an interest in trying to hunt down and liquidate jews around the world as a matter of course.
There is no parallel there.
Wow. I disagree with you strenuously on every point.
Radical?
Absolutely, breaking with tradition and global consensus on nearly every issue and decision.
Corporatist?
They let major corporations sit in on policy authorship. The revolving door between the military-industrial aristocracy and government authority is at record levels.
Authoritarian?
See bills referenced here and consider it a nascent, but rapidly growing, authoritarianism with a strong will to power.
Nationalism?
You've got to be kidding me, you dispute this? This is the most racist, jingoistic, willfully xenophobic, flag-waving, God-appropriating culture since Nazi germany. Your ability to even get a job, a loan, or get admitted to a school is based on your willingness to sing the praises of Bush and wrap yourself in the flag.
Militarism?
Well, let's see. A war in Afghanistan, a unilateral war against Iraq just for amusement, third front in Iran almost a given within the next year, with noises about Syria, North Korea, and China if they continue to annoy Taiwan. An almost continuous preoccupation in the policy infrastructure and public discourse with war, the portrayal of war, the policy of war, or the conditions of war. This entire nation is a military.
Anti-anarchism?
Anarchism being libertarian leftism, this country has less patience for anarchism than almost anything else.
Anti-communism?
Except discussions about to communism, socialism, Marxism, or U.S. economic imperialism.
Anti-liberalism?
Liberalism being the general enlightenment-centric approach to individual liberty, market freedom, etc. The U.S. is exceedingly anti-liberal in its marketplace tendencies, as many on Slashdot have bemoaned. It is not at all laissez-faire in its tendency in the marketplace, but fosters close relationships with corporate interests and manages the market carefully through the manipulation of currency and global debt.
And to vote or decide your policy positions based on that lack of information, how about just reading the bills? You're right, the media does a poor job of covering lawmaking. In fact, I'd say it does almost no job at all. But don't just decide to be uninformed until further notice. Because while everyone is doing that, time's a-passing and so are new laws.
Torture/Habeas law (now passed, ready for signing) here.
House bill on wiretapping (passed house) here.
(see below for text from bill)
Notice that it doesn't explicitly "remove" your citizenship. What it does is remove the courts' jurisdiction to hear you challenge the government's assertion that you're an alien enemy combatant rather than a citizen, even if you've been an American all your life until now. They say you're an alien enemy combatant, it becomes truth simply because there is no way under law to undo it once it's said. And then they can torture you.
Obviously they were annoyed with the supreme court's recent rulings on detention and trial, so they just wrote the court's jurisdiction over the entire process right out of the law.
As it is written, even if you have a passport, a draft card, and a slice of applie pie in your pocket when they pick you up, it doesn't matter, because not only do you not get a day in court, the courts have no jurisdiction to rule on your status anyway, beginning the very moment the government determines that you're an alien enemy combatant, regardless of whether you were picked up in Afghanistan or Denver.
Bush: "You're an enemy combatant, not a citizen. I decided. Off to the torture chambers with you."
You: "Yes I am TOO a citizen! I get a trial! I can't be tortured!"
Bush: "Too late, I already said you're not. Neener neener. [To guard:] Take him away."
You: "But I can prove it! I demand to show my proof of citizenship to a judge. When is my day in court?"
Bush: "Um, sorry, but judges only have jurisdiction over citizens."
[Guard takes you away and starts the torture.]
That, and the fact that we are legalizing torture at all, regardless of who it is, is what makes this bill scary. And now law (assuming the president doesn't suddenly go insane and veto it).
-------------
SEC. 6. HABEAS CORPUS MATTERS.
(a) In General- Section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, is amended--
(1) by striking subsection (e) (as added by section 1005(e)(1) of Public Law 109-148 (119 Stat. 2742)) and by striking subsection (e) (as added by added by section 1405(e)(1) of Public Law 109-163 (119 Stat. 3477)); and
(2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who--
`(A) is currently in United States custody; and
`(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
`(2) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (10 U.S.C. 801 note), no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien detained by the United States who--
`(A) is currently in United States custody; and
`(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.'.
(b) Effective Date- The amendments made by subsection (a) shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act, and shall apply to all cases, without exception, pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act which relate to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of detention of an alien detained by the United States since September 11, 2001.
I'll let other people make their own value judgments about Nazi Germany. My only goal in the above post is to show that:
1) Comparisons between fascism and Bushism are not merely coincidental and
2) Comparisons between Al Qaeda and fascism are bewilderingly baseless
First let me begin with "fascism." Rather than cover old ground again, everyone can just read my other post in this story about fascism and decide for themselves whether facist is an appropriate term for the Bush administration.
Now, on to the show.
"Appealing to fear isn't OK, ever."
Wrong. Appealing to an appropriate level of fear is a moral imperative if the fear is of a real threat. To watch someone face a real threat unbeknownst to them and not suggest to them that they should be afraid and do something about it would be morally unforgivable. What's at issue here is the "appropriate level of fear" that we should appeal to. The government suggests ZERO fear of them, and INFINITE fear of Al Qaeda, which runs not only counter to logic in the face of the size and reach of each, but also counter to actual history of abuse (the government having exercised more of it). The appropriate level of fear to which to appeal is likely a little bit in the case of Al Qaeda (about enough that you can call it "conscious awareness" but not much more) and a healthy portion in the case of the government (enough that you can call it "vigilance and a tendency toward activism" I should think).
"that's the same logic that the President is using to scare people into giving him power"
"logically fallacious bullshit"
It's not logically fallacious at all. You haven't pointed out the fallacy. It is not true that simply because the logic is incorrect in the case of the fear of terrorists, it must therefore also be incorrect in the case of the fear of government abuse. This is because the terrorists are not the government, ergo, an argument about the relative power of the government does not become fallacious simply because a similarly structured argument about the relative power of the terrorists is found to be fallacious.
And the terrorists are not the government. How about a thought experiment:
You post two things on the Yahoo! News discussion board that are not explicit threats. One would make Osama Bin Laden want to kill you if he found out about it, and the other would make Bush want to kill you if he found out about it.
In the case of OBL:
- Osama would likely never find out about it, as he'd have to stumble across it on the 'net during one of his marathon Yahoo! News-reading sessions
- If he did by some obscene cosmic conicidence find out about it, he'd gnash his teeth a lot at the fact that he had no idea where you lived or who you are
- Even if he somehow managed (and this boggles the mind) to find out who you are and where you lived, he'd still have a logistical exercise in trying to set up a hit on you here from all the way over there
- In truth, no matter how angry at you he was, he'd never bother, because it isn't worth the expense, complexity, or small potential reward of carrying out the exercise when compared to the risk of its failure
In the case of Bush:
- Given what we know now, it's likely in the national system the moment you post it, filed under "possible subversive, open up a file on him"
- Given corporate willingness to bow to government requests for data, they'd likely have your real name and address if they wanted it within a day or two, if not sooner
- Given the torture bill that just passed yesterday, they could decide that you are now an enemy combatant and can be picked up and tortured; the moment they decide this, you are legally outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts
- Now all that remains is for them to pick you up; a simple matter, just phone the local police and have them deliver you to the feds
- You are gone forever
That is the difference that makes one source of fear minor (terrorists) and the other source of fear major (government). You have made the mistake of assuming that the structure of an argument was invalid on its face
which were to be the other "compare" that goes with the Enabling Act.
If you're not aware of Bush's signing statements, see this.
I absolutely can't believe that such a term has come into common use. It boggles the mind. For everyone, here is a definition of fascism from Wikipedia:
"Fascism is a radical political ideology that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, nationalism, militarism, anti-anarchism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism."
Sound like any government we know?
Now, for the historical parallels to Germany, that everyone who doesn't know their history ridicules. Please feel free to read about:
The Weimar Republic (compare to today's polical and esp. economic situation)
The Reichstag Fire (compare to 9/11)
The Enabling Act (compare to current legislation on torture, wiretapping, habeas, etc.)
Does any of this sound familiar? Hello? Perhaps people need to realize that those comparing Nazi Germany and the United States are not pulling the comparison out of thin air... unlike those trying to compare Al Qaeda and the Nazis, which have absolutely nothing to do with one another.
No, there is a difference:
The U.S. government is here, it has an infrastructure and oversight over communications, the economy, law enforcement, social services, and the most potent reservoir of arms (small and large) in the world. It engages in transactions of every kind (economic, social, political) numbering in the billions every week.
The "terrorists" are an ill-defined, not-very-well-armed group of people that the government would like you to be afraid of. They engage in at most several hundred random transactions all over the world in a given year.
The U.S. oligarchy would like to use fear of the terrorists to keep you and the public from fearing what they are doing. Whether this takes the form of your being so afraid of the terrorists that you can't focus on anything else, or whether it takes the form of your deciding that there is nothing at all to be afraid of/all fears are equally invalid, they don't care.
They're just happy you're not watching to see what they're doing. Anyone who reads the bills in question and doesn't realize that this is a power grab has a truly naive belief in American Exceptionalism and the uniquely benign nature of the American military-industrial aristocracy vis-a-vis those in the rest of the world.
There is a big difference between the government and the terrorists: the government is big, it's powerful, and now it owns you.
begin to complain? You seem to be saying that until they arrive in jackboots to carry you off, it's too early to complain. Well I have news for you: once they arrive in jackboots to carry you off, it's too late to complain.
For those who saw my post yesterday about the Senate torture/habeas corpus bill... An amendment toning the bill down was rejected early in the day, and then the bill in its full-strength, scary form was passed and will be signed into law by the President shortly:
i -0609290178sep29,1,1387725.story?coll=chi-newsnati onworld-hed0 60928.html
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ch
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/26947prs20
So, a bill legalizing wiretapping would just be par for the course for this government.
Oh, and welcome to the police state . You may not notice any difference at first... but sooner or later it's probably safe to say that you will.