Wow, that would make Windows98 superior to WindowsXP.
I don't see how considering WindowsXP is outselling Windows 98.
But certainly Windows 98 was superior than NT4 from the consumers point of view.
If everybody would think like you, we would still live in the stone age.... Nobody would ever try anything new because they would think the old way of doing it would be "superior"...
Now where did I ever suggest you not try new products?
As a consumer, you evaluate the options given to you and pick the solution that is best for you.
My point is only that the term "superior" means something different to different people. For some a BMW is the superior car, for others it is a Honda. Does the Honda drive better than the BMW? No... but it's more affordable, and for those who can't budget $40k for a car, the BMW is a non-starter.
Fact is the vast majority of Windows users did not choose it, it was simply preinstalled.
I was not aware of Apple preinstalling Windows on new Macintoshes.
No, consumers choose computers not for their hardware but for their software capabilities. One of the expected pieces of software is Windows. Your argument attempts to elude the inevitable.
Furthermore, the fact that most people use Windows does not make Windows superior, nor does it preclude another product from being superior to Windows.
The most popular product is ALWAYS the superior product, the consumers have made it so.
You need to stop redefining superior so that it only meets your needs and consider the rest of the consumer base.
You misunderstand me (not for the first time today, I notice), I was not talking about client-side issues.
Oh no, I understood perfectly, what I was pointing out was how wrong you are. Client-side is where it's critical, because in a global world that is the only thing beyond your control.
It is fine to build in ASP.NET if you can be absolutely sure your system won't have to run on anythng but Windows.
Ahh, but I have no need to worry about that, for the server is under my control. If I want to use Oracle, I can. If I want to use SQL Server, I can. I can run the web site off an AS/400 with DB/2 on the back end!
And none of this is of any concern to the client!
Time proved us that a cross-platform language and infra-structure would give us more market penetration. We're still alive and kicking after all these years.
Wow. Now if only you could get yourself out of your little sphere of isolation and realize there's a great big world out there, and we aren't you. Your needs are not our needs, your religion is not my religion.
"If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate."
- Thomas Watson President of IBM during it's heyday.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
- Thomas Edison, when asked about the lack of progress on his lightbulb experiments
"It is hard to fail, but it is worse to never to have tried to succeed."
- Theodore Roosevelt
"My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure."
- Abraham Lincoln
"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."
- Colin Powell
"Victory belongs to the most persevering."
- Napolean Bonaparte
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone."
- Bill Cosby
I'd like to say I can't believe this nonsense article was posted. But this is slashbot, where the OSS community wallows in their failures rather than learning from them.
Surely you're not claiming that a language being a ratified standard is the same thing as its being portable.
Uniface was portable. When was the last time you saw a job offer for Uniface?
The portability argument is a religious strawman created by Sun to promote Java at the cost of their competitors. I don't believe the religious rhetoric blindly. If you can create a coherent argument, I'm willing to listen, however.
First of all, with the dotcom craze, most of the problems were business plan related. The other problems were technology progression related. A lot of technologies sprang up since 1994. WOW! Amazing, incredible, I know, but gee whiz... What we have to build with today is very different than 6 years ago.
But for that matter, I still have websites in production built 6 years ago using ASP. They still work, and we don't have problems with them. If the other assertion you claimed were true, we'd be replacing them.
But the fact is, with all technologies, eventually you face a choice of either maintaining it as is, or upgrading. When you upgrade you face a certain risk of having to change some stuff. Our Mainframe environment at work is running on a version of COBOL that is well beyond supported for precisely this reason.
The issue I have with your unsupported assertions is that you in no way prove that these assertions are not also true of the technologies you are promoting.
So you're basically arguing religion with me, and I have no use for that in my business plan.
Gartner is run by maroons... I mean come on, they've always made wild claims to gain attention.
Gartner says you should migrate off IIS Gartner says you shouldn't use Intrusion Detectino Systems Gartner says you shouldn't use Linux
But if you read these claims, they do come with caveats. The problem is the headlines are the only thing PHBs tend to read and they miss the finer points of the argument.
But as far as Gartner doing something because Microsoft asked them too... that's poppycock, and there's no historical pattern to back it up.
But I wouldn't necessarily term them "pro-war" rallies, either.
Granted... they were mostly just anti-Clinton rallies.
It is still part of the license, and re-licensing process that you have to prove that you serve the community interest. Maintaining the public file, and running public information programs, etc. etc. All of that still happens. I know. I have to do it.
Not to the degree stations used to. Today it's just symbolic.
Do you remember as a kid watching the TV news and at the end they'd have a little opinion piece with an announcement "We offer equal time to the opposing point of view, please call us if you have something to say" or something like that. Stations don't have to do that anymore, which is why Limbaugh and others have been able to lock up stations completely.
Either way, it's one of those things where nobody is going to be happy about the outcome.
I agree. I see the Republicans using this to get short term political gain, but in the long run they'll be hurt by this move.
It's a stupid winner-takes-all theory of government, it's gotta end.
That's a very insightful point of view, and I guess I've never looked at it that way.
I've largely felt that the news tends to be biased towards the status quo. That is however things are today is just fine, anybody trying to change that should be shunned.
But yes, the attempts to try to give an appearance of no-bias have largely given a platform extremists. Us moderates are pretty boring to talk to and don't bring in ratings.
I do think that's changing, however. Americans are getting very tired of the extremists.
The Republicans plan to pull this wording out of the bill during the committee process when bills are reconciled with the Senate wording.
In the report on CNN they mention that Republicans are going around seeking member's signatures on a pledge to vote to sustain a veto. Since it requires a super majority(2/3rds) to override a veto, they only need 145 votes to defeat this measure.
This was a political game and it's largely symbolic, Republicans vote to support this so when they go back to their constituents they can't be attacked. Then the ones who are in solid seats with no reasonable opposition can vote against it to override the veto.
If you want to make sure that doesn't happen, write your congress critter and let them know how you feel and make it clear you'll be mad enough to start a grassroots campaign against them if they vote against this.
Clear Channel is not destroying this country. If you don't like their stuff, don't consume it. Convince your friends to do likewise.
I agree absolutely.
But the people who work for CC aren't bad, and don't have dubious motives.
On that I disagree. ClearChannel is pretty blatant about having a political bias. Their sending a corporate memo out to stations prohibiting them from broadcasting the Dixie Chicks, even if requested by listeners... their staging of pro-war rallies, etc. It shouldn't come as any surprise to people that the CEO of Clearchannel is very good friends with President Bush.
Now like I said, I agree with your sentiment and I don't listen to Clearchannel. In fact the one Rock station I do listen to makes it a point to mention they are NOT owned by ClearChannel during their station announcements, which I think is funny.
ClearChannel is simply a symptom of a larger problem, you're right accusing them won't change anything and they'll likely crumble from other financial burdens like most corrupt companies. But ever since the FCC changed the laws back in 1987 to eliminate the need to maintain public interest from radio and TV broadcasts, things have largely gone down hill. The quality of news has gone down, everything about broadcast TV and radio has gone down hill.
So I take issue with the people saying "Oh don't worry, this little FCC change won't effect anything...", because quite clearly it would effect things or people wouldn't be trying to push it through.
As Bush says, "Fool me once shame on you, Fool me twice you can't get fooled again."
My god, Microsoft has already release TWO PATCHES this year for Windows 2003. This is HORRIBLE, oh my god Microsucks is just such a crappy company, they can't make software worth shit.
You can't honestly claim that MS Paint is a competitor to Photoshop. He didn't say that the land-owner had to give away competing products, either.
Hmm, so let me get this straight. I shouldn't develop for Windows because something bad might happen. Isn't that FUD? Wouldn't it be just as true to point out that something bad might happen to me if I developed for Linux?
An example of underhanded anti-competitive behavior that leveraged operating system monopoly ("land owner") to drive out a competitor ("sharecropper"), is the story of Corel & WordPerfect.
The story goes... Gates went to WordPerfect and said "We want you to develop a version for Windows, here's a compiler." and WordPerfect said "No, we're busy right now porting to Unix and OS/2." So Gates turned to his own employees and they didn't have a chance to answer No.
Those of us who have been in the industry long enough know why we ended up choosing Microsoft Office over it's competitors... i.e. the competition sucked. If there was a truly compelling reason to switch back, companies would do so in a heartbeat, but there isn't anything compelling... they're just poor imitations now of Office.
Netscape might have something to say about that...
Another example of software that sucked forcing us to switch.
There are thousands of proprietary apps written for open source platforms.
And most of those companies are struggling to pay their employees because of the rampant piracy. See that's the bad thing that might happen if you develop for Linux.
If people would invest that in anything decent over the course of their lives, they'd be quite rich on retirement.
I guess I'm curious. Prior to the creation of Social Security did things work this way?
I'm just curious if you have any evidence to support your claim. It's also not clear to me what the net effect would be of an additional Trillion dollars being dropped into the stock markets on an annual basis.
It just seems that maybe the problem is a little bit larger than your simplistic thinking is allowing for.
Unfortunately that poll is what is generally wrong with politics these days.
On many of the issues I choose the third option of 'something else', and it appears that the calculation simply took that question out of the equation. Because it came back saying 100% to Kucinich, and after reading his profile I'm fairly opposed to many of his views.
Politics is not Black and White, there is middle ground. I don't have to fully support the NRA, but neither do I have to fully support the CGSV, I can support viewpoints from either side.
Are you suggesting that Americans are so easily persuaded that just mentioning something over and over will cause it to happen?
Not completely, but it helps to push things in a direction.
It's all about pessimism, and unfortunately Bush is one of the most pessimistic Presidents we have had in a long time. The tax cuts in the 1980's weren't what spawned growth, it was Reagans optimism. Similarly in the 1990's when Clinton raised taxes to balance the budget, we had a tremendous economic gain? Why? Because of Clinton's optimism.
The problem we have today is a jobless recovery. The market is gaining, the economy is growing slightly. But companies aren't hiring. Why? Because business leaders do not have confidence in the future, and don't want to commit themselves to growth.
That has everything to do with having a President who spends most of his time trying to scare the living bejesus out of the population.:(
Part of the problem is that Bush doesn't know what economic success feels like. He was given what he has, and he's had nothing but a string of business failures to show from it. So he doesn't know the excitement and thrill of going out and being able to finally afford to buy a BMW, because he was already given one on his 16th birthday.
The dems don't want him, they want their boy Gephart or *shudder* Lieberman. The DLC publically flogged Dean supporters by calling them "the activist elite" and tried to compare them to politcally impotent ultra-lefties.
The DLC, and the ndol.org website you linked to is part of the New Democrats. That is the centrist Democratic coalition that was brought together by President Clinton. Neither group is "The Democrats", they are part of the Dems, but not the whole. The Democratic party is not really a organized well-oiled machine like the GOP, it is a coalition of a variety of interests of which the DLC and the New Dems play a signifigant role.
Regardless, everyone who isn't in the GOP wants an electable Democrat. I can't see why Dean wouldn't fit the bill, especially with Iraq turing out to be a quite the quagmire for Bush.
Wishing and hoping that Iraq turns into a bad situation isn't going to win you a Presidential election. You have to think and speak positively. Attacking might win you a congressional seat, but not the Presidency.
I'm a Democrat, but I'm not a Dean supporter. I don't like him, and I don't trust him. The campaign I see him trying to run is one of being opportunist, like the parent poster stated. His performance on Meet the Press was abysmal, and he simply cannot win a Presidential election.
And it is absolutely critical for the future of this nation that GW Bush is out of office come 2005. Never in my lifetime have I seen a President who has done more to harm this nation. Nixon and Reagan are looking like they should have their likenesses put on Mount Rushmore by comparison.
Sorry, but there's no ploy. Dean is fighting influencial (read: very wealthy and very connected) members of his own party right now and in interesting ways (appeal to the populace, net-based action, etc) just to get heard.
I think this is insulting, because Dean is also fighting people in his party who are intelligent and understand the issues and the politics. To win in 2004, you have to address national security concerns, and Dean is not doing that. But keep in mind that you can address this issue in a strong manner and still address domestic liberties and economic issues. The public as a whole is solidly behind the Democrats ideas regarding liberties and economics, and the key is to advocate those positions strongly, not cave into the GOP criticism and play to their game plan.
Protesting Iraq at this point and time is a non-starter, it won't win additional votes. Why? Because the votes Dean is going for are part of the Democratic base, and they're already committed. The votes which are critical are the swing-vote, the middle ground, the ones who could be swayed to vote GOP if the Dems don't show that they have better ideas.
If you feel the left-wing or the Greens are being ignored, they aren't. It's just that they are only part of the party, according to the ndol.org they represent 33% of the Democratic party, which itself only represents 33% of the nation. A third of a third, but you need a good solid half to win a Presidential election. That means some 35-40% of the nation in addition to the left-wing and greens has to be swayed by your arguments and I don't see Dean being able to do this.
Listen, Iraq is over, it happened and there is no turning back. At this point what it is critical for the Dems to do is take over the issue. Show not how they opposed the war, and their proof is that it's an utter disaster... but state that things are in bad shape, and it is clear that this Administration is bungling the job so we need new leadership to take over and carry forward with our nations promises to rebuild Iraq.
I've already made up my mind on who I want to see running, and he isn't in the field right now. Based on my understanding of the situation, I think he'll announce in about two months and come in looking like the adult to these children which will help us sweep the elections.
The point being the Iraq anti-war cause was massive, the Kosovo one very tiny. That's the difference.
The Iraq war was massive... The Kosovo campaign was not. At least in terms of US involvement. Also Kosovo was dealing with an existing issue which was being widely publicized on the news. Iraq was dealing with something that happened 12 years ago when we were under more of a direct threat from other institutions.
That's the difference.
Quite clearly you were not listening if you think all anti-war protests are the same. The Iraqi war was opposed by far more than just the "Make peace not war" love-in liberals, it was opposed by military veterans and other groups.
Ahh, no. It's simply false. There was very little widespread dissent. Compare the days of 500,000 person plus gatherings to what happened with Kosovo. Virtually incomparable.
Again, you were not listening to the protesters.
I am not doubting there are left-leaning organizations and individuals who opposed Kosovo.
Sure you are... You asked "Where were they during Kosovo?" You're trying to make something of this when quite clearly the facts don't support your case.
The underlying issues are largely irrelevant.
The underlying issues are most relevant.
The congressional democrats - for example Daschle - supported Kosovo and went right around this time and bashed Bush for Iraq. Likewise Republicans - like for example Hastert - bashed Clinton and then went around and supported Bush.
That's because the underlying issues are different, which is what makes them relevant to the discussion.
You, sir, are trying to distract from the issue to make political hay. That's a very opportunistic point of view.
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Wow, that would make Windows98 superior to WindowsXP.
I don't see how considering WindowsXP is outselling Windows 98.
But certainly Windows 98 was superior than NT4 from the consumers point of view.
If everybody would think like you, we would still live in the stone age.... Nobody would ever try anything new because they would think the old way of doing it would be "superior"...
Now where did I ever suggest you not try new products?
As a consumer, you evaluate the options given to you and pick the solution that is best for you.
My point is only that the term "superior" means something different to different people. For some a BMW is the superior car, for others it is a Honda. Does the Honda drive better than the BMW? No... but it's more affordable, and for those who can't budget $40k for a car, the BMW is a non-starter.
Fact is the vast majority of Windows users did not choose it, it was simply preinstalled.
I was not aware of Apple preinstalling Windows on new Macintoshes.
No, consumers choose computers not for their hardware but for their software capabilities. One of the expected pieces of software is Windows. Your argument attempts to elude the inevitable.
Furthermore, the fact that most people use Windows does not make Windows superior, nor does it preclude another product from being superior to Windows.
The most popular product is ALWAYS the superior product, the consumers have made it so.
You need to stop redefining superior so that it only meets your needs and consider the rest of the consumer base.
Is the new technology inherently superior enough to what we've got now to justify changing?
In a comparison of Linux to Windows XP? The question would be NO.
Changing over to automobiles required throwing away a lot of existing technology.
Yeah, but after they changed over to automobiles, no business wanted to go back to using horses.
That's what is so baffling about this pro-Linux position.
Who said property rights was a great American tradition?
Who said property rights aren't a great American tradition?
It's sort of the basis of large chunks of the Constitution.
You misunderstand me (not for the first time today, I notice), I was not talking about client-side issues.
Oh no, I understood perfectly, what I was pointing out was how wrong you are. Client-side is where it's critical, because in a global world that is the only thing beyond your control.
It is fine to build in ASP.NET if you can be absolutely sure your system won't have to run on anythng but Windows.
Ahh, but I have no need to worry about that, for the server is under my control. If I want to use Oracle, I can. If I want to use SQL Server, I can. I can run the web site off an AS/400 with DB/2 on the back end!
And none of this is of any concern to the client!
Time proved us that a cross-platform language and infra-structure would give us more market penetration. We're still alive and kicking after all these years.
Wow. Now if only you could get yourself out of your little sphere of isolation and realize there's a great big world out there, and we aren't you. Your needs are not our needs, your religion is not my religion.
"If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate."
- Thomas Watson President of IBM during it's heyday.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
- Thomas Edison, when asked about the lack of progress on his lightbulb experiments
"It is hard to fail, but it is worse to never to have tried to succeed."
- Theodore Roosevelt
"My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure."
- Abraham Lincoln
"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."
- Colin Powell
"Victory belongs to the most persevering."
- Napolean Bonaparte
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone."
- Bill Cosby
I'd like to say I can't believe this nonsense article was posted. But this is slashbot, where the OSS community wallows in their failures rather than learning from them.
My point is being able to offer services in many platforms.
This is what the web gives you. We build apps in ASP.NET and anyone in the world can run them.
Apparently at some point during the dotcom craze this point of what the web provided eluded you.
Surely you're not claiming that a language being a ratified standard is the same thing as its being portable.
Uniface was portable. When was the last time you saw a job offer for Uniface?
The portability argument is a religious strawman created by Sun to promote Java at the cost of their competitors. I don't believe the religious rhetoric blindly. If you can create a coherent argument, I'm willing to listen, however.
Sigh... More argument by assertion.
First of all, with the dotcom craze, most of the problems were business plan related. The other problems were technology progression related. A lot of technologies sprang up since 1994. WOW! Amazing, incredible, I know, but gee whiz... What we have to build with today is very different than 6 years ago.
But for that matter, I still have websites in production built 6 years ago using ASP. They still work, and we don't have problems with them. If the other assertion you claimed were true, we'd be replacing them.
But the fact is, with all technologies, eventually you face a choice of either maintaining it as is, or upgrading. When you upgrade you face a certain risk of having to change some stuff. Our Mainframe environment at work is running on a version of COBOL that is well beyond supported for precisely this reason.
The issue I have with your unsupported assertions is that you in no way prove that these assertions are not also true of the technologies you are promoting.
So you're basically arguing religion with me, and I have no use for that in my business plan.
Using non-portable languages to write web apps is a very bad idea.
Statement by assertion with no supporting evidence.
C# is a ratified standard.
The other languages you suggested are not.
Maybe you should rewrite your statement "Using languages that I don't like because of religious bias is a very bad idea." It would be more honest.
Gartner is run by maroons... I mean come on, they've always made wild claims to gain attention.
Gartner says you should migrate off IIS
Gartner says you shouldn't use Intrusion Detectino Systems
Gartner says you shouldn't use Linux
But if you read these claims, they do come with caveats. The problem is the headlines are the only thing PHBs tend to read and they miss the finer points of the argument.
But as far as Gartner doing something because Microsoft asked them too... that's poppycock, and there's no historical pattern to back it up.
But I wouldn't necessarily term them "pro-war" rallies, either.
Granted... they were mostly just anti-Clinton rallies.
It is still part of the license, and re-licensing process that you have to prove that you serve the community interest. Maintaining the public file, and running public information programs, etc. etc. All of that still happens. I know. I have to do it.
Not to the degree stations used to. Today it's just symbolic.
Do you remember as a kid watching the TV news and at the end they'd have a little opinion piece with an announcement "We offer equal time to the opposing point of view, please call us if you have something to say" or something like that. Stations don't have to do that anymore, which is why Limbaugh and others have been able to lock up stations completely.
Either way, it's one of those things where nobody is going to be happy about the outcome.
I agree. I see the Republicans using this to get short term political gain, but in the long run they'll be hurt by this move.
It's a stupid winner-takes-all theory of government, it's gotta end.
That's a very insightful point of view, and I guess I've never looked at it that way.
I've largely felt that the news tends to be biased towards the status quo. That is however things are today is just fine, anybody trying to change that should be shunned.
But yes, the attempts to try to give an appearance of no-bias have largely given a platform extremists. Us moderates are pretty boring to talk to and don't bring in ratings.
I do think that's changing, however. Americans are getting very tired of the extremists.
The Republicans plan to pull this wording out of the bill during the committee process when bills are reconciled with the Senate wording.
In the report on CNN they mention that Republicans are going around seeking member's signatures on a pledge to vote to sustain a veto. Since it requires a super majority(2/3rds) to override a veto, they only need 145 votes to defeat this measure.
This was a political game and it's largely symbolic, Republicans vote to support this so when they go back to their constituents they can't be attacked. Then the ones who are in solid seats with no reasonable opposition can vote against it to override the veto.
If you want to make sure that doesn't happen, write your congress critter and let them know how you feel and make it clear you'll be mad enough to start a grassroots campaign against them if they vote against this.
Clear Channel is not destroying this country. If you don't like their stuff, don't consume it. Convince your friends to do likewise.
I agree absolutely.
But the people who work for CC aren't bad, and don't have dubious motives.
On that I disagree. ClearChannel is pretty blatant about having a political bias. Their sending a corporate memo out to stations prohibiting them from broadcasting the Dixie Chicks, even if requested by listeners... their staging of pro-war rallies, etc. It shouldn't come as any surprise to people that the CEO of Clearchannel is very good friends with President Bush.
Now like I said, I agree with your sentiment and I don't listen to Clearchannel. In fact the one Rock station I do listen to makes it a point to mention they are NOT owned by ClearChannel during their station announcements, which I think is funny.
ClearChannel is simply a symptom of a larger problem, you're right accusing them won't change anything and they'll likely crumble from other financial burdens like most corrupt companies. But ever since the FCC changed the laws back in 1987 to eliminate the need to maintain public interest from radio and TV broadcasts, things have largely gone down hill. The quality of news has gone down, everything about broadcast TV and radio has gone down hill.
So I take issue with the people saying "Oh don't worry, this little FCC change won't effect anything...", because quite clearly it would effect things or people wouldn't be trying to push it through.
As Bush says, "Fool me once shame on you, Fool me twice you can't get fooled again."
My god, Microsoft has already release TWO PATCHES this year for Windows 2003. This is HORRIBLE, oh my god Microsucks is just such a crappy company, they can't make software worth shit.
Redhat Linux on the other hand, we just know is 100% secure! Well, as long as you ignore all those patches Redhat released for Enterprise Linux this year that were not put on the front page of slashdot as part of a FUD campaign.
Reading the article reminded me of something written by an obsessed teenager describing his ex-girlfriend.
"She's a slut because she wouldn't sleep with me!"
Each of these *was* a viable community of third party software. Now they are just assumed into the OS.
And I say THANK GOD THEY ARE!
It raised the quality of computing for everyone. Especially integrating the TCP stack in, without that the Internet would still be floundering.
I can't believe people are still whining about that.
And isn't the Linux community trying to sharecrop Windows?
Gimp is trying to sharecrop Photoshop.
Apache sharecropped Netscape Web Server.
and the list goes on...
You can't honestly claim that MS Paint is a competitor to Photoshop. He didn't say that the land-owner had to give away competing products, either.
Hmm, so let me get this straight. I shouldn't develop for Windows because something bad might happen. Isn't that FUD? Wouldn't it be just as true to point out that something bad might happen to me if I developed for Linux?
An example of underhanded anti-competitive behavior that leveraged operating system monopoly ("land owner") to drive out a competitor ("sharecropper"), is the story of Corel & WordPerfect.
The story goes... Gates went to WordPerfect and said "We want you to develop a version for Windows, here's a compiler." and WordPerfect said "No, we're busy right now porting to Unix and OS/2." So Gates turned to his own employees and they didn't have a chance to answer No.
Those of us who have been in the industry long enough know why we ended up choosing Microsoft Office over it's competitors... i.e. the competition sucked. If there was a truly compelling reason to switch back, companies would do so in a heartbeat, but there isn't anything compelling... they're just poor imitations now of Office.
Netscape might have something to say about that...
Another example of software that sucked forcing us to switch.
There are thousands of proprietary apps written for open source platforms.
And most of those companies are struggling to pay their employees because of the rampant piracy. See that's the bad thing that might happen if you develop for Linux.
If people would invest that in anything decent over the course of their lives, they'd be quite rich on retirement.
I guess I'm curious. Prior to the creation of Social Security did things work this way?
I'm just curious if you have any evidence to support your claim. It's also not clear to me what the net effect would be of an additional Trillion dollars being dropped into the stock markets on an annual basis.
It just seems that maybe the problem is a little bit larger than your simplistic thinking is allowing for.
Unfortunately that poll is what is generally wrong with politics these days.
On many of the issues I choose the third option of 'something else', and it appears that the calculation simply took that question out of the equation. Because it came back saying 100% to Kucinich, and after reading his profile I'm fairly opposed to many of his views.
Politics is not Black and White, there is middle ground. I don't have to fully support the NRA, but neither do I have to fully support the CGSV, I can support viewpoints from either side.
Ridiculous.
Are you suggesting that Americans are so easily persuaded that just mentioning something over and over will cause it to happen?
:(
Not completely, but it helps to push things in a direction.
It's all about pessimism, and unfortunately Bush is one of the most pessimistic Presidents we have had in a long time. The tax cuts in the 1980's weren't what spawned growth, it was Reagans optimism. Similarly in the 1990's when Clinton raised taxes to balance the budget, we had a tremendous economic gain? Why? Because of Clinton's optimism.
The problem we have today is a jobless recovery. The market is gaining, the economy is growing slightly. But companies aren't hiring. Why? Because business leaders do not have confidence in the future, and don't want to commit themselves to growth.
That has everything to do with having a President who spends most of his time trying to scare the living bejesus out of the population.
Part of the problem is that Bush doesn't know what economic success feels like. He was given what he has, and he's had nothing but a string of business failures to show from it. So he doesn't know the excitement and thrill of going out and being able to finally afford to buy a BMW, because he was already given one on his 16th birthday.
The dems don't want him, they want their boy Gephart or *shudder* Lieberman. The DLC publically flogged Dean supporters by calling them "the activist elite" and tried to compare them to politcally impotent ultra-lefties.
The DLC, and the ndol.org website you linked to is part of the New Democrats. That is the centrist Democratic coalition that was brought together by President Clinton. Neither group is "The Democrats", they are part of the Dems, but not the whole. The Democratic party is not really a organized well-oiled machine like the GOP, it is a coalition of a variety of interests of which the DLC and the New Dems play a signifigant role.
Regardless, everyone who isn't in the GOP wants an electable Democrat. I can't see why Dean wouldn't fit the bill, especially with Iraq turing out to be a quite the quagmire for Bush.
Wishing and hoping that Iraq turns into a bad situation isn't going to win you a Presidential election. You have to think and speak positively. Attacking might win you a congressional seat, but not the Presidency.
I'm a Democrat, but I'm not a Dean supporter. I don't like him, and I don't trust him. The campaign I see him trying to run is one of being opportunist, like the parent poster stated. His performance on Meet the Press was abysmal, and he simply cannot win a Presidential election.
And it is absolutely critical for the future of this nation that GW Bush is out of office come 2005. Never in my lifetime have I seen a President who has done more to harm this nation. Nixon and Reagan are looking like they should have their likenesses put on Mount Rushmore by comparison.
Sorry, but there's no ploy. Dean is fighting influencial (read: very wealthy and very connected) members of his own party right now and in interesting ways (appeal to the populace, net-based action, etc) just to get heard.
I think this is insulting, because Dean is also fighting people in his party who are intelligent and understand the issues and the politics. To win in 2004, you have to address national security concerns, and Dean is not doing that. But keep in mind that you can address this issue in a strong manner and still address domestic liberties and economic issues. The public as a whole is solidly behind the Democrats ideas regarding liberties and economics, and the key is to advocate those positions strongly, not cave into the GOP criticism and play to their game plan.
Protesting Iraq at this point and time is a non-starter, it won't win additional votes. Why? Because the votes Dean is going for are part of the Democratic base, and they're already committed. The votes which are critical are the swing-vote, the middle ground, the ones who could be swayed to vote GOP if the Dems don't show that they have better ideas.
If you feel the left-wing or the Greens are being ignored, they aren't. It's just that they are only part of the party, according to the ndol.org they represent 33% of the Democratic party, which itself only represents 33% of the nation. A third of a third, but you need a good solid half to win a Presidential election. That means some 35-40% of the nation in addition to the left-wing and greens has to be swayed by your arguments and I don't see Dean being able to do this.
Listen, Iraq is over, it happened and there is no turning back. At this point what it is critical for the Dems to do is take over the issue. Show not how they opposed the war, and their proof is that it's an utter disaster... but state that things are in bad shape, and it is clear that this Administration is bungling the job so we need new leadership to take over and carry forward with our nations promises to rebuild Iraq.
I've already made up my mind on who I want to see running, and he isn't in the field right now. Based on my understanding of the situation, I think he'll announce in about two months and come in looking like the adult to these children which will help us sweep the elections.
The on
The point being the Iraq anti-war cause was massive, the Kosovo one very tiny. That's the difference.
The Iraq war was massive... The Kosovo campaign was not. At least in terms of US involvement. Also Kosovo was dealing with an existing issue which was being widely publicized on the news. Iraq was dealing with something that happened 12 years ago when we were under more of a direct threat from other institutions.
That's the difference.
Quite clearly you were not listening if you think all anti-war protests are the same. The Iraqi war was opposed by far more than just the "Make peace not war" love-in liberals, it was opposed by military veterans and other groups.
Ahh, no. It's simply false. There was very little widespread dissent. Compare the days of 500,000 person plus gatherings to what happened with Kosovo. Virtually incomparable.
Again, you were not listening to the protesters.
I am not doubting there are left-leaning organizations and individuals who opposed Kosovo.
Sure you are... You asked "Where were they during Kosovo?" You're trying to make something of this when quite clearly the facts don't support your case.
The underlying issues are largely irrelevant.
The underlying issues are most relevant.
The congressional democrats - for example Daschle - supported Kosovo and went right around this time and bashed Bush for Iraq. Likewise Republicans - like for example Hastert - bashed Clinton and then went around and supported Bush.
That's because the underlying issues are different, which is what makes them relevant to the discussion.
You, sir, are trying to distract from the issue to make political hay. That's a very opportunistic point of view.