More importantly, why is Clinton's bad behavior justification for Bush's bad behavior?
Do we have to revert to the childish "Two wrongs don't make a right!" ?
He's not trying to justify it...he's pointing out that Slashdot didn't cover the Rich pardon. It's a not-so-subtle way of pointing out that Slashdot leans to the left in readership, which I think most of us already knew.
Not practical...do you want to have weapon detectors or police officers at every building, everywhere? I graduated from VT...some of those buildings are old, and there are a LOT of them. They all have multiple entrances. There are windows...do you mandate that all windows are bullet proof and can't be opened? How do you secure a campus like that?
More guns or less guns, people who want to kill are going to get weapons. I don't know how you can question that...before there were guns, people killed with poison or sharp objects. It's going to happen. IMO, the best solution is to protect yourself as best you can, which IMO is through gun ownership.
But, it is irrelevant... at some point we became so jaded when these ideals were stripped from our society, that we now resent and try to bring down anyone who still has health insurance, union membership, or a pension plan. Instead of demanding more for ourselves, we are demanding less for everyone else--somehow it is better for everyone to be dragged down rather than lifting everyone up.
I call BS. We don't bring down people for having those things, we bring down people for expecting those things to be provided to them, whether they work for it or not. I'm not working for anybody that doesn't offer those benefits, and I've worked my ass off to make sure I can require that as a condition for accepting a job, or I'll take my employment elsewhere. *That* is standing up for ourselves, not whining because you don't have something. Don't work your ass off to be well qualified for a good job? Tough luck.
Now, s/purple elephants with wings/gods, and you see the point.
Except that people have had visions of God, written tomes about God, experienced miracles, etc. Proof positive? No, but as soon as droves of people start seeing purple elephants with wings, I'll give you credit for your comparison. My point is that while there is no proof for the existence of a god, there is certainly a portion of humanity that sees reason to believe in a deity. Agnositicism is like being a member of a jury in a tough case...you can see both sides points, but really see no decisive proof either way.
Why is this on Slashdot? A pundit makes some commentary about video games...so? He bloviates about stuff every night, and has for 8+ years. He's in no position to craft laws, no position to do anything about it. This is on Slashdot for two reasons:
1) He mentioned games 2) He's considered right-wing by the decidedly left-wing crowd here, and that's bad.
If Bill Maher/Michael Moore/Robert Greenwald come out for/against video games, should that make news on here?
It depends. If the MT reference was included so as to give the story some background, or explain why the main actor in the story was doing something (charity or church related, etc), I'd say it's answering one of the important questions in journalism. This doesn't do that. Rush, to my knowledge, is just an asshat that happens to be related to the judge, and the submitter was trying to imply that the judge is an asshat by relation. That's like saying "...the judge (who's brother is a strung out coke fiend that beats his wife and fathers illegitimate children) ruled today...". It answers no questions that the story is trying to cover, it only attempts to form an association in the reader's head.
US District Judge Stephen Limbaugh (yes, he IS related to Rush)
This tidbit of information serves no purpose other than to link the key person in the story to someone that the majority of the readership already despises. Just tell us what to think next time instead of using (not so) subtle hints.
I'm not exactly excited about Webb (who is?) but I think he'll be marginally better than what we have now. I wish I could be more positive about our senatorial choices this year.
I'm not so sure. Not from a lack of trying, but I don't know a lot about Webb. His website is horrid, giving sound bites instead of clear and concise visions of what he will and won't vote for. The bits that he does have statements about, favoring windfall taxes on oil company profits for instance, are exactly what I *don't* want in a Senator. I'm not a fan of how the GOP has handled Congress, but that isn't to say I won't continue to vote for them if they're still better than the alternative. With Webb, I have no sense of what he intends to do when it comes to legislation. Allen, at least, I know and mostly approve of. Bigot or not, it's never come through in his legislation (with the exception of the marriage amendment, whose justification I still don't see).
I'd argue that voting so closely with President Bush's interests (seriously 96% is A LOT!) shows me that a great governor does not necessarily make a good senator.
What I'm getting from your statement is that you don't like Bush, and because Allen voted with Bush so much, you therefore don't like Allen. That doesn't make him a bad senator; that makes him a senator whose votes you don't like.
I really liked Allen as governor, I thought he did an amazing job with Virginia's economy. I don't have serious issues with him as senator, but he's a freaking spendthrift, so deciding between him and Webb is going to be tough. I don't think he's been as fiscally conservative as I would have liked him to be, but that doesn't make him a bad senator, just one whom I'm not sure I want representing me.
There is often lag or lagspikes (unacceptable when a spell cast promptly means the difference between life and death)
This isn't necessarily Blizzard's fault. For instance, last night we were in ZG and our MT and his wife DC'd from 6000+ latency. The rest of us were sitting comfortably at 200ish latency. Lag spikes are often a result of problems in internet connectivity between a section of the country and your server, NOT the entire server. That's not to say that server lag spikes don't exist, just that they aren't always Blizzard's fault.
various server reboots with little or no warning at arbitrary times
I have only seen this happen on Scarlet Crusade the day or two after a patch when they needed to hotfix something (poisons removing enchants, etc).
the server doesn't come back up from the weekly maintenance for a day or two
While I don't know what server you're on, SC had this happen once in the year I've been playing, and that was for a hardware upgrade, which I consider standard maintenance and am happy to wait for.
this performance is absolutely unacceptable when someone like google can provide such an ultra reliable service
*blink* *blink* You're comparing Google and WoW? That's a bit lopsided; Google is basically a database and a web interface, albeit an incredibly advanced one. WoW is so much more complex, considering the code development required to take interactivity into consideration, that I don't think they're even in the same ballpark for technology comparisons. But if you're basing the most popular MMO of all time's performance/availability with the most popular website's, you're probably going to be disappointed from here on out.
Seriously, this is probably a good thing. I'm surprised how *little* downtime WoW has considering its size and population, but I can't imagine how difficult modifying the codebase for all the changes TBC includes will be. Let them get it right the first time.
Come on, the Commerce Clause wasn't meant to give the Federal government additional powers over the States -- it was written to prevent the States from destroying commerce.
Not really. The commerce clause was included to regulate transactions where no one state had jurisdiction. In that sense, the Constition explicitly takes power away from the states, but it does so in the same way that it provides the federal government with the right and duty to provide for the common defense by establishing an armed forces. The federal government has jurisdiction in any case where two states are in disagreement and neither has clear jurisdiction, just as state government has jurisdiction whenever local ordinances are in conflict. The fact that the CC has been bastardized is a direct result of the ease of interstate commerce and open communication lines. It should probably be revisited IMO, but until then it's the law.
I utilize a third-party arbitration company, so does the other party. We agree to let our arbitrators work things out. I also have optional payment bond insurance I can take (1% of the collection),
This *only* works because the arbitrator is a company that is bound by federal/local law. What if there was no enforcing body that the arbitrator was bound by? There'd be plenty of arbitrators trading on their good name for business, but plenty of arbitrators that could be bought off by one side or the other and face no penalties.
Why is it the federal government's place to enforce contracts??
Maybe I'm not understanding your question, but I think this is pretty clearly indicated in the Commerce Clause of the Constition. For intra-state transactions, the states have a right to enforce contracts between two business parties as they see fit.
Why shouldn't ANY other contract signing be the same?
At some level, you need enforcement. It's great that you're bonded, but what happens when that doesn't pay? Who arbitrates disputes? Who has the authority to decide what constitutes defaulting on the contract? The government, in the end, is around for just such a reason; to serve as an arbitrator between two parties and have the ability to enforce the judgment.
The founders agreed that being secure in your person and effects was an "essential liberty". That is indisputable.
How personal effects translates into data that leaves your home, travels across a line owned by a company given federal subsidies, travels across federal (in most cases) land or at the very least land not owned by you, and possibly bounces off a satellite in international space, is beyond me. Many of us just disagree with you where "personal effects" begin and end.
For one thing, neither flag burning nor gay marriage is a problem that needs solving in the first place.
If you're indirectly saying that, as opposed to flag burning/gay marriage, the problems associated with hurricane Katrina *need* solving, then I would disagree with you. People shouldn't be relying on the government to help them through a natrual crisis, especially when they knew it was coming. NO was under sea level and surrounded by water, including a nearby lake that had artificial walls holding it up. I don't care what your economic place in this world is, you're a moron to live there and I feel no pain for people who's houses were washed away and didn't have insurance to cover the damages.
You're making the assumption that what you feel needs to be taken care of is *really really important*, and that flag burning/gay marriage isn't as important to some people.
Here's a synopsis of the case on Wikipedia, Clinton v. City of New York. To sum up, the court found "it violated the Presentment clause of the Constitution, which outlines a specific practice for enacting a statute."
In general, the line item veto is unconstitutional because there's a set method for enacting laws. IMO, this violates the separation of powers laid out in the Constitution, but the justices disagree with me so I'm wrong:)
I think you could say that the moment the programs started they helped *someone.*
Playing devil's advocate, as soon as Hussein was toppled, many people benefitted and were happy he was gone. Whatever the number, it was a substantial part of the country.
is there anyone who thinks Israel won?
Not quite sure how we segued into Israel v. Hizbollah. That conflict had no decisive winner or loser. Time will tell whether Israel's incursion did anything to weaken Hizbollah or convince Lebanon that having Hizbollah around is not in their best interest.
Unfortunately, the Neocon fantasy that if we just kill or depose the bad guys at the top, we can turn Iraq into a shining example of democracy, is proving to be just that -- a fantasy.
That they've already voted for representatives and a Constitution means they are a democracy. What you want is for Iraq to be a safe, stable Democracy. Nobody, including the adminstration, expected that to be immediate or even within the few years after Hussein was ousted.
Given that's it's killed nearly as many Americans as 9/11, and wounded many times more, while stirring up further unrest and U.S. hatred, yes.
My point was that it's the underlying hatred for the war that brought out the comment on spending. Don't bring up spending; it's not the main point of your argument, and it *will* sideline the discussion into costs when what you really want to talk about is something else.
Medicare, Medicaid, education, and welfare, while typically inefficient, at least have for the most part helped the poorer among us.
Whether or not I agree with you, you can say this because these programs have been around for a number of years and have statistics. In 10/20/30 years, if the Iraq war produces noticable benefits, specifically for the Iraqi people and the region in general, will it be as/more worthwhile than the programs listed? Hindsight's wonderful in that what looks like a horrible failure now can be a complete success 20 years down the road.
Rebuilding Europe after WWII took a lot of money and helped people (directly) who weren't in this country...yet I don't think anyone today would look back on that as a waste.
There are two bills, almost diametrically opposed, that they sent forward. Isn't the committee there just to screen out bills and send some forward to be further discussed? Sending two opposing bills forward seems like the right thing to do, so the Senate can debate the merits of each and pass one or merge the two together.
I'd like my money back for all the subsidies that have gone to Medicare, Medicaid, education, welfare and corporations. The government spends our money, I get no more or less angry about money spent on the war than any of the other government programs I disagree with. You're getting mad about spending on the war because you disagree with it; the same can be said for any of the programs I listed, and countless more.
According to the Republicans I've heard, that's what they accuse Clinton of having done when he was scaling back on the military after the end of the Cold War.
Did you make it past the first part of my post? Because the other side did something bad does not give you the right to also do something bad. Just call bad deeds what they are...bad!
Republicans were asshats when Clinton was in office, Democrats are being asshats now. All it's proven is both sides are filled with asshats; I'm not feeling better about the situation.
most of the time thats not entirely necessary, the actions speak for themselves
Sometimes true, sometimes not. This is the latter; the article makes it sound as though Bush has personally told the EPA to shut it's doors, with a side mention that he's doing it through cutting their budget. Budgets are cut all the time. It's speculation, at best, and probably downright fearmongering to say it's an "all-out effort to impede research and public access" and "is a [loosely] covert operation to close down 26 technical libraries under the guise of budgetary constraint". Come on, if the defense budget was cut would it be a "covert operation to weaken our national defense"?
because nobody pro-bush would EVER do that. shock, horror. especially bush himself. more shock, horror.
strike bush, replace with democrats, and its the basis for a solid republican "talking point"
par for the course of rovian politics, if youve been paying attention.
This doesn't make it RIGHT for YOU/Slashdot to do it!! This is the adult version of "Tommy did it to me first!" Grow up.
We're not all on either the anti/pro Bush bandwagon, some of us would just like to have accurate reporting. This Slashdot article clearly had some serious slant that is bordering on inaccuracy.
Outfoxed was a horribly biased look at FNC, which is exactly what it set out to be, so I suppose it succeeded. Take any news station (PBS, MSBNC, CNN, etc), take selected clips and you can show that it fits whatever bias you're looking for. There were some glaring issues with Outfoxed.
First, their use of anonymous sources was a little over the top. Count how many they used versus how many names sources spoke. Then count how many of the named sources worked for Fox affiliates, not FNC itself.
Second, they spent an abundance of time on two shows, Hannity and Colmes and The O'Reilly Factor, both of which are opinion shows and are pretty *clearly* opinion shows if you watch for more than a few minutes. Even when looking at H&C, they completely discount many things that Colmes says, ie the segment where they talk about Hannity counting down the days until Bush is elected? H&C alternated nights, with Colmes announcing the number of days until Kerry would be elected.
Third, the segment about the overuse of "some people say" was ridiculous. Watch *any* news program where time is limited; they all use that phrase. It's poor journalism but it's also a time saver.
Fourth, O'Reilly was really hammered on in Outfoxed. In one shot, they show 5 clips of him saying shut up to people to prove their point that he silences views he doesn't want to hear. But he was only doing that in one clip; the other 4 he was using it as an example or question, such as "If you don't like X, why don't you shut up about it and just let it be?" Whether you like him or not, Outfoxed didn't even use clips that backed up their point especially well.
The list goes on. I'm not saying Outfoxed didn't make a point, I'm saying I wouldn't put it in the "documentary" category any more than Fahrenheit 911; they both were looking to prove something, they weren't objectively exmaining the situation.
They're not very aware of it because they get their information primarily from the mass media. The mass media isn't covering it because the mass media is in favor of it.
This is just not true. When the wiretap story broke, the NYT, WaPo, LAT, Globe, et al ran front page stories, usually multiple days worth, about the story. Our local papers covered it, our regional paper covered it. Our local news covered it, CNN covered it, FNC covered it. Every blog covered it, it was a headline on Yahoo's news page and Google's news page for days. Short of it appearing as a topic in a sitcom, I think it's been covered.
How much more coverage would you want in order to consider it "covered" by the mass media? What should they do...run stories on it every day until something is resolved? That's not feasible, there's other news out there than should be covered as well.
Slashdot Mirror
More importantly, why is Clinton's bad behavior justification for Bush's bad behavior?
Do we have to revert to the childish "Two wrongs don't make a right!" ?
He's not trying to justify it...he's pointing out that Slashdot didn't cover the Rich pardon. It's a not-so-subtle way of pointing out that Slashdot leans to the left in readership, which I think most of us already knew.
--trb
Not practical...do you want to have weapon detectors or police officers at every building, everywhere? I graduated from VT...some of those buildings are old, and there are a LOT of them. They all have multiple entrances. There are windows...do you mandate that all windows are bullet proof and can't be opened? How do you secure a campus like that?
More guns or less guns, people who want to kill are going to get weapons. I don't know how you can question that...before there were guns, people killed with poison or sharp objects. It's going to happen. IMO, the best solution is to protect yourself as best you can, which IMO is through gun ownership.
--trb
But, it is irrelevant... at some point we became so jaded when these ideals were stripped from our society, that we now resent and try to bring down anyone who still has health insurance, union membership, or a pension plan. Instead of demanding more for ourselves, we are demanding less for everyone else--somehow it is better for everyone to be dragged down rather than lifting everyone up.
I call BS. We don't bring down people for having those things, we bring down people for expecting those things to be provided to them, whether they work for it or not. I'm not working for anybody that doesn't offer those benefits, and I've worked my ass off to make sure I can require that as a condition for accepting a job, or I'll take my employment elsewhere. *That* is standing up for ourselves, not whining because you don't have something. Don't work your ass off to be well qualified for a good job? Tough luck.
--trb
Now, s/purple elephants with wings/gods, and you see the point.
Except that people have had visions of God, written tomes about God, experienced miracles, etc. Proof positive? No, but as soon as droves of people start seeing purple elephants with wings, I'll give you credit for your comparison. My point is that while there is no proof for the existence of a god, there is certainly a portion of humanity that sees reason to believe in a deity. Agnositicism is like being a member of a jury in a tough case...you can see both sides points, but really see no decisive proof either way.
--trb
Why is this on Slashdot? A pundit makes some commentary about video games...so? He bloviates about stuff every night, and has for 8+ years. He's in no position to craft laws, no position to do anything about it. This is on Slashdot for two reasons:
1) He mentioned games
2) He's considered right-wing by the decidedly left-wing crowd here, and that's bad.
If Bill Maher/Michael Moore/Robert Greenwald come out for/against video games, should that make news on here?
--trb
Just to add another item that's been pushed out past Dec 25, the WoW expansion won't appear until sometime in Jan 2007, at the earliest.
--trb
It depends. If the MT reference was included so as to give the story some background, or explain why the main actor in the story was doing something (charity or church related, etc), I'd say it's answering one of the important questions in journalism. This doesn't do that. Rush, to my knowledge, is just an asshat that happens to be related to the judge, and the submitter was trying to imply that the judge is an asshat by relation. That's like saying "...the judge (who's brother is a strung out coke fiend that beats his wife and fathers illegitimate children) ruled today...". It answers no questions that the story is trying to cover, it only attempts to form an association in the reader's head.
--trb
US District Judge Stephen Limbaugh (yes, he IS related to Rush)
This tidbit of information serves no purpose other than to link the key person in the story to someone that the majority of the readership already despises. Just tell us what to think next time instead of using (not so) subtle hints.
--trb
I'm not exactly excited about Webb (who is?) but I think he'll be marginally better than what we have now. I wish I could be more positive about our senatorial choices this year.
I'm not so sure. Not from a lack of trying, but I don't know a lot about Webb. His website is horrid, giving sound bites instead of clear and concise visions of what he will and won't vote for. The bits that he does have statements about, favoring windfall taxes on oil company profits for instance, are exactly what I *don't* want in a Senator. I'm not a fan of how the GOP has handled Congress, but that isn't to say I won't continue to vote for them if they're still better than the alternative. With Webb, I have no sense of what he intends to do when it comes to legislation. Allen, at least, I know and mostly approve of. Bigot or not, it's never come through in his legislation (with the exception of the marriage amendment, whose justification I still don't see).
--trb
I'd argue that voting so closely with President Bush's interests (seriously 96% is A LOT!) shows me that a great governor does not necessarily make a good senator.
What I'm getting from your statement is that you don't like Bush, and because Allen voted with Bush so much, you therefore don't like Allen. That doesn't make him a bad senator; that makes him a senator whose votes you don't like.
I really liked Allen as governor, I thought he did an amazing job with Virginia's economy. I don't have serious issues with him as senator, but he's a freaking spendthrift, so deciding between him and Webb is going to be tough. I don't think he's been as fiscally conservative as I would have liked him to be, but that doesn't make him a bad senator, just one whom I'm not sure I want representing me.
--trb
There is often lag or lagspikes (unacceptable when a spell cast promptly means the difference between life and death)
This isn't necessarily Blizzard's fault. For instance, last night we were in ZG and our MT and his wife DC'd from 6000+ latency. The rest of us were sitting comfortably at 200ish latency. Lag spikes are often a result of problems in internet connectivity between a section of the country and your server, NOT the entire server. That's not to say that server lag spikes don't exist, just that they aren't always Blizzard's fault.
various server reboots with little or no warning at arbitrary times
I have only seen this happen on Scarlet Crusade the day or two after a patch when they needed to hotfix something (poisons removing enchants, etc).
the server doesn't come back up from the weekly maintenance for a day or two
While I don't know what server you're on, SC had this happen once in the year I've been playing, and that was for a hardware upgrade, which I consider standard maintenance and am happy to wait for.
this performance is absolutely unacceptable when someone like google can provide such an ultra reliable service
*blink* *blink* You're comparing Google and WoW? That's a bit lopsided; Google is basically a database and a web interface, albeit an incredibly advanced one. WoW is so much more complex, considering the code development required to take interactivity into consideration, that I don't think they're even in the same ballpark for technology comparisons. But if you're basing the most popular MMO of all time's performance/availability with the most popular website's, you're probably going to be disappointed from here on out.
--trb
n00bz.
Seriously, this is probably a good thing. I'm surprised how *little* downtime WoW has considering its size and population, but I can't imagine how difficult modifying the codebase for all the changes TBC includes will be. Let them get it right the first time.
--trb
Come on, the Commerce Clause wasn't meant to give the Federal government additional powers over the States -- it was written to prevent the States from destroying commerce.
Not really. The commerce clause was included to regulate transactions where no one state had jurisdiction. In that sense, the Constition explicitly takes power away from the states, but it does so in the same way that it provides the federal government with the right and duty to provide for the common defense by establishing an armed forces. The federal government has jurisdiction in any case where two states are in disagreement and neither has clear jurisdiction, just as state government has jurisdiction whenever local ordinances are in conflict. The fact that the CC has been bastardized is a direct result of the ease of interstate commerce and open communication lines. It should probably be revisited IMO, but until then it's the law.
I utilize a third-party arbitration company, so does the other party. We agree to let our arbitrators work things out. I also have optional payment bond insurance I can take (1% of the collection),
This *only* works because the arbitrator is a company that is bound by federal/local law. What if there was no enforcing body that the arbitrator was bound by? There'd be plenty of arbitrators trading on their good name for business, but plenty of arbitrators that could be bought off by one side or the other and face no penalties.
--trb
Why is it the federal government's place to enforce contracts??
Maybe I'm not understanding your question, but I think this is pretty clearly indicated in the Commerce Clause of the Constition. For intra-state transactions, the states have a right to enforce contracts between two business parties as they see fit.
Why shouldn't ANY other contract signing be the same?
At some level, you need enforcement. It's great that you're bonded, but what happens when that doesn't pay? Who arbitrates disputes? Who has the authority to decide what constitutes defaulting on the contract? The government, in the end, is around for just such a reason; to serve as an arbitrator between two parties and have the ability to enforce the judgment.
--trb
The founders agreed that being secure in your person and effects was an "essential liberty". That is indisputable.
How personal effects translates into data that leaves your home, travels across a line owned by a company given federal subsidies, travels across federal (in most cases) land or at the very least land not owned by you, and possibly bounces off a satellite in international space, is beyond me. Many of us just disagree with you where "personal effects" begin and end.
--trb
For one thing, neither flag burning nor gay marriage is a problem that needs solving in the first place.
If you're indirectly saying that, as opposed to flag burning/gay marriage, the problems associated with hurricane Katrina *need* solving, then I would disagree with you. People shouldn't be relying on the government to help them through a natrual crisis, especially when they knew it was coming. NO was under sea level and surrounded by water, including a nearby lake that had artificial walls holding it up. I don't care what your economic place in this world is, you're a moron to live there and I feel no pain for people who's houses were washed away and didn't have insurance to cover the damages.
You're making the assumption that what you feel needs to be taken care of is *really really important*, and that flag burning/gay marriage isn't as important to some people.
--trb
Here's a synopsis of the case on Wikipedia, Clinton v. City of New York. To sum up, the court found "it violated the Presentment clause of the Constitution, which outlines a specific practice for enacting a statute."
:)
In general, the line item veto is unconstitutional because there's a set method for enacting laws. IMO, this violates the separation of powers laid out in the Constitution, but the justices disagree with me so I'm wrong
--trb
I think you could say that the moment the programs started they helped *someone.*
Playing devil's advocate, as soon as Hussein was toppled, many people benefitted and were happy he was gone. Whatever the number, it was a substantial part of the country.
is there anyone who thinks Israel won?
Not quite sure how we segued into Israel v. Hizbollah. That conflict had no decisive winner or loser. Time will tell whether Israel's incursion did anything to weaken Hizbollah or convince Lebanon that having Hizbollah around is not in their best interest.
Unfortunately, the Neocon fantasy that if we just kill or depose the bad guys at the top, we can turn Iraq into a shining example of democracy, is proving to be just that -- a fantasy.
That they've already voted for representatives and a Constitution means they are a democracy. What you want is for Iraq to be a safe, stable Democracy. Nobody, including the adminstration, expected that to be immediate or even within the few years after Hussein was ousted.
--trb
Given that's it's killed nearly as many Americans as 9/11, and wounded many times more, while stirring up further unrest and U.S. hatred, yes.
My point was that it's the underlying hatred for the war that brought out the comment on spending. Don't bring up spending; it's not the main point of your argument, and it *will* sideline the discussion into costs when what you really want to talk about is something else.
Medicare, Medicaid, education, and welfare, while typically inefficient, at least have for the most part helped the poorer among us.
Whether or not I agree with you, you can say this because these programs have been around for a number of years and have statistics. In 10/20/30 years, if the Iraq war produces noticable benefits, specifically for the Iraqi people and the region in general, will it be as/more worthwhile than the programs listed? Hindsight's wonderful in that what looks like a horrible failure now can be a complete success 20 years down the road.
Rebuilding Europe after WWII took a lot of money and helped people (directly) who weren't in this country...yet I don't think anyone today would look back on that as a waste.
--trb
If you get your news from places in addition to Slashdot, you might have read something a little different:
Panel OK's 2 rival wiretapping bills
There are two bills, almost diametrically opposed, that they sent forward. Isn't the committee there just to screen out bills and send some forward to be further discussed? Sending two opposing bills forward seems like the right thing to do, so the Senate can debate the merits of each and pass one or merge the two together.
--trb
I'd like my money back for all the subsidies that have gone to Medicare, Medicaid, education, welfare and corporations. The government spends our money, I get no more or less angry about money spent on the war than any of the other government programs I disagree with. You're getting mad about spending on the war because you disagree with it; the same can be said for any of the programs I listed, and countless more.
If the war cost us $0, would you still be mad?
--trb
According to the Republicans I've heard, that's what they accuse Clinton of having done when he was scaling back on the military after the end of the Cold War.
Did you make it past the first part of my post? Because the other side did something bad does not give you the right to also do something bad. Just call bad deeds what they are...bad!
Republicans were asshats when Clinton was in office, Democrats are being asshats now. All it's proven is both sides are filled with asshats; I'm not feeling better about the situation.
--trb
most of the time thats not entirely necessary, the actions speak for themselves
Sometimes true, sometimes not. This is the latter; the article makes it sound as though Bush has personally told the EPA to shut it's doors, with a side mention that he's doing it through cutting their budget. Budgets are cut all the time. It's speculation, at best, and probably downright fearmongering to say it's an "all-out effort to impede research and public access" and "is a [loosely] covert operation to close down 26 technical libraries under the guise of budgetary constraint". Come on, if the defense budget was cut would it be a "covert operation to weaken our national defense"?
because nobody pro-bush would EVER do that. shock, horror. especially bush himself. more shock, horror.
strike bush, replace with democrats, and its the basis for a solid republican "talking point"
par for the course of rovian politics, if youve been paying attention.
This doesn't make it RIGHT for YOU/Slashdot to do it!! This is the adult version of "Tommy did it to me first!" Grow up.
We're not all on either the anti/pro Bush bandwagon, some of us would just like to have accurate reporting. This Slashdot article clearly had some serious slant that is bordering on inaccuracy.
--trb
Outfoxed was a horribly biased look at FNC, which is exactly what it set out to be, so I suppose it succeeded. Take any news station (PBS, MSBNC, CNN, etc), take selected clips and you can show that it fits whatever bias you're looking for. There were some glaring issues with Outfoxed.
First, their use of anonymous sources was a little over the top. Count how many they used versus how many names sources spoke. Then count how many of the named sources worked for Fox affiliates, not FNC itself.
Second, they spent an abundance of time on two shows, Hannity and Colmes and The O'Reilly Factor, both of which are opinion shows and are pretty *clearly* opinion shows if you watch for more than a few minutes. Even when looking at H&C, they completely discount many things that Colmes says, ie the segment where they talk about Hannity counting down the days until Bush is elected? H&C alternated nights, with Colmes announcing the number of days until Kerry would be elected.
Third, the segment about the overuse of "some people say" was ridiculous. Watch *any* news program where time is limited; they all use that phrase. It's poor journalism but it's also a time saver.
Fourth, O'Reilly was really hammered on in Outfoxed. In one shot, they show 5 clips of him saying shut up to people to prove their point that he silences views he doesn't want to hear. But he was only doing that in one clip; the other 4 he was using it as an example or question, such as "If you don't like X, why don't you shut up about it and just let it be?" Whether you like him or not, Outfoxed didn't even use clips that backed up their point especially well.
The list goes on. I'm not saying Outfoxed didn't make a point, I'm saying I wouldn't put it in the "documentary" category any more than Fahrenheit 911; they both were looking to prove something, they weren't objectively exmaining the situation.
--trb
They're not very aware of it because they get their information primarily from the mass media. The mass media isn't covering it because the mass media is in favor of it.
This is just not true. When the wiretap story broke, the NYT, WaPo, LAT, Globe, et al ran front page stories, usually multiple days worth, about the story. Our local papers covered it, our regional paper covered it. Our local news covered it, CNN covered it, FNC covered it. Every blog covered it, it was a headline on Yahoo's news page and Google's news page for days. Short of it appearing as a topic in a sitcom, I think it's been covered.
How much more coverage would you want in order to consider it "covered" by the mass media? What should they do...run stories on it every day until something is resolved? That's not feasible, there's other news out there than should be covered as well.
--trb