IF you threaten to sue us due to any content that we link to, simply send us the domain names in question and we will completely forever remove any links to your sites.
Can you imagine the technical nightmare for Google to verify the authenticity of every such request?
Of course, the ultimate endpoint of this phase of the War of the Web would be a letter to Google that looks like this:
Dear Google:
This letter is to inform you that certain images and text being indexed by your search engine are copyrighted property of Microsoft, Inc. Please immedeately cease and desist all linking to any material originating in the microsoft.com domain.
I've read the article. I'll assume for the four students correctly conducted the analysis they've described. The results are compelling: Essentially, net of other effects, electronic voting had the greatest positive effect on change in percent voting for Bush from 2000 to 2004 in democratic counties.
But, the unanswered question is, is there a causal relationship between the presence of e-voting and the "unexpected" change in Bush voting percentage?
A few additional facts:
Of the 67 counties in Florida, 15 used electronic touchscreen voting. (map here) Of these 15 counties, exactly three (Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach) were democratic counties. (map here)
The outlying data points, on which the students base their conclusion, consists of three counties. Which happened to have been the focus of the 2000 election irregularities. And which happened to have been heavily campaigned, by both candidates. One could argue that there are a couple of causal relationships here:
a) because the elections in these counties did not go smoothly in 2000, there was pressure to reform the process, and e-voting was installed. b) because the 2000 election hinged on these counties, the campaigning was extremely heavy there in 2004.
One stimulus (2000 election debacle/recount) may have caused both the e-voting implementation, and the Bush shift.
The authors of the paper go on to say that a similar analysis of Ohio e-voting returns showed no relationship between voting method and change in Bush percentage. Why would the relationship be causal in Florida, but not in Ohio -- or anywhere else that we're aware of?
The city-wide network will be built by Q-Ware Corp., a unit of the Uni-President group, which also holds the 7-Eleven franchise in Taiwan.
What on earth does 7-Eleven ownership have to do with wireless networks? Why was this tasty tidbit featured so prominently in the synopsis?
Re:Why Hunt? A hunter responds.
on
Internet Hunting
·
· Score: 1
Out in the country we kill them wherever we can, because it's dinner
If you're looking for as much meat as quickly as possible, then by all means, go ahead. What you're describing is hunting as a chore, not hunting as a pastime.
My grandfather grew up on the plains of North Dakota in the 40's. His father would give him three shotshells and expected him to return with dinner. If he didn't, Grandpa tells me, he was punished. Grandpa had no qualms shooting a flock of mallards in the water at close range.
Every year, I return to the old family farm in North Dakota, to hunt those same mallards. With a bag limit of five, I'd be done hunting in ten minutes if I simply found the first flock sitting on the water and started pounding them. Instead, I set out decoys and wait to shoot them on the wing, and get a full morning of entertainment out of it. I'm not a farmer, I'm an actuary. I have the luxury of time and an unlimited supply of ammo.
And I probably enjoy my hunting a lot more than Grandpa did, 60 years ago.
Why Hunt? A hunter responds.
on
Internet Hunting
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I don't get the lure of hunting at all. I'll try to respond to this, honestly and respectfully. Bear in mind, I'm only one hunter, so my motivations will not match those of all other hunters.
My father imparted me with two fundamental hunting ethics: 1. Give your prey a the opportunity to use his strengths against you This means that, when hunting birds, you don't shoot them on the ground, or in the water. If you encounter a stationary game bird, you first flush the bird, and allow it to put some distince between it and you, before you shoot. For big game (deer, for example), choose your weaponry or environment so as to require a very close (20-30 yards) encounter. Deer have unbelievably sharp senses of sight, smell, and hearing. Getting one to approach you to within 20 yards is no easy task. Some big-game hunters proudly display the elk trophy they took with a 350-yard shot -- I wouldn't call that hunting; it's more like a display of marksmanship. If you want to impress me with your skills as a hunter, show me the elk you took with a bow at 25 yards.
2. Only kill what you intend to eat. You can't "catch and release" when you're hunting. If you don't intend on eating it, you've got no reason to kill it. People who grow vegetables will tell you that tomatoes, corn, beans, peas -- all taste better when they come from your own garden. In addition, you know that they're organic (if you've chosen to raise them that way.) In the same way, pheasant, duck, and venison taste better to me when I know I've harvested it myself. In addition, I know that this meat is "free range" and organic, as well as lower in fat than anything I can buy at market.
In your comments, you raise some frequently-heard arguments: The animals stand no chance. Neither does the pig, cow, or chicken going to slaughter. Using ethic #1, above, the prey is allowed to use his innate talents against my technology. The majority of the time (in my own hunting experience) the animal wins.
The hardest part is finding something - after that, if you have reasonable aim, you will surely kill it. This is partially true. It is difficult, and rewarding, to find game animals. I've spent many long, quiet hours remaining motionless in the woods waiting to hear or see a deer. Some of those unsuccessful hunts are memorable to me because of everything else I've seen -- an ermine catching a mouse, a wren landing on my boot, a skunk leading her kits across a field.
Reasonable aim isn't a guaranteed kill, however. There are species of ducks (scaup) I hunt that fly at nearly 50 miles per hour. This season, I saw perhaps 300 of these ducks, was able to lure enough into range to take a dozen shots, and killed only two.
I think all hunters should have to fight the animals with hand-to-hand combat. Give the animal a chance to do some damage in return. I've often thought about this. I've been close enough to deer on several occasions that I could have jumped out of my tree with a knife in hand to do battle. I'm not sure it's legal in my state to kill a deer with a knife. I'm also not positive that I could have a "cleaner" kill with a kife than with an arrow or bullet to the heart.
I understand that hunting is not for everyone. I don't deride those who don't enjoy hunting. There's a thrill in hunting, and it's not about killing, death and destruction - it's about personal accomplishment, of self-sufficiency. Sure, I could go to the grocery store and buy a duck -- hunting may cost more, but in the end I get the duck, the memory of the sunrise that morning, and a sense of achievement as well.
This was the cheat code for Contra for Nintendo to allow you to play with 30 lives. My brother and I would do this and beat the game in about an hour, once we got the hang of it.
Now that I think about it, perhaps the "SELECT" I remember is that when I would play with my brother, the "SELECT" would enable two-player mode. If you were playing solo, the cheat code would might be as per your sig.
Good times.
128-bit GPUs? We don't need no stinkin' 128-bit GPUs!
People in general are honest - and those that aren't get caught eventually by honest people.
Did you read any local news over the last two months? Did you see any campaign ads?
People don't generally walk into their local grocery store and steal stuff because they feel it's wrong. This level of morality apparently doesn't apply in American politics.
This year, we saw common, everyday people (and kids) defacing political signs, engaging in public obscenity shouting matches, and vandalising vehicles with the "wrong" bumper stickers.
We saw our politicians, "journalists", and entertainers insult out intelligence by promulgating lies and half-truths about one candidate or another. All this on both sides of the political fence.
In America, it seems that morality and elections are not related. I don't know that anything is out of bounds now, short of murder.
If it were possible to manipulate electronic vote counts, it would happen. There needs to be a method of audit available.
I agree that people are generally honest, but would add except in election years, when this axiom is suspended.
Thanks God it's all over and we can go back to being honest people again for three years.
Thanks for the interesting feedback and analysis. I really appreciate it when I can throw out some of my opinions -- not for the sake of starting a flame war, but to provoke conversation -- and get some meaningful thought thrown back at me. We're both better off as a result.
I got my very first "foe" in this thread. That's sad, because I was actually trying to be constructive this time. I think my words might have hit a little too close to home...
I'm fiscally very conservative, but socially, I'm slightly to the left. This surprised me when I took the politicalcompass survey. As is probably apparent in earlier posts on this thread, I don't know that I've quite figured out my position on the foreign affairs spectrum. That's fine; I'm not in any danger of being called upon to opine on Arab-American relations any time soon. I've got some time to figure myself out here.
I've voted Republican or third party for as long as I've been able to vote. But in the days after this election, I find myself melancholy -- I don't feel that the country has "won" by electing Bush. While I firmly believe that, had we elected Kerry, we'd be worse off in 2008 than in 2004, I'm not confident that, under Bush, we'll be any better off, either. I can only hope that, in 2008, we're not all still bitter, petty, whining, partisan political snobs.
Our enemies have declared war on us for 30 years of meddling in their affairs. Religion has little to do with it (other than the fact that their religion supports the eye for an eye mentality).
Thirty years ago, when we started meddling in their affairs, were we aware of the consequences, determined to act anyway, or were we ignorant of the ultimate result of our actions? We Americans need to own up to the answer to this question, and move forward accordingly.
If we can successfully extract ourselves from Iraq, how do we go about leaving the Middle East to its own devices without compromising our national security? I don't claim to have any answers. I'd love to see us withdraw entirely from the Middle East and from Israel, and let them work it out amongst themselves. We've got access to the oil and the uranium we need to free ourselves from their politics.
But will doing so set the course for a global conflict in the next generation?
Hindsight is 20/20. There's a lot we could have done over the last 30 years that would have made life a lot more peaceful in the Middle East right now. The tack the current administration appears to be taking, "Here, have some democracy. No, I insist!" is certainly a gamble. If it works, Bush will be seen as a visionary. If it doesn't, America's only dug a deeper divide between ourselves and quite a few nations. What choice do we now have but to support the course we're on?
It's like skydiving, and we've already jumped out of the airplane. We've discovered the parachute is missing. At this point, we can't go back, and we can't simply give up - it's time to start working on the reserve chute in the hope of a smooth landing. When we're back on the ground again, it'll be time to seriously challenge whether or not skydiving is worth the risk, whether we ever want to attempt it again.
If you're not downloading copyrighted material, then you're not uploading it, either. Since BT was not built with any sort of security in mind, then the "man" (the *AA, your campus network admin, your boss) can check on the bits you're passing... and will see that you're not passing any copyrighted bits.
What's that, you say? You want to transmit copyrighted bits? Then be warned: with BT, the "man" is watching you, and if you're doing something illegal or unethical, you may be caught. There's enough freely distributable bits out there to keep you happy for the rest of your life. Try it out.
I think that I stand corrected. I had never even considered that the Democratic party was seen by its constituency as "too centrist." Given your insightful commentary on the two Americas, I'll concede that it's possible. Those who need the Democratic party need a party that sits further left than its current incarnation.
I looked at the Democratic party this year, and its transformation through the primaries and into the election. I saw what was a reasonable starting platform begin to mold itself to the whims of Howard Dean, MoveOn.org, and Michael Moore. John Edwards, Wesley Clark, Joe Lieberman -- none of them nutjobs. Kerry wasn't a nutjob, either, but I felt he had become the tool of his party, which had now swung away from reasonability.
You're very correct that there are two fundamentally different populations in the country. I'm in Minnesota; I live in one, and commute every day to work in another. I've lived an urban life. I didn't like it, so I moved away. I understand that not everyone has this option.
We've got two fundamentally opposed populations in the country. How do we come together? We either have to compromise, or else agree to try to keep the bleeding to a minimum whenever we have to come into contact with one another. Is it possible for us to elect leadership that will help to unite us?
I think that it is, but it's not going to come from a candidate like Kerry or Bush, or from a party like today's Democrats or Republicans. I don't know that it's possible at all.
The US didn't point the barrel of the gun at Iraq; the UN did. We counted on the UN to protect our security. Saddam laughed at the UN's threats. When the UN backed down on its threat, we carried through, rather than let the UN compromise our security.
Perhaps the rest of the world will pay attention now when the UN points the barrel of the gun in their direction.
I's been clearly shown many times that Hussein wasn't behind the 9/11 attacks. It's not been so conclusively shown that he didn't have WMD. There certainly weren't any there when we arrived; either they were never there, or they were moved before we got there.
Undisputed facts: 1. He was an enemy of America 2. He had vast amounts of wealth to fund his operations 3. He had the technology needed to create WMD 4. He had previously generated and used WMD 5. He was a supported of the anti-American jihadists
Given his threatening posture, and his unwillingness to provide UN inspectors access to verify the lack of WMD, Bush decided (and I agree with him) that we had to act. As it turns out, he was wrong, I was wrong, Kerry was wrong, and the UN was wrong.
We all learn. We're all smarter as a result. Unfortunately, we can't put Pandora back in the box in Iraq - time to move on and clean up. At least they're a free people as a result.
In the future, perhaps Iran and North Korea will be more willing to submit to UN inspections -- they've seen what the consequences can be.
And the US and the world will be safer as a result. Not in 2004, not in 2005, but in 2015.
If a moderate Democrat had been on the ballot, he may have gotten my vote. If Kerry had shown an ounce of backbone, he may have gotten my vote.
If Edwards had been at the top of the ticket, millions more Americans would have voted against Bush. Edwards is electable. Kerry (as has been illustrated) was not; he ran head-to-head against an unpopular candidate, and lost.
Perhaps it's unfair to say that Kerry was unelectable. He would have won, if only the Republicans had nominated someone less polished and less popular than W, like Jeb Bush, Dan Quayle, or Trent Lott.
My kids are 4, 5, and 6. They's all old enough to be cannon fodder, if they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. My cousin is 19. He enlisted in 2003 with the intent of going to Iraq. He's now also cannon fodder. The difference is:
a) He volunteered to be placed in danger b) He's heavily armed
The world is full of people who have promised to kill Americans. I'm all in favor of sending our volunteer army to their doorstep to force them to break their promise.
Better the danger you can identify than the one you can't.
Two weeks before the election, and I saw Kerry continuing to change his mind on what he'd do about Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. He'd absolutely instate a draft. But he was opposed to the draft. He'd bring troops home immediately. But not until he'd secured the peace. He'd bribe France and Germany to participate in the effort. But he wouldn't resort to bribery to do it. I still don't understand what his final position was on Iran and North Korea.
For two years, I've understood Bush's position on Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Afghanistan was a success. Iraq, in retrospect, was overkill -- they weren't about to be sending hordes of BNC-armed terrorists streaming into the Capitol Mall. Unfortunately, Saddam had worked hard over the previous decade to convince the world that he had both the capability and intent to pull it off. Bush resorted to force to neutralize the threat.
America is now charged with focusing on the threats Iran and North Korea pose, both to ourselves, and to the rest of the world. Both of these countries already have nuclear capabilities, so military force isn't an easy option. Neither is appeasement. I don't care much what the French think of our efforts to defend ourselves. We'll keep buying their wine, and when they need our help again, we'll be there for them.
Bush is leading America into danger, to be sure. The world is a dangerous place. He's made the wise decision that it's better to confront our threats remotely and pre-emptively, than locally and unexpectedly.
We've lost over 1,000 of our citizens in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last 18 months. We lost 3,000 of our citizens in 12 hours on 9/11/2001.
It's possible that there's a better plan out there than the one Bush is pushing. Kerry didn't have it.
Bush is aggressive, to be sure. He's going to err on the side of using force now, rather than waiting to see what develops. Kerry's lack of focus or resolve, however, scared me.
If and when we get to the point where Iran (for example) is posing a tangible threat to US security, I'd like to see the following questions asked:
--Is this threat severe enough to warrant immediate action? --What will be the cost of such action, in casualties and $ --What's the exit strategy following such action? --Will this action make America safer?
Not the following:
--How will our actions affect our relationship with Germany? --How will this affect my chances at re-election? --What will I have to do to convince Tony Blair to join us?
I trust Bush to ask questions in the first group. I feel Kerry would focus on the second group. I value security over relations with our allies.
Actually, I meant that the Democratic leadership showed itself to be a bunch of left-leaning nutjobs. Kerry was not a nutjob, but merely moderately leftward-leaning. He was certainly not a "centrist".
My family (wife and three kids) supported Bush this year. Not because he's the magic bullet which will fix America's problems, but because he's much less dangerous than Kerry. Last night at dinner, the kids were watching the early returns, and were worried that Kerry might win. I told them, "Kerry might win. If he does, he's going to be our president for four years, and we'll do our best to support him. Everything will be all right."
Kerry was a very, very poor candidate. He was, as it turns out, unelectable. The Democrats were given the "Perfect Storm" election:
--A sitting president engaged in an unpopular war, with no clear extraction date --An incumbent who can't reliably speak the English language --Job loss statistics pointing to millions of lost jobs --Massive healthcare cost inflation --A swing from huge budget surpluses to huge deficits --A "charged-up" base who felt that the 2000 election had been stolen --Hundreds of millions of $ in 527 support
The Democratic party should have had no trouble presenting a candidate who would have been able to crush the incumbent. Instead, they chose Kerry.
I understand you're mad at the results. I think it's time to look inwardly, and reform the Democratic Party. Learn from this mistake. Show the American people that you're not run by left-wing nutjobs, and field an electable candidate, and I can't see how you lose in 2008.
If you want privacy, pay cash only, stay home, don't use phones, and don't do anything that requires identifying yourself.
What part of that is 'freedom' ? When did the USA go from 'the land of the free' to the 'spy on me any which way you want' ?
I note that none of this has anything to do with the discussion on passports. A US resident will NEVER need a passport if he doesn't intend on leaving the country. Operating within the country, it's perfectly possible to maintain your privacy against the prying eyes of the government. Use your credit cards, use your phone, subscribe to the newspaper. Uncle Sam doesn't care.
Corporate America, on the other hand, has used credit, phone, and subscription records to build an elaborate picture of who I am, where I go, and what I buy -- for the purposes of selling me more of the same. The government has nothing to do with it, other than staying out of the way and allowing it to happen. (This is fodder for another, much larger discussion.)
When I leave the country, I expect to give up my privacy. It's a reasonable tradeoff. I expect to inform my country of my travels. It would be nice, when I decide to return, if they'd let me back in. There are a lot of evil people in the world. Some of them are here in my country, but most of them are outside its borders. It's my government's primary responsibility to stop all of them from harming me. That's why I willingly pay my taxes.
...you *never* have to give fingerprints in the UK unless you've been caught breaking the law
Residents are asked for fingerprints when arrested here, too. Some banks require a thumbprint to cash a check if you're an unknown customer -- but you've still got the option of going to your "home" bank to cash that check, where printing wouldn't be required. Other than that, I can't think of an instance where civilian fingerprinting is required.
It warms my heart that my government asks alien visitors for their fingerprints. It makes me feel like my country is trying to do its job to keep me safe. The laws of my country provide no guarantee of safety or privacy for anyone outside its borders.
My governement carefully watching, screening, and fingerprinting alien visitors is a vitally necessary. My government carefully watching, screening, and fingerprinting its own citizens is unconscionable. There's a big difference between the two.
Slashdot Mirror
Google and others should adopt a policy such as:
IF you threaten to sue us due to any content that we link to, simply send us the domain names in question and we will completely forever remove any links to your sites.
Can you imagine the technical nightmare for Google to verify the authenticity of every such request?
Of course, the ultimate endpoint of this phase of the War of the Web would be a letter to Google that looks like this:
Dear Google:
This letter is to inform you that certain images and text being indexed by your search engine are copyrighted property of Microsoft, Inc. Please immedeately cease and desist all linking to any material originating in the microsoft.com domain.
Sincerely,
Bill Gates
I've read the article. I'll assume for the four students correctly conducted the analysis they've described. The results are compelling: Essentially, net of other effects, electronic voting had the greatest positive effect on change in percent voting for Bush from 2000 to 2004 in democratic counties.
But, the unanswered question is, is there a causal relationship between the presence of e-voting and the "unexpected" change in Bush voting percentage?
A few additional facts:
Of the 67 counties in Florida, 15 used electronic touchscreen voting. (map here)
Of these 15 counties, exactly three (Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach) were democratic counties. (map here)
The outlying data points, on which the students base their conclusion, consists of three counties. Which happened to have been the focus of the 2000 election irregularities. And which happened to have been heavily campaigned, by both candidates. One could argue that there are a couple of causal relationships here:
a) because the elections in these counties did not go smoothly in 2000, there was pressure to reform the process, and e-voting was installed.
b) because the 2000 election hinged on these counties, the campaigning was extremely heavy there in 2004.
One stimulus (2000 election debacle/recount) may have caused both the e-voting implementation, and the Bush shift.
The authors of the paper go on to say that a similar analysis of Ohio e-voting returns showed no relationship between voting method and change in Bush percentage. Why would the relationship be causal in Florida, but not in Ohio -- or anywhere else that we're aware of?
The city-wide network will be built by Q-Ware Corp., a unit of the Uni-President group, which also holds the 7-Eleven franchise in Taiwan.
What on earth does 7-Eleven ownership have to do with wireless networks? Why was this tasty tidbit featured so prominently in the synopsis?
Out in the country we kill them wherever we can, because it's dinner
If you're looking for as much meat as quickly as possible, then by all means, go ahead. What you're describing is hunting as a chore, not hunting as a pastime.
My grandfather grew up on the plains of North Dakota in the 40's. His father would give him three shotshells and expected him to return with dinner. If he didn't, Grandpa tells me, he was punished. Grandpa had no qualms shooting a flock of mallards in the water at close range.
Every year, I return to the old family farm in North Dakota, to hunt those same mallards. With a bag limit of five, I'd be done hunting in ten minutes if I simply found the first flock sitting on the water and started pounding them. Instead, I set out decoys and wait to shoot them on the wing, and get a full morning of entertainment out of it. I'm not a farmer, I'm an actuary. I have the luxury of time and an unlimited supply of ammo.
And I probably enjoy my hunting a lot more than Grandpa did, 60 years ago.
I don't get the lure of hunting at all.
I'll try to respond to this, honestly and respectfully. Bear in mind, I'm only one hunter, so my motivations will not match those of all other hunters.
My father imparted me with two fundamental hunting ethics:
1. Give your prey a the opportunity to use his strengths against you
This means that, when hunting birds, you don't shoot them on the ground, or in the water. If you encounter a stationary game bird, you first flush the bird, and allow it to put some distince between it and you, before you shoot. For big game (deer, for example), choose your weaponry or environment so as to require a very close (20-30 yards) encounter. Deer have unbelievably sharp senses of sight, smell, and hearing. Getting one to approach you to within 20 yards is no easy task. Some big-game hunters proudly display the elk trophy they took with a 350-yard shot -- I wouldn't call that hunting; it's more like a display of marksmanship. If you want to impress me with your skills as a hunter, show me the elk you took with a bow at 25 yards.
2. Only kill what you intend to eat.
You can't "catch and release" when you're hunting. If you don't intend on eating it, you've got no reason to kill it.
People who grow vegetables will tell you that tomatoes, corn, beans, peas -- all taste better when they come from your own garden. In addition, you know that they're organic (if you've chosen to raise them that way.) In the same way, pheasant, duck, and venison taste better to me when I know I've harvested it myself. In addition, I know that this meat is "free range" and organic, as well as lower in fat than anything I can buy at market.
In your comments, you raise some frequently-heard arguments:
The animals stand no chance. Neither does the pig, cow, or chicken going to slaughter. Using ethic #1, above, the prey is allowed to use his innate talents against my technology. The majority of the time (in my own hunting experience) the animal wins.
The hardest part is finding something - after that, if you have reasonable aim, you will surely kill it. This is partially true. It is difficult, and rewarding, to find game animals. I've spent many long, quiet hours remaining motionless in the woods waiting to hear or see a deer. Some of those unsuccessful hunts are memorable to me because of everything else I've seen -- an ermine catching a mouse, a wren landing on my boot, a skunk leading her kits across a field.
Reasonable aim isn't a guaranteed kill, however. There are species of ducks (scaup) I hunt that fly at nearly 50 miles per hour. This season, I saw perhaps 300 of these ducks, was able to lure enough into range to take a dozen shots, and killed only two.
I think all hunters should have to fight the animals with hand-to-hand combat. Give the animal a chance to do some damage in return.
I've often thought about this. I've been close enough to deer on several occasions that I could have jumped out of my tree with a knife in hand to do battle. I'm not sure it's legal in my state to kill a deer with a knife. I'm also not positive that I could have a "cleaner" kill with a kife than with an arrow or bullet to the heart.
I understand that hunting is not for everyone. I don't deride those who don't enjoy hunting. There's a thrill in hunting, and it's not about killing, death and destruction - it's about personal accomplishment, of self-sufficiency. Sure, I could go to the grocery store and buy a duck -- hunting may cost more, but in the end I get the duck, the memory of the sunrise that morning, and a sense of achievement as well.
This was the cheat code for Contra for Nintendo to allow you to play with 30 lives. My brother and I would do this and beat the game in about an hour, once we got the hang of it.
Now that I think about it, perhaps the "SELECT" I remember is that when I would play with my brother, the "SELECT" would enable two-player mode. If you were playing solo, the cheat code would might be as per your sig.
Good times.
128-bit GPUs? We don't need no stinkin' 128-bit GPUs!
Actually, I remember it as:
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A SELECT START
People in general are honest - and those that aren't get caught eventually by honest people.
Did you read any local news over the last two months? Did you see any campaign ads?
People don't generally walk into their local grocery store and steal stuff because they feel it's wrong. This level of morality apparently doesn't apply in American politics.
This year, we saw common, everyday people (and kids) defacing political signs, engaging in public obscenity shouting matches, and vandalising vehicles with the "wrong" bumper stickers.
We saw our politicians, "journalists", and entertainers insult out intelligence by promulgating lies and half-truths about one candidate or another. All this on both sides of the political fence.
In America, it seems that morality and elections are not related. I don't know that anything is out of bounds now, short of murder.
If it were possible to manipulate electronic vote counts, it would happen. There needs to be a method of audit available.
I agree that people are generally honest, but would add except in election years, when this axiom is suspended.
Thanks God it's all over and we can go back to being honest people again for three years.
Thanks for the interesting feedback and analysis. I really appreciate it when I can throw out some of my opinions -- not for the sake of starting a flame war, but to provoke conversation -- and get some meaningful thought thrown back at me. We're both better off as a result.
I got my very first "foe" in this thread. That's sad, because I was actually trying to be constructive this time. I think my words might have hit a little too close to home...
I'm fiscally very conservative, but socially, I'm slightly to the left. This surprised me when I took the politicalcompass survey. As is probably apparent in earlier posts on this thread, I don't know that I've quite figured out my position on the foreign affairs spectrum. That's fine; I'm not in any danger of being called upon to opine on Arab-American relations any time soon. I've got some time to figure myself out here.
I've voted Republican or third party for as long as I've been able to vote. But in the days after this election, I find myself melancholy -- I don't feel that the country has "won" by electing Bush. While I firmly believe that, had we elected Kerry, we'd be worse off in 2008 than in 2004, I'm not confident that, under Bush, we'll be any better off, either. I can only hope that, in 2008, we're not all still bitter, petty, whining, partisan political snobs.
Conversation is nice for a change.
Our enemies have declared war on us for 30 years of meddling in their affairs. Religion has little to do with it (other than the fact that their religion supports the eye for an eye mentality).
Thirty years ago, when we started meddling in their affairs, were we aware of the consequences, determined to act anyway, or were we ignorant of the ultimate result of our actions? We Americans need to own up to the answer to this question, and move forward accordingly.
If we can successfully extract ourselves from Iraq, how do we go about leaving the Middle East to its own devices without compromising our national security? I don't claim to have any answers. I'd love to see us withdraw entirely from the Middle East and from Israel, and let them work it out amongst themselves. We've got access to the oil and the uranium we need to free ourselves from their politics.
But will doing so set the course for a global conflict in the next generation?
Hindsight is 20/20. There's a lot we could have done over the last 30 years that would have made life a lot more peaceful in the Middle East right now. The tack the current administration appears to be taking, "Here, have some democracy. No, I insist!" is certainly a gamble. If it works, Bush will be seen as a visionary. If it doesn't, America's only dug a deeper divide between ourselves and quite a few nations. What choice do we now have but to support the course we're on?
It's like skydiving, and we've already jumped out of the airplane. We've discovered the parachute is missing. At this point, we can't go back, and we can't simply give up - it's time to start working on the reserve chute in the hope of a smooth landing. When we're back on the ground again, it'll be time to seriously challenge whether or not skydiving is worth the risk, whether we ever want to attempt it again.
You don't get it.
.
You can learn a bit about copyright here
If you're not downloading copyrighted material, then you're not uploading it, either. Since BT was not built with any sort of security in mind, then the "man" (the *AA, your campus network admin, your boss) can check on the bits you're passing... and will see that you're not passing any copyrighted bits.
What's that, you say? You want to transmit copyrighted bits? Then be warned: with BT, the "man" is watching you, and if you're doing something illegal or unethical, you may be caught. There's enough freely distributable bits out there to keep you happy for the rest of your life. Try it out.
I think that I stand corrected. I had never even considered that the Democratic party was seen by its constituency as "too centrist." Given your insightful commentary on the two Americas, I'll concede that it's possible. Those who need the Democratic party need a party that sits further left than its current incarnation.
I looked at the Democratic party this year, and its transformation through the primaries and into the election. I saw what was a reasonable starting platform begin to mold itself to the whims of Howard Dean, MoveOn.org, and Michael Moore. John Edwards, Wesley Clark, Joe Lieberman -- none of them nutjobs. Kerry wasn't a nutjob, either, but I felt he had become the tool of his party, which had now swung away from reasonability.
You're very correct that there are two fundamentally different populations in the country. I'm in Minnesota; I live in one, and commute every day to work in another. I've lived an urban life. I didn't like it, so I moved away. I understand that not everyone has this option.
We've got two fundamentally opposed populations in the country. How do we come together? We either have to compromise, or else agree to try to keep the bleeding to a minimum whenever we have to come into contact with one another. Is it possible for us to elect leadership that will help to unite us?
I think that it is, but it's not going to come from a candidate like Kerry or Bush, or from a party like today's Democrats or Republicans. I don't know that it's possible at all.
And that won't be good for our country.
An election featuring an unelectable candidate doesn't give the voters a choice. Without choice, democracy is pointless.
Saddam Hussein won 99.97% of his last election.
When people have gone to war over ideological and religious reasons the outcomes have never been pretty.
Our enemies have declared war on us over ideological and religious reasons. You're right, it's not pretty.
America is defending herself against that threat.
The US didn't point the barrel of the gun at Iraq; the UN did. We counted on the UN to protect our security. Saddam laughed at the UN's threats. When the UN backed down on its threat, we carried through, rather than let the UN compromise our security.
Perhaps the rest of the world will pay attention now when the UN points the barrel of the gun in their direction.
I's been clearly shown many times that Hussein wasn't behind the 9/11 attacks. It's not been so conclusively shown that he didn't have WMD. There certainly weren't any there when we arrived; either they were never there, or they were moved before we got there.
Undisputed facts:
1. He was an enemy of America
2. He had vast amounts of wealth to fund his operations
3. He had the technology needed to create WMD
4. He had previously generated and used WMD
5. He was a supported of the anti-American jihadists
Given his threatening posture, and his unwillingness to provide UN inspectors access to verify the lack of WMD, Bush decided (and I agree with him) that we had to act. As it turns out, he was wrong, I was wrong, Kerry was wrong, and the UN was wrong.
We all learn. We're all smarter as a result. Unfortunately, we can't put Pandora back in the box in Iraq - time to move on and clean up. At least they're a free people as a result.
In the future, perhaps Iran and North Korea will be more willing to submit to UN inspections -- they've seen what the consequences can be.
And the US and the world will be safer as a result. Not in 2004, not in 2005, but in 2015.
If a moderate Democrat had been on the ballot, he may have gotten my vote. If Kerry had shown an ounce of backbone, he may have gotten my vote.
If Edwards had been at the top of the ticket, millions more Americans would have voted against Bush. Edwards is electable. Kerry (as has been illustrated) was not; he ran head-to-head against an unpopular candidate, and lost.
Perhaps it's unfair to say that Kerry was unelectable. He would have won, if only the Republicans had nominated someone less polished and less popular than W, like Jeb Bush, Dan Quayle, or Trent Lott.
My kids are 4, 5, and 6. They's all old enough to be cannon fodder, if they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. My cousin is 19. He enlisted in 2003 with the intent of going to Iraq. He's now also cannon fodder. The difference is:
a) He volunteered to be placed in danger
b) He's heavily armed
The world is full of people who have promised to kill Americans. I'm all in favor of sending our volunteer army to their doorstep to force them to break their promise.
So, why did you vote for Bush?
Better the danger you can identify than the one you can't.
Two weeks before the election, and I saw Kerry continuing to change his mind on what he'd do about Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. He'd absolutely instate a draft. But he was opposed to the draft. He'd bring troops home immediately. But not until he'd secured the peace. He'd bribe France and Germany to participate in the effort. But he wouldn't resort to bribery to do it. I still don't understand what his final position was on Iran and North Korea.
For two years, I've understood Bush's position on Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Afghanistan was a success. Iraq, in retrospect, was overkill -- they weren't about to be sending hordes of BNC-armed terrorists streaming into the Capitol Mall. Unfortunately, Saddam had worked hard over the previous decade to convince the world that he had both the capability and intent to pull it off. Bush resorted to force to neutralize the threat.
America is now charged with focusing on the threats Iran and North Korea pose, both to ourselves, and to the rest of the world. Both of these countries already have nuclear capabilities, so military force isn't an easy option. Neither is appeasement. I don't care much what the French think of our efforts to defend ourselves. We'll keep buying their wine, and when they need our help again, we'll be there for them.
Bush is leading America into danger, to be sure. The world is a dangerous place. He's made the wise decision that it's better to confront our threats remotely and pre-emptively, than locally and unexpectedly.
We've lost over 1,000 of our citizens in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last 18 months. We lost 3,000 of our citizens in 12 hours on 9/11/2001.
It's possible that there's a better plan out there than the one Bush is pushing. Kerry didn't have it.
Bush is aggressive, to be sure. He's going to err on the side of using force now, rather than waiting to see what develops. Kerry's lack of focus or resolve, however, scared me.
If and when we get to the point where Iran (for example) is posing a tangible threat to US security, I'd like to see the following questions asked:
--Is this threat severe enough to warrant immediate action?
--What will be the cost of such action, in casualties and $
--What's the exit strategy following such action?
--Will this action make America safer?
Not the following:
--How will our actions affect our relationship with Germany?
--How will this affect my chances at re-election?
--What will I have to do to convince Tony Blair to join us?
I trust Bush to ask questions in the first group. I feel Kerry would focus on the second group. I value security over relations with our allies.
Actually, I meant that the Democratic leadership showed itself to be a bunch of left-leaning nutjobs. Kerry was not a nutjob, but merely moderately leftward-leaning. He was certainly not a "centrist".
Wow. What a sad, sad bunch of whining losers.
My family (wife and three kids) supported Bush this year. Not because he's the magic bullet which will fix America's problems, but because he's much less dangerous than Kerry. Last night at dinner, the kids were watching the early returns, and were worried that Kerry might win. I told them, "Kerry might win. If he does, he's going to be our president for four years, and we'll do our best to support him. Everything will be all right."
Kerry was a very, very poor candidate. He was, as it turns out, unelectable. The Democrats were given the "Perfect Storm" election:
--A sitting president engaged in an unpopular war, with no clear extraction date
--An incumbent who can't reliably speak the English language
--Job loss statistics pointing to millions of lost jobs
--Massive healthcare cost inflation
--A swing from huge budget surpluses to huge deficits
--A "charged-up" base who felt that the 2000 election had been stolen
--Hundreds of millions of $ in 527 support
The Democratic party should have had no trouble presenting a candidate who would have been able to crush the incumbent. Instead, they chose Kerry.
I understand you're mad at the results. I think it's time to look inwardly, and reform the Democratic Party. Learn from this mistake. Show the American people that you're not run by left-wing nutjobs, and field an electable candidate, and I can't see how you lose in 2008.
Unless you try to nominate Hillary.
>> The movie has an entry on IMDB, with comments dating as far back as 1999.
That's because they actually discovered the movie back in 2001.
Okay, thanks. That clears it up for me.
I thought Americans were pretty keen on a concept called "free speech"?
What a stupid, obnoxious flame. I might have modded it "funny" -- except that it wasn't. Way to capitalize on your low id.
Are you actually accusing Bush of censoring his own campaign?
Or were you implying that the good citizens of the UK are protected by the First Amendment?
I simply don't get it.
If you want privacy, pay cash only, stay home, don't use phones, and don't do anything that requires identifying yourself.
...you *never* have to give fingerprints in the UK unless you've been caught breaking the law
What part of that is 'freedom' ? When did the USA go from 'the land of the free' to the 'spy on me any which way you want' ?
I note that none of this has anything to do with the discussion on passports. A US resident will NEVER need a passport if he doesn't intend on leaving the country. Operating within the country, it's perfectly possible to maintain your privacy against the prying eyes of the government. Use your credit cards, use your phone, subscribe to the newspaper. Uncle Sam doesn't care.
Corporate America, on the other hand, has used credit, phone, and subscription records to build an elaborate picture of who I am, where I go, and what I buy -- for the purposes of selling me more of the same. The government has nothing to do with it, other than staying out of the way and allowing it to happen. (This is fodder for another, much larger discussion.)
When I leave the country, I expect to give up my privacy. It's a reasonable tradeoff. I expect to inform my country of my travels. It would be nice, when I decide to return, if they'd let me back in. There are a lot of evil people in the world. Some of them are here in my country, but most of them are outside its borders. It's my government's primary responsibility to stop all of them from harming me. That's why I willingly pay my taxes.
Residents are asked for fingerprints when arrested here, too. Some banks require a thumbprint to cash a check if you're an unknown customer -- but you've still got the option of going to your "home" bank to cash that check, where printing wouldn't be required. Other than that, I can't think of an instance where civilian fingerprinting is required.
It warms my heart that my government asks alien visitors for their fingerprints. It makes me feel like my country is trying to do its job to keep me safe. The laws of my country provide no guarantee of safety or privacy for anyone outside its borders.
My governement carefully watching, screening, and fingerprinting alien visitors is a vitally necessary.
My government carefully watching, screening, and fingerprinting its own citizens is unconscionable. There's a big difference between the two.