Commenting is an opt-in situation. We don't expect to hear from you unless you choose to speak up and have something you want to say.
Voting is an opt-out situation. All citizens are expected to vote, unless they choose not to do so.
While voting for one of the two choices we are presented (where "choices" means "people who might actually win") may not be a good thing to do in your opinion, there are lots of alternative options. Not voting is certainly one of those, but it is probably the worst way possible to show dissatisfaction with the system, as opposed to indifference.
100 million people (more or less) usually vote in this country which is (very roughly) 1/2 of the eligible voters. Not voting puts you in with the tens of millions of people who are either too lazy or too stupid or too angry to bother voting. On the other hand if even 1 million people voted for a third party candidate, it would make a difference and send a message.
I'm thoroughly disappointed there wasn't a Ross Perot type this year, the climate was certainly more than ripe for one. I'm also thoroughly disappointed we don't have a voting system that is a little more sophisticated than a simple winner-take-all scenario which means that voting for a third party candidate is usually an effective vote for the R or D candidate who is most _unlike_ the third party candidate, meaning by voting third party, you are usually effectively voting against your own interests, which amuses and delights the R's and D's to no end.
The only way to make the system better is to break the duopoly of the Republicrat (or Demopublican if you will) Party. Voting for a third party will probably not be a particularly effective way to bring this about in the next decades, but it is in fact the _only_ way it will happen. McCain really isn't Bush 43 Mark II, but he's close enough that it won't make much difference in the long run and if anyone thinks Obama represents real "change" (i.e., change most people would actually want to see), then they are fooling themselves. They are both of the system and in the system.
Voting for a third party won't break the Two-Party Hegemony in 2008, but not voting is the most effective way to make sure the Two-Party Hegemony remains in control.
I used to know more, but I decided it wasn't a particularly fruitful or satisfying activity... about 30 years ago. I'm sure I'll start a chain of people one-upping each other until the lameness filter kicks in.
That's all most protesting these days really is. No one is impressed if you can gather up a few tens of thousands of people with no jobs to stand around and chant. All that proves is that daytime TV is awful. That doesn't mean it can't be influential (or at least noticed), just that you're going to have to do a little more than call a meeting of a bunch of whiners to make your point.
Protesting was done better and more constructively in the past. If people want to make a statement there needs to be something better than standing around acting angry about it.
I ascended with a wishless tourist once, and I consider that more of an accomplishment than my bachelor's degree.
It probably took more work, probably gave you more of a sense of satisfaction, and depending on your degree, may very well be just as valuable financially.
My friends and I joked that we all majored in D&D in college... I also played a serious amount of Nethack back when it was just called "Hack". The ironic thing is a couple of my friends did manage to leverage their role-playing experience into successful careers in the RPG and computer game industries, one even forming a gaming company.
Because the kinds of people making these decisions are usually technology-illiterate to the point where they still probably say, "Computers are the wave of the future!"
Minus the last 8 years, spending has always gone up when Democrats were in Congress, and down when Republicans were. Congress spends the money, not the President.
That said, however, it is true that the Republicans since 2000 have totally failed to live up to almost everything they have purportedly stood for in the past 50 years. The Democrats have done a good job of standing up for their ideas, or at least the stupid ones.
You're missing the point. It's a phone. Hardware has advanced so far what used to be a supercomputer now sits in your pocket and you use it to chat to Aunt Millie.
Call me naive, but I have faith in these companies that they made these changes for a reason, namely that they did tests and concluded it would improve the user experience, and that the bugs will be worked out in time.
Troll?! Troll?! But I didn't even make any disparaging remarks about Steve Ballmer's species or Bill Gates' concave chest! If I'm gonna get modded troll I want to really be trolling!
You're right. If what Windows 7 is supposed to be were possible from Microsoft we would already have it. They started with a fundamentally good system with XP took five years and came up with a train-wreck that adds nothing useful but requires 5 times the hardware to run. Does anything things in only two years they can turn that mess into something people would want.
Microsoft is done. They are irrelevant as a source of anything new. They will remain for many years by sheer dint of the tens of billions of dollars and a group of sons-of-bitches at the top with no morals or scruples, but they will never be relevant again in terms of technology, only in terms of the damage they can cause. We have entered the phase were Microsoft's sole raison d'etre is the damage the rest of the industry as much as possible in order to keep their pathetic state-of-the-art. Much like the socialist government the U.S. is about to elect, they will maintain the status quo by dragging everyone down to the same level.
Entrapment would be if they found people and pursued them, "Wanna buy some credit card numbers? Huh? Huh? Well dooya?!"
It seems to me that if you set up a front and people come to you soliciting illegal transactions that it's not entrapment at all. They had already decided to do the illegal thing and found you.
Look again: TNG ruined the Borg by about Season 6 with "Hugh". While the idea behind the story wasn't bad, making him into a young pupy-eyed teenager was over the top.
When it comes to lame talking points, this one is one of the lamest.
The President doesn't spend the money, he proposes a budget, but it's Congress that holds the purse strings.
Who was in charge of Congress when Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush 1 were in office? Democrats. Who was in charge of Congress when Clinton was in office? Republicans for 6 out 8 years (the 6 best).
Yes, the Republicans have totally melted down in the past 8 years and are now as bad as the Democrats. Both parties are now committed to spending this country into bankruptcy and are a fair way along the path to having accomplished it.
To me Obama vs. McCain means playing Russian Roulette with 6 bullets in the chamber vs 5. Either way, you're probably not coming out of it alive.
Both parties are corrupt possibly beyond repair. Anyone who doesn't see that is just being completely ignorant or unreasonably partisan.
If he's planning on investing in new nukes then his energy policy has changed significantly since I read it (a few months ago), because that definitely wasn't there. The best that could be said was that he addressed the idea of nuclear waste disposal, but never mentioned expanding nuclear power.
The sad thing is a good chunk of his energy policy was eaten up whining about global warming and then he proceeds to make a big deal about biofuels, which is _worse_ in terms of carbon emissions than anything else we are doing now. Although he didn't mention subsudies for corn for biofuel, I know that is a big deal in Congress right now and growning corn for fuel is downright stupid.
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I was not either angry or not angry with you until you read my message.
That was quantum anger.
FYI, I think you meant to say "prima donna", although I think the phrase "prim madonna" is very cool and quite apt, too.
Commenting is an opt-in situation. We don't expect to hear from you unless you choose to speak up and have something you want to say.
Voting is an opt-out situation. All citizens are expected to vote, unless they choose not to do so.
While voting for one of the two choices we are presented (where "choices" means "people who might actually win") may not be a good thing to do in your opinion, there are lots of alternative options. Not voting is certainly one of those, but it is probably the worst way possible to show dissatisfaction with the system, as opposed to indifference.
100 million people (more or less) usually vote in this country which is (very roughly) 1/2 of the eligible voters. Not voting puts you in with the tens of millions of people who are either too lazy or too stupid or too angry to bother voting. On the other hand if even 1 million people voted for a third party candidate, it would make a difference and send a message.
I'm thoroughly disappointed there wasn't a Ross Perot type this year, the climate was certainly more than ripe for one. I'm also thoroughly disappointed we don't have a voting system that is a little more sophisticated than a simple winner-take-all scenario which means that voting for a third party candidate is usually an effective vote for the R or D candidate who is most _unlike_ the third party candidate, meaning by voting third party, you are usually effectively voting against your own interests, which amuses and delights the R's and D's to no end.
The only way to make the system better is to break the duopoly of the Republicrat (or Demopublican if you will) Party. Voting for a third party will probably not be a particularly effective way to bring this about in the next decades, but it is in fact the _only_ way it will happen. McCain really isn't Bush 43 Mark II, but he's close enough that it won't make much difference in the long run and if anyone thinks Obama represents real "change" (i.e., change most people would actually want to see), then they are fooling themselves. They are both of the system and in the system.
Voting for a third party won't break the Two-Party Hegemony in 2008, but not voting is the most effective way to make sure the Two-Party Hegemony remains in control.
From SAMPLING! and you dont know PI, like I know PI.
No, I just didn't want to show off. From memory:
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399
I used to know more, but I decided it wasn't a particularly fruitful or satisfying activity... about 30 years ago. I'm sure I'll start a chain of people one-upping each other until the lameness filter kicks in.
That's all most protesting these days really is. No one is impressed if you can gather up a few tens of thousands of people with no jobs to stand around and chant. All that proves is that daytime TV is awful. That doesn't mean it can't be influential (or at least noticed), just that you're going to have to do a little more than call a meeting of a bunch of whiners to make your point.
Protesting was done better and more constructively in the past. If people want to make a statement there needs to be something better than standing around acting angry about it.
I was very angry at you last week.
That was asynchronous anger.
I ascended with a wishless tourist once, and I consider that more of an accomplishment than my bachelor's degree.
It probably took more work, probably gave you more of a sense of satisfaction, and depending on your degree, may very well be just as valuable financially.
My friends and I joked that we all majored in D&D in college... I also played a serious amount of Nethack back when it was just called "Hack". The ironic thing is a couple of my friends did manage to leverage their role-playing experience into successful careers in the RPG and computer game industries, one even forming a gaming company.
Because the kinds of people making these decisions are usually technology-illiterate to the point where they still probably say, "Computers are the wave of the future!"
How many combinations of digits does pi have?
One.
3.141592653589793...
Minus the last 8 years, spending has always gone up when Democrats were in Congress, and down when Republicans were. Congress spends the money, not the President.
That said, however, it is true that the Republicans since 2000 have totally failed to live up to almost everything they have purportedly stood for in the past 50 years. The Democrats have done a good job of standing up for their ideas, or at least the stupid ones.
You're missing the point. It's a phone. Hardware has advanced so far what used to be a supercomputer now sits in your pocket and you use it to chat to Aunt Millie.
It also cures jock itch and makes a wonderful dessert topping.
But do you have one of the new 66-megalith models?!
(apologies to Terry Pratchett)
Pshaw! Youngster. Your UID barely fits inside 16 bits. In _my_ day we had to whistle the 1's and 0's through an acoustic coupler!
Call me naive, but I have faith in these companies that they made these changes for a reason, namely that they did tests and concluded it would improve the user experience, and that the bugs will be worked out in time.
Hey, it worked so well for Vista, why not?
Troll?! Troll?! But I didn't even make any disparaging remarks about Steve Ballmer's species or Bill Gates' concave chest! If I'm gonna get modded troll I want to really be trolling!
You're right. If what Windows 7 is supposed to be were possible from Microsoft we would already have it. They started with a fundamentally good system with XP took five years and came up with a train-wreck that adds nothing useful but requires 5 times the hardware to run. Does anything things in only two years they can turn that mess into something people would want.
Microsoft is done. They are irrelevant as a source of anything new. They will remain for many years by sheer dint of the tens of billions of dollars and a group of sons-of-bitches at the top with no morals or scruples, but they will never be relevant again in terms of technology, only in terms of the damage they can cause. We have entered the phase were Microsoft's sole raison d'etre is the damage the rest of the industry as much as possible in order to keep their pathetic state-of-the-art. Much like the socialist government the U.S. is about to elect, they will maintain the status quo by dragging everyone down to the same level.
Well, I think it's fair to say not all politicians and corporate executives are thieves... somewhere... maybe... hopefully?
I would, for one, welcome our 3-digit UID overlords, but they've been here for a while and things haven't gotten any better.
Entrapment would be if they found people and pursued them, "Wanna buy some credit card numbers? Huh? Huh? Well dooya?!"
It seems to me that if you set up a front and people come to you soliciting illegal transactions that it's not entrapment at all. They had already decided to do the illegal thing and found you.
I tried to Babelfish that and the whole site went down... what gives?!
Thieves, politicians, corporate executives, you name it...
Look again: TNG ruined the Borg by about Season 6 with "Hugh". While the idea behind the story wasn't bad, making him into a young pupy-eyed teenager was over the top.
They'd become creampuffs in TNG as well.
When it comes to lame talking points, this one is one of the lamest.
The President doesn't spend the money, he proposes a budget, but it's Congress that holds the purse strings.
Who was in charge of Congress when Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush 1 were in office? Democrats. Who was in charge of Congress when Clinton was in office? Republicans for 6 out 8 years (the 6 best).
Yes, the Republicans have totally melted down in the past 8 years and are now as bad as the Democrats. Both parties are now committed to spending this country into bankruptcy and are a fair way along the path to having accomplished it.
To me Obama vs. McCain means playing Russian Roulette with 6 bullets in the chamber vs 5. Either way, you're probably not coming out of it alive.
Both parties are corrupt possibly beyond repair. Anyone who doesn't see that is just being completely ignorant or unreasonably partisan.
If he's planning on investing in new nukes then his energy policy has changed significantly since I read it (a few months ago), because that definitely wasn't there. The best that could be said was that he addressed the idea of nuclear waste disposal, but never mentioned expanding nuclear power.
The sad thing is a good chunk of his energy policy was eaten up whining about global warming and then he proceeds to make a big deal about biofuels, which is _worse_ in terms of carbon emissions than anything else we are doing now. Although he didn't mention subsudies for corn for biofuel, I know that is a big deal in Congress right now and growning corn for fuel is downright stupid.