None of it was based on lies, etc. by Bush and his senior staff. The one lie involved (the "16" words) was true as Bush said it: He did report what British intelligence reported on the Niger deal.
Open your eyes and quit distorting things! The documents in question had been discredited by our own intelligence officials long before Bush said anything about British intelligence. You right-wingers bitched about Clinton playing word games and then you let Bush off the hook when he gives grave warnings about supposed British intelligence that has already been discredited.
Do you even know anything about the forged Nigerian documents? One of the documents was a letter discussing the uranium deal supposedly signed by Niger President Tandja Mamadou. Expert sources described the signature as "childlike" and said that it clearly was not Mamadou's. Another document, written on letterhead from a 1980s military government in Niger, bears the date of October 2000 and the signature of a man who, by then, had not been the foreign minister of Niger in 14 years.
Bush lied about the reasons for war over and over. Bush repeatedly told reporters that one of the main reasons the U.S. invaded Iraq was that Saddam Hussein had refused to admit U.N. weapons inspectors. "We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." The truth, of course, Hussein had given inspectors complete access to Iraq and that their inspections were proceeding vigorously when the Bush administration ordered the inspectors to leave so that bombing could begin.
The White House claimed that Iraq was trying to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes in which to process uranium. But leading scientists and former weapons inspectors seriously questioned the administration's analysis and pointed out that the tubes were more likely intended for common artillery rockets.
In a May 1 speech aboard the USS Lincoln, Bush said: "We have removed an ally of al-Qaeda." Although the alleged connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda was one of the administration's earliest justifications for going to war, there is still NO evidence to support it and plenty of evidence against it.
Bush cited a report from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Commission alleging that Iraq was "six months away" from developing a nuclear weapon, yet no such report exists.
Bush claimed that Iraq maintained a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that, in his words, could be used "for missions targeting the United States." But Iraq has NEVER had a delivery system capable of reaching our shores.
And stop with the "16 words" bullshit. The magnitude of the lie/deception/misleading has nothing to do with the number of words. If I said "you raped a goat", that's only four words. Does that mean that it's not as bad a lie as if I said, in 22 words, "you went to the store to buy a soda, got ten cents too much in change, and did not tell the cashier"?
Any word on those Weapons Of Mass Destruction yet?
Bush did not launch this war. Saddam Hussein did.
More Bullshit. Saddam Hussein did not attack the U.S. The U.S. attacked Iraq while Iraq was cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors.
Saddam Hussein had been... attacking nearby countries (including Israel and Kuwait),
So, please tell me when Saddam attacked Israel and Kuwait. I was under the impression that the U.N. action against Saddam when Bush's daddy was President was due to Saddam's incursion into Kuwait. Has it happened again? If not, are you going to tell me that Pearl Harbor is a valid justification for attacking Japan next month?
You have to admit, if there is a shady business deal that results in a dozen convictions, and one central figure who avoids conviction happens to be the one who has special priviledges to avoid such prosecution, something does not look right.
But we don't judge guilt by appearances.
Besides, even if he was involved in a shady land deal *and* he broke laws, so what? That doesn't justify a $65 million, six-year investigation nor does it have anything to do with his fitness for office. He was elected President, not Pope.
I'm amazed that the same people that think Clinton should have been removed from office for Whitewater think that it's fine that we sent troops over to Iraq, launched a war, killed over two hundred Americans (and still counting), countless Iraqis, spent billions of taxpayer dollars, and that it was all based on lies, distortions, and fabrications by Bush and his senior staff. How about some perspective here?
Again, if you have some personal knowledge that was not uncovered during the 6 year, $65 million investigation, then I urge you to turn it over. Otherwise STFU.
You don't live in the United states, do you? In the United States we have a long-standing, Constitutionally protected concept known as "innocent until proven guilty." That says that a person must be assumed by the judicial system to be innocent unless it can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the person did commit a crime. It's a good principle and one that I would hope you would pressure your country's government to adopt.
It is not like Clinton had nothing to do with these shady deals.
By the time that the Clinton's sold their share in the Whitewater property, they had lost $46,000. This hardly sounds like some clever financial scam cooked up by the Clintons.
He got away cause he was smart enough not to leave anything that could be traced back to him.
Really? What information do you have that was not turned up during a six year, $65 million dollar investigation of Bill Clinton? It sounds like you have some personal knowledge and, if so, I urge you to come forward with it.
What we really need is for the federal government to get its nose out of space, and to back off on the various regulations that mke it hard for commercial interests to do anything in space.
Businesses want profits and the profits just aren't there for pure science research in space. Universities won't be funding space exploration -- it's often tough for them to find enough money in the budget for facilities maintenance. Boeing is not going to land a man on Mars in the hopes that they will be able to turn a profit from the mission. Lockheed is not going to fund the launch of a next-generation space telescope with the expectation of making money from the venture.
I just don't believe that it would further our knowledge, increase our enthusiasm, or make us proud to be Americans if some private firm launched Lance Bass (of 'N Sync), Dennis Tito, and other multi-millionaire space-tourist-wannabes into orbit.
The private sector will continue to fund and launch communications satellites -- and will do little else. Nothing else having to do with space has been shown to have any real promise of generating a positive cash flow.
The American public (as a whole) apparently doesn't care about space. If they did, it would be a great campaign platform, and someone would use it as such. The "public" doesn't want to spend the money, they have no tolerance for failure, and all they are interested in is spectacular firsts.
Most of the public doesn't care about physical fitness either, but that does not mean that the The Presidents Council on Physical Fitness and Sports should be eliminated. Sometimes it's important for leaders to lead, to set goals, and to energize the public to achieve those goals. That's what Kennedy did and that's what we need now. There is more to being a leader than creating budgets and priorities based on opinion polls and focus groups. A President's job is to look out for the good of the country, not pander to trailer park inbreds who think that astrology and astronomy are the same thing.
President Clinton was a leftist who campaigned as a centrist but governed as a leftist.
President Clinton signed welfare reform that ended the federal guarantee of benefits for poor Americans. His administration's major initiative, health care reform, was founded on the industry-friendly "managed competition" model rather than the progressive single-payer plan. Clinton got his budget passed by dropping provisions that various industries objected to, like the energy tax and grazing fee hikes. He got NAFTA passed by including lots of of breaks for business interests -- and more Republicans than Democrats voted for the bill. To get the crime bill passed, Clinton cut the social programs that were supposed to balance the "law and order" provisions like increased death penalties. President Clinton spoke out about the virtue of school uniforms and spoke out against violent rap lyrics. One of his bills that was enacted into law guts the rights that Thomas Jefferson insisted be included in the Constitution: A state prisoner on death row now has only a year to petition a federal court to review the constitutionality of his trial or sentence. The ACLU's Laura Murphy referred to the Clinton administration as "the most wire-tap-friendly administration in history."
Yes, they are. The other words are a succinct and rational explanation of the motivations of those who want the wealthy and large corporations to be able to donate huge sums of money to political candidates, campaigns, and parties.
as wealthy and large corporations have nothing to do with these pro-free-speech arguments.
They have everything to do with them. If campaign donations were limited to, say, $100 per person/business, then RJ Reynolds, Disney, the RIAA, the MPAA, Microsoft, and other wealthy interests couldn't buy legislation. A politician could not dominate the airwaves by selling his vote to the highest bidders.
No, my argument has nothing to do with leveling the playing field.
No, just the opposite. You want to twist the Bill of Rights into a justification to let the wealthy buy legislation and control who does, and does not, have a chance of being elected.
The Bill of Rights says nothing about censoring anyone to "level the playing field".
Nor does it say that corporations should be able to buy influence, legislation, and votes -- yet that is what is happening. I don't see anything in the Bill of Rights stating that there will be no limits on the amount that a business can donate to a political campaign.
If the limit were $100 per contributer, you could freely express your full support of a candidate by giving his campaign $100. Limitations to the dollar amount don't limit your ability to freely express your support for a candidate.
That was not an ad hominem attack. It was an accurate portrayal of your character.
If he had done nothing wrong, it would have easily and quickly come out in court. Settling out of court is something done by the guilty to blunt justice.
Utter guilty-until-proven-innocent bullshit. It would have been her word against his. She could have made up anything that she wanted, called Monica Lewinsky to the stand and questioned her at length about her sexual contact with Clinton, and done the same thing Starr did on Whitewater -- drag it out for years as a fishing expedition.
First, there was no fishing expedition. Don't make things up: refer to things as they are.
Yes, it was a fishing expedition. Senator Charles Schumer addressed Ken Starr, saying:
Maybe we should hang a sign outside the Judiciary Committee that says, out to lunch, gone fishing.
We were out to lunch because we're so far afield of what the American people want us to do. We've gone fishing because despite a five-year fishing expedition which has yielded nothing more than allegations revolving around a tawdry sex scandal this committee is still trying to bait the hook.
A brighter man than you recognized it as a fishing expedition.
Yes he did: he forced them to drag it out for years. You don't go commit crimes, and then block investigation. Both are wrong.
As part of my investigation of you, I want you to turn over a list of all of the pornography on your computer, tell me when you picked your nose last, provide me with all of your medical records, give me a complete list of all of your sexual partners and all sexual activities in which you engaged, provide me with copies of all of your financial records for the past 20 years, and I'll think of some other things. If you don't cooperate fully, then you must be guilty of some crime.
It should have taken place.The crook had the audacity to ask the government to pay for the legal bills he racked up lying and obfuscating his crimes.
Had he been found guilty of crimes, he would not have asked for the government to pay his legal bills, but since their fishing expedition came up empty-handed, he had every right to. The closest thing they could get to wrongdoing was misleading, and maybe perjurous, testimony he gave regarding his sex life, but a crime, if one was committed, during the investigation does not justify the investigation.
There are cases where it opposes censorship (you named one). However, this does not excuse them for all the times they side with the intolerant and sue to censor expression that they want banned.
Not that you've actually provided any examples of that.
As for Exon, thanks for giving some of his voting record, which includes some left-wing votes such as against gay marriage and wiretaps (same as Clinton, another left-winger)
He voted in favor of expanded wiretaps, not against. So you believe that the right-wing is in favor of gay marriage? That the left wing wants the FBI to have broad wiretap powers? News to me. As to Clinton, he was elected because he was a centrist, not someone in the far left.
Maybe if you quit posting items without thinking about the content.
I think very carefully about what I post because it's attributed to me. Posting anonymously, you obviously feel no such need.
The most? You are forgetting about a very similar one, Nixon. Both were hounded because they commited crimes.
Incorrect. Despite wasting huge sums of money investigating Whitewater, Clinton was not found to have committed any crimes.
The tens of millions of dollars were spent by Clinton because he refused to turn over evidence.
Clinton did not make them try to pursue the "evidence." He did not force them to drag this out for years. It was an investigation that should never have taken place and I don't blame him for not cooperating with the fishing expedition.
It was not just a 20 year old land deal: it was crimes and cover-ups that continued years later.
What crime was Clinton found guilty of committing related to Whitewater? Please, tell me what the conviction was for.
Personal sex life? That was never involved.
Bullshit. Monica Lewinsky's relationship with Clinton was his personal sex life and any civil suit that Paula Jones brought through her Republican-funded legal team had nothing to do with Ken Starr's Whitewater fishing expedition.
However, a crime of sexual harassment against one of his employees was involved (something he eventually admitted with his out-of-court settlement).
You filthy, low-life, lying, anonymous scum! Clinton never admitted any wrongdoing or made any apology. He said that he settled the suit because he didn't want to have it continue to drag on.
So he agreed with this extreme left-wing pro-censorship racist group about one time out of five?
This shows how deluded you are. It was the ACLU that fought against Exon's CDA because the ACLU felt that it was censorship. They subsequently fought against mandatory filtering of library Internet access because that was censorship. I won't even dignify you comment about racism with a reply.
Let's look at some of Exon's other right-wing votes:
Voted in favor of Constitutional Amendment banning flag "desecration"
Voted in favor of a bill denying federal recognition of gay marriages
Voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1996, which would have outlawed discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation.
Voted in favor of increased wiretapping without a court order
You forgot that he was strongly in favor of abortion as well.
He voted in favor of limiting late-term abortions (H.R. 1833).
By the way, quit posting anonymously. It's a chicken-shit, cowardly thing to do. Be a man and at least own up to the stuff you post.
Tired? It is very true. The donations result in political speech that many want censored.
Donations as speech and donations funding speech are two very different things. The anti-reform people claim that the size of the donation is a form of expression unto itself. In other words, they want the wealthy and large corporations to be able to speak with a bullhorn while the rest of us are, at best, speaking with a whisper.
The campaign finance "reformers" are using the means of stopping donations as a way to the end of stifling political speech.
The pro-reform people are trying to take us back to a time when large corporations and wealthy individuals did not buy legislation. People like you think that it's just fine that Microsoft made $4.7 million in campaign donations in 2000 in order to make the Department of Justice to stop the anti-trust prosecution. I don't. I don't think that it's okay for R.J. Reynolds to donate money so that Congressmen will oppose legislation regulating tobacco. I don't think that it's okay for Disney, the RIAA, and the MPAA to be able to buy legislation extending copyrights over and over.
I have read so many arguments in favor of "campaign finance reform" by limiting spending that begin with something about the reason we have to do this is to get rid of campaign ads.
No, you just don't want a level playing field. You think that candidates with the backing of huge corporations should be able to monopolize the airwaves while those who won't sell their souls to the corporate giants should be kept silent. You want rates for campaign ads to remain high so that only candidates with huge war chests can afford them. Well, I don't.
The last thing NASA should do is revert to its old philosophy.
That philosophy put man on the moon. What progress have we made since then? Do we have a lunar colony? Do we have a large, fully-manned space station complete with rotation providing artificial gravity? Have we sent men to Mars? All that FBC has done is provide us with uninspiring baby steps taken with unmanned probes. It's caused an entire generation of kids to decide that being an astronaut isn't nearly as cool as flying a fighter jet.
That philosophy is appropriate for some missions, but disaster for most: it costs way too much, and provides poor return on investment.
We don't need a good return on investment -- we need more investment. NASA's annual budget is less than we are spending every two months occupying Iraq. In the mid-60's, NASA received about 5% of the total federal budget. Now it gets less than 1/2%. We need a President like Kennedy again -- one who values space exploration more than oil exploitation.
The question "does.NET scale" means "how much room for improvement is there in how.NET uses a given chunk of hardware"; that's a question that is most easily answered by comparing.NET performance with the performance of other systems.
For Christ's sake, did you even read the question? The very first line was:
Does anyone have first hand experience with scaling.NET to support 100+ concurrent requests on a decent 2-4 CPU box with web services?
He didn't ask for some lame-assed "you should use open source" troll.
Second, the open source troll didn't compare the performance of open source to.NET, didn't suggest an open source alternative to.NET, or offer an appraisal of the performance of.NET. It was one line:
If they're that strapped for cash they should be looking at open source.
That'a a zealot for you. He's pushing open source when he doesn't even know if there is a viable open-source alternative, whether the company has staff with experience on non-Microsoft systems, or whether there are even specific features that the company wants that only.NET currently offers.
Well, we know what your major malfunction is: you are one of those Microsoft zealots. Your support for that company is so irrational that you just don't want people looking at alternatives.
How the hell can you decide someone is "one of those Microsoft zealots" because he tried to get someone to answer the question rather than using it as a way to push open source? This place is absolutely unreal sometimes. I swear to God that Microsoft could release a cure for cancer and someone on Slashdot would would recommend that terminally ill cancer patients wait for an open-source alternative.
As someone who has worked on satellite software development and testing, I can tell you that system complexity is one of the biggest enemies of the 'Faster, Better, Cheaper' philosophy. As the complexity of a spacecraft increases, so does the testing. If you put 10,000 telemetry points into the downlink, then you have to test all 10,000 of them in such a way as to assure that they are fully functional. The same holds true for mechanical complexity and system interaction. When a project is behind schedule and over budget, one of the first things looked at for chopping is the testing.
This is not news to software engineers, but it seems to be something that the general public fails to grasp. NASA needs to revert to the slower, more reliable, more expensive philosophy that brought so much success throughout the sixties and seventies. We need to accept that space exploration is complex and expensive and attempts to shortcut will just result in horrible failures and even the loss of life. Diverting a little money from Bush's "War Against Imaginary Weapons" to NASA would be a good start.
The point is that morally there is almost no difference between theft and copyright infringement, so its pretty asinine[sic] of you to try to keep them distinct.
You are dead-flat-wrong. Morally there is a big difference between theft and copyright infringement. Downloading a copyrighted song that has been out of print for ten years is not the moral equivalent of stuffing a CD under your shirt and walking out of a record store. Photocopying an entry from an encyclopedia at the library is not the moral equivalent of ripping the pages out and putting them in your pocket. Downloading an MP3 from a CD that you already purchased is not morally the same as theft. If you like only one song on a $18.99 CD and, therefore, would not buy the CD, downloading that song as an MP3 is not the moral equivalent of picking the artist's pocket.
After a theft, the victim has less than he started with. After a copyright infringement, he does not. The strongest thing that can be said about copyright infringement is that it might lead to the copyright holder getting less revenue in the future.
If they don't want anybody to know their political views, then stop participating in the racket of "donations are political speech".
I'm completely opposed to the donations-as-political-speech argument. That's a bullshit argument was put forth by the people that want to prevent campaign finance reform. Every time that anyone, even a member of their own party like McCain, suggests limitations to campaign donations, the GOP launches into that tired old argument.
Donations are a form of "telling someone" (that's the point, isn't it?).
No, that's not the point. The point of donations is to provide a candidate with whom you agree the funds necessary to get out his message. If I want to tell the world that I support a candidate and plan to vote for that candidate, I can do so more effectively with yard signs, online postings, and personal conversations.
Hypothetical: You work in a non-unionized job. You want to unionize but all of those in management are fighting against it. You give money to a candidate who is very pro-union in the hopes that he will get elected and help your cause. He publishes a web site listing you as a contributer. Your boss goes to the web site, sees your name, and you get a pink slip on Friday.
That is why a political donation should be private matter unless the donor wishes to publicize it.
But I forget, we're talking about a politician here. ..
What you also forget is that we are talking about the most hounded, embattled Presidency in history. Every dirty trick that could be used against him by his GOP enemies was. They even went to far as to spend tens of millions of dollars to investigate a 20 year old land deal in which he lost money and somehow used that as a way to dig up dirt on his personal sex life.
Upholding the Constitution, in the long run, is best served by keeping people like Bush and Ashcroft out of office. Had Clinton not signed the CDA, his veto would have been used as a weapon to get right-wing, anti-Constitution Nazis like Ashcroft into positions of power sooner.
The world is not so clearly black and white as you would believe and sometimes a man has to choose the lesser of two evils.
The man who put Internet censorship on the map, a certain Senator Exon from the midwest, was a liberal Democrat, not a member of the Christian right.
Senator Exon may have run as a Democrat, but he is anything but liberal. He is a member of the Christian right.
From THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT AND INTERNET CENSORSHIP by Jonathan Wallace
"The entire Senate debate, spearheaded by Senator Exon and Republicans Dan Coats and Charles Grassley, was informed by the sensibilities of the religious right. The Senators read letters from the Christian Coalition and from Bruce Taylor into the record. More significantly, they flaunted statistics from the notorious Marty Rimm "cyberporn" study two weeks before it was released in an exclusive article in the July 3rd Time magazine. Apparently, the proponents of the CDA had been given a preview of the study's contents.
Mike Godwin, staff counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, believes that the religious right acted as the conduit between the Georgetown Law Journal, then preparing the Rimm study for publication, and the pro-censorship Senators. Godwin discovered that as early as November 1994, Bruce Taylor was assisting Marty Rimm, then a junior at Carnegie Mellon, in preparing his study, a thesis project. Deen Kaplan, a Georgetown Law student and editor of the Law Journal, shared office space with Taylor in a complex which also housed the National Coalition for Children and Families and Donna Rice's organization, Enough is Enough. Another protege of Taylor's, John McMickle, was now on Senator Grassley's staff, and assisted him in drafting his own Internet indecency legislation. Deen Kaplan compiled Senator Exon's "Blue Book" of Internet pornography, which he brandished to great effect during the Senate discussions."
Need more evidence that Exon was not liberal? His votes were only in line with the ACLU only 17% of the time.
This is the prayer that Exon used to open the Senate debate on the CDA:
"Almighty God, Lord of all life, we praise You for the advancements in computerized communications that we enjoy in our time. Sadly, however, there are those who are littering this information superhighway with obscene, indecent, and destructive pornography. Virtual but virtueless reality is projected in the most twisted, sick misuse of sexuality. Violent people with sexual pathology are able to stalk and harass the innocent. Cyber solicitation of teenagers reveals the dark side of online victimization."
Now are you satisfied the Exon is a member of the Christian right?
. ..he only signed a law that said the First Amendment doesn't apply on the Net.
Had he not signed it, the Christian right would have labelled him 'pro-kiddie-porn' and 'more interested in pedophiles than their victims.' They would have done everything in their power to make it look like he was in favor of raping children. So he signed it knowing that it would be struck down by the courts.
We are not talking about calling a Senator, we are talking about normal people discussing issues on this web site. The nit picking that I have seen adds nothing.
The kind of people who discuss issues about upcoming legislation are often the same ones who call their Congressmen. I've called my Congressmen to express my opinions based on stories I've read on Slashdot.
Further, I doubt that the inaccurate terminology used here on/. is going to effect existing or future law.
I'm not so sure. When we blur the distinctions between "theft" and "copyright infringement", there are no small number of people who will not fully appreciate the legal and moral difference between the two. I'm sure that you would agree that photocopying an article in the library, while copyright infringement, is a far different crime than slipping the magazine under your shirt and walking out.
I'm calling my Congressmen on this issue and I doubt I am the only Slashdot reader to do so. If we, as a group, sound like a bunch of pissed off kids that just want Napster back, then our opinions will be written off. If we sound like educated, intelligent voters, then what we say will carry more weight.
You need to lighten up.
On that, we will have to disagree. If we were discussing someone's Lego Star Wars space ships -- or just about any tech topic that does not involve legislation, then I'd agree. I just can't in this case.
This could be fixed by simply adding an other category and letting the writer specify.
That still would not allow anyone to express an opinion beyond for/against. Written correspondence, to be meaningful, must be read in its entirety. Someone who is writing to express concerns about nuances in a complex subject needs to have a person read his work to have it be effective. Being put in the "other/miscellaneous -- against" column is not going to be of much value.
I feel that this is a bad thing for another reason. If politicians are allowed to shield themselves from the spam that the rest of us face, then little will be done to stop it. While Bush has a monopoly on the Presidency, private industry does not have the option of walling themselves off with webforms. To be competitive, they often have to provide e-mail addresses. If a pro-spam lobbyist wants to claim that spam is not a big problem, then I'd rather be be talking to someone who is paying a staff of 200 to weed through it every day.
Hey you are right, you can't deduct a campaign contribution.
Thanks for admitting that.
Being that I've never contributed to any type of campaign, it doesn't really matter to me.
But what does matter is that Bush & company are publishing information that is tantamount to revealing someone's vote. It's a gross invasion of privacy and one that could allow people to be singled out because they did, or did not, contribute or even because of the amount of their contribution. No one should have to worry that their boss, colleagues, or neighbors will be able to find out what candidates they support. No one should have to worry that he was passed over for a promotion because his boss looked up information about his campaign contributions. It's just wrong.
Well I can always take solace in the fact that you're the proud Democrat.
Yeah, I guess it doesn't sting so much when it comes from one of your betters.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
None of it was based on lies, etc. by Bush and his senior staff. The one lie involved (the "16" words) was true as Bush said it: He did report what British intelligence reported on the Niger deal.
... attacking nearby countries (including Israel and Kuwait),
Open your eyes and quit distorting things! The documents in question had been discredited by our own intelligence officials long before Bush said anything about British intelligence. You right-wingers bitched about Clinton playing word games and then you let Bush off the hook when he gives grave warnings about supposed British intelligence that has already been discredited.
Do you even know anything about the forged Nigerian documents? One of the documents was a letter discussing the uranium deal supposedly signed by Niger President Tandja Mamadou. Expert sources described the signature as "childlike" and said that it clearly was not Mamadou's. Another document, written on letterhead from a 1980s military government in Niger, bears the date of October 2000 and the signature of a man who, by then, had not been the foreign minister of Niger in 14 years.
Bush lied about the reasons for war over and over. Bush repeatedly told reporters that one of the main reasons the U.S. invaded Iraq was that Saddam Hussein had refused to admit U.N. weapons inspectors. "We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." The truth, of course, Hussein had given inspectors complete access to Iraq and that their inspections were proceeding vigorously when the Bush administration ordered the inspectors to leave so that bombing could begin.
The White House claimed that Iraq was trying to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes in which to process uranium. But leading scientists and former weapons inspectors seriously questioned the administration's analysis and pointed out that the tubes were more likely intended for common artillery rockets.
In a May 1 speech aboard the USS Lincoln, Bush said: "We have removed an ally of al-Qaeda." Although the alleged connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda was one of the administration's earliest justifications for going to war, there is still NO evidence to support it and plenty of evidence against it.
Bush cited a report from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Commission alleging that Iraq was "six months away" from developing a nuclear weapon, yet no such report exists.
Bush claimed that Iraq maintained a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that, in his words, could be used "for missions targeting the United States." But Iraq has NEVER had a delivery system capable of reaching our shores.
And stop with the "16 words" bullshit. The magnitude of the lie/deception/misleading has nothing to do with the number of words. If I said "you raped a goat", that's only four words. Does that mean that it's not as bad a lie as if I said, in 22 words, "you went to the store to buy a soda, got ten cents too much in change, and did not tell the cashier"?
Any word on those Weapons Of Mass Destruction yet?
Bush did not launch this war. Saddam Hussein did.
More Bullshit. Saddam Hussein did not attack the U.S. The U.S. attacked Iraq while Iraq was cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors.
Saddam Hussein had been
So, please tell me when Saddam attacked Israel and Kuwait. I was under the impression that the U.N. action against Saddam when Bush's daddy was President was due to Saddam's incursion into Kuwait. Has it happened again? If not, are you going to tell me that Pearl Harbor is a valid justification for attacking Japan next month?
Still feeling frisky?
I read your retort and did not find it convincing or compelling. But thank you for sharing your thoughts.
You have to admit, if there is a shady business deal that results in a dozen convictions, and one central figure who avoids conviction happens to be the one who has special priviledges to avoid such prosecution, something does not look right.
But we don't judge guilt by appearances.
Besides, even if he was involved in a shady land deal *and* he broke laws, so what? That doesn't justify a $65 million, six-year investigation nor does it have anything to do with his fitness for office. He was elected President, not Pope.
I'm amazed that the same people that think Clinton should have been removed from office for Whitewater think that it's fine that we sent troops over to Iraq, launched a war, killed over two hundred Americans (and still counting), countless Iraqis, spent billions of taxpayer dollars, and that it was all based on lies, distortions, and fabrications by Bush and his senior staff. How about some perspective here?
Again, if you have some personal knowledge that was not uncovered during the 6 year, $65 million investigation, then I urge you to turn it over. Otherwise STFU.
Guilt by association?"
Hell yeah.
You don't live in the United states, do you? In the United States we have a long-standing, Constitutionally protected concept known as "innocent until proven guilty." That says that a person must be assumed by the judicial system to be innocent unless it can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the person did commit a crime. It's a good principle and one that I would hope you would pressure your country's government to adopt.
It is not like Clinton had nothing to do with these shady deals.
By the time that the Clinton's sold their share in the Whitewater property, they had lost $46,000. This hardly sounds like some clever financial scam cooked up by the Clintons.
He got away cause he was smart enough not to leave anything that could be traced back to him.
Really? What information do you have that was not turned up during a six year, $65 million dollar investigation of Bill Clinton? It sounds like you have some personal knowledge and, if so, I urge you to come forward with it.
A dozen or so of his close associates ended up in prison as a result of this 'fishing expedition'.
You exaggerate, but what is this? Guilt by association?
You're saying that Clinton should not have asked for reimbursement of his legal expenses because Starr found other people guilty of crimes?
What we really need is for the federal government to get its nose out of space, and to back off on the various regulations that mke it hard for commercial interests to do anything in space.
Businesses want profits and the profits just aren't there for pure science research in space. Universities won't be funding space exploration -- it's often tough for them to find enough money in the budget for facilities maintenance. Boeing is not going to land a man on Mars in the hopes that they will be able to turn a profit from the mission. Lockheed is not going to fund the launch of a next-generation space telescope with the expectation of making money from the venture.
I just don't believe that it would further our knowledge, increase our enthusiasm, or make us proud to be Americans if some private firm launched Lance Bass (of 'N Sync), Dennis Tito, and other multi-millionaire space-tourist-wannabes into orbit.
The private sector will continue to fund and launch communications satellites -- and will do little else. Nothing else having to do with space has been shown to have any real promise of generating a positive cash flow.
The American public (as a whole) apparently doesn't care about space. If they did, it would be a great campaign platform, and someone would use it as such. The "public" doesn't want to spend the money, they have no tolerance for failure, and all they are interested in is spectacular firsts.
Most of the public doesn't care about physical fitness either, but that does not mean that the The Presidents Council on Physical Fitness and Sports should be eliminated. Sometimes it's important for leaders to lead, to set goals, and to energize the public to achieve those goals. That's what Kennedy did and that's what we need now. There is more to being a leader than creating budgets and priorities based on opinion polls and focus groups. A President's job is to look out for the good of the country, not pander to trailer park inbreds who think that astrology and astronomy are the same thing.
President Clinton was a leftist who campaigned as a centrist but governed as a leftist.
President Clinton signed welfare reform that ended the federal guarantee of benefits for poor Americans. His administration's major initiative, health care reform, was founded on the industry-friendly "managed competition" model rather than the progressive single-payer plan. Clinton got his budget passed by dropping provisions that various industries objected to, like the energy tax and grazing fee hikes. He got NAFTA passed by including lots of of breaks for business interests -- and more Republicans than Democrats voted for the bill. To get the crime bill passed, Clinton cut the social programs that were supposed to balance the "law and order" provisions like increased death penalties. President Clinton spoke out about the virtue of school uniforms and spoke out against violent rap lyrics. One of his bills that was enacted into law guts the rights that Thomas Jefferson insisted be included in the Constitution: A state prisoner on death row now has only a year to petition a federal court to review the constitutionality of his trial or sentence. The ACLU's Laura Murphy referred to the Clinton administration as "the most wire-tap-friendly administration in history."
Those are not the acts of a "leftist."
The "other words" are made up by you
Yes, they are. The other words are a succinct and rational explanation of the motivations of those who want the wealthy and large corporations to be able to donate huge sums of money to political candidates, campaigns, and parties.
as wealthy and large corporations have nothing to do with these pro-free-speech arguments.
They have everything to do with them. If campaign donations were limited to, say, $100 per person/business, then RJ Reynolds, Disney, the RIAA, the MPAA, Microsoft, and other wealthy interests couldn't buy legislation. A politician could not dominate the airwaves by selling his vote to the highest bidders.
No, my argument has nothing to do with leveling the playing field.
No, just the opposite. You want to twist the Bill of Rights into a justification to let the wealthy buy legislation and control who does, and does not, have a chance of being elected.
The Bill of Rights says nothing about censoring anyone to "level the playing field".
Nor does it say that corporations should be able to buy influence, legislation, and votes -- yet that is what is happening. I don't see anything in the Bill of Rights stating that there will be no limits on the amount that a business can donate to a political campaign.
If the limit were $100 per contributer, you could freely express your full support of a candidate by giving his campaign $100. Limitations to the dollar amount don't limit your ability to freely express your support for a candidate.
And just what were they?
Ad hominems are fun for you, right?
That was not an ad hominem attack. It was an accurate portrayal of your character.
If he had done nothing wrong, it would have easily and quickly come out in court. Settling out of court is something done by the guilty to blunt justice.
Utter guilty-until-proven-innocent bullshit. It would have been her word against his. She could have made up anything that she wanted, called Monica Lewinsky to the stand and questioned her at length about her sexual contact with Clinton, and done the same thing Starr did on Whitewater -- drag it out for years as a fishing expedition.
First, there was no fishing expedition. Don't make things up: refer to things as they are.
Yes, it was a fishing expedition. Senator Charles Schumer addressed Ken Starr, saying:A brighter man than you recognized it as a fishing expedition.
Yes he did: he forced them to drag it out for years. You don't go commit crimes, and then block investigation. Both are wrong.
As part of my investigation of you, I want you to turn over a list of all of the pornography on your computer, tell me when you picked your nose last, provide me with all of your medical records, give me a complete list of all of your sexual partners and all sexual activities in which you engaged, provide me with copies of all of your financial records for the past 20 years, and I'll think of some other things. If you don't cooperate fully, then you must be guilty of some crime.
It should have taken place.The crook had the audacity to ask the government to pay for the legal bills he racked up lying and obfuscating his crimes.
Had he been found guilty of crimes, he would not have asked for the government to pay his legal bills, but since their fishing expedition came up empty-handed, he had every right to. The closest thing they could get to wrongdoing was misleading, and maybe perjurous, testimony he gave regarding his sex life, but a crime, if one was committed, during the investigation does not justify the investigation.
There are cases where it opposes censorship (you named one). However, this does not excuse them for all the times they side with the intolerant and sue to censor expression that they want banned.
Not that you've actually provided any examples of that.
As for Exon, thanks for giving some of his voting record, which includes some left-wing votes such as against gay marriage and wiretaps (same as Clinton, another left-winger)
He voted in favor of expanded wiretaps, not against. So you believe that the right-wing is in favor of gay marriage? That the left wing wants the FBI to have broad wiretap powers? News to me. As to Clinton, he was elected because he was a centrist, not someone in the far left.
Maybe if you quit posting items without thinking about the content.
I think very carefully about what I post because it's attributed to me. Posting anonymously, you obviously feel no such need.
The most? You are forgetting about a very similar one, Nixon. Both were hounded because they commited crimes.
Incorrect. Despite wasting huge sums of money investigating Whitewater, Clinton was not found to have committed any crimes.
The tens of millions of dollars were spent by Clinton because he refused to turn over evidence.
Clinton did not make them try to pursue the "evidence." He did not force them to drag this out for years. It was an investigation that should never have taken place and I don't blame him for not cooperating with the fishing expedition.
It was not just a 20 year old land deal: it was crimes and cover-ups that continued years later.
What crime was Clinton found guilty of committing related to Whitewater? Please, tell me what the conviction was for.
Personal sex life? That was never involved.
Bullshit. Monica Lewinsky's relationship with Clinton was his personal sex life and any civil suit that Paula Jones brought through her Republican-funded legal team had nothing to do with Ken Starr's Whitewater fishing expedition.
However, a crime of sexual harassment against one of his employees was involved (something he eventually admitted with his out-of-court settlement).
You filthy, low-life, lying, anonymous scum! Clinton never admitted any wrongdoing or made any apology. He said that he settled the suit because he didn't want to have it continue to drag on.
This shows how deluded you are. It was the ACLU that fought against Exon's CDA because the ACLU felt that it was censorship. They subsequently fought against mandatory filtering of library Internet access because that was censorship. I won't even dignify you comment about racism with a reply.
Let's look at some of Exon's other right-wing votes:
Voted in favor of Constitutional Amendment banning flag "desecration"
Voted in favor of a bill denying federal recognition of gay marriages
Voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1996, which would have outlawed discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation.
Voted in favor of increased wiretapping without a court order
You forgot that he was strongly in favor of abortion as well.
He voted in favor of limiting late-term abortions (H.R. 1833).
By the way, quit posting anonymously. It's a chicken-shit, cowardly thing to do. Be a man and at least own up to the stuff you post.
Tired? It is very true. The donations result in political speech that many want censored.
Donations as speech and donations funding speech are two very different things. The anti-reform people claim that the size of the donation is a form of expression unto itself. In other words, they want the wealthy and large corporations to be able to speak with a bullhorn while the rest of us are, at best, speaking with a whisper.
The campaign finance "reformers" are using the means of stopping donations as a way to the end of stifling political speech.
The pro-reform people are trying to take us back to a time when large corporations and wealthy individuals did not buy legislation. People like you think that it's just fine that Microsoft made $4.7 million in campaign donations in 2000 in order to make the Department of Justice to stop the anti-trust prosecution. I don't. I don't think that it's okay for R.J. Reynolds to donate money so that Congressmen will oppose legislation regulating tobacco. I don't think that it's okay for Disney, the RIAA, and the MPAA to be able to buy legislation extending copyrights over and over.
I have read so many arguments in favor of "campaign finance reform" by limiting spending that begin with something about the reason we have to do this is to get rid of campaign ads.
No, you just don't want a level playing field. You think that candidates with the backing of huge corporations should be able to monopolize the airwaves while those who won't sell their souls to the corporate giants should be kept silent. You want rates for campaign ads to remain high so that only candidates with huge war chests can afford them. Well, I don't.
The last thing NASA should do is revert to its old philosophy.
That philosophy put man on the moon. What progress have we made since then? Do we have a lunar colony? Do we have a large, fully-manned space station complete with rotation providing artificial gravity? Have we sent men to Mars? All that FBC has done is provide us with uninspiring baby steps taken with unmanned probes. It's caused an entire generation of kids to decide that being an astronaut isn't nearly as cool as flying a fighter jet.
That philosophy is appropriate for some missions, but disaster for most: it costs way too much, and provides poor return on investment.
We don't need a good return on investment -- we need more investment. NASA's annual budget is less than we are spending every two months occupying Iraq. In the mid-60's, NASA received about 5% of the total federal budget. Now it gets less than 1/2%. We need a President like Kennedy again -- one who values space exploration more than oil exploitation.
For Christ's sake, did you even read the question? The very first line was:He didn't ask for some lame-assed "you should use open source" troll.
Second, the open source troll didn't compare the performance of open source to
Well, we know what your major malfunction is: you are one of those Microsoft zealots. Your support for that company is so irrational that you just don't want people looking at alternatives.
How the hell can you decide someone is "one of those Microsoft zealots" because he tried to get someone to answer the question rather than using it as a way to push open source? This place is absolutely unreal sometimes. I swear to God that Microsoft could release a cure for cancer and someone on Slashdot would would recommend that terminally ill cancer patients wait for an open-source alternative.
As someone who has worked on satellite software development and testing, I can tell you that system complexity is one of the biggest enemies of the 'Faster, Better, Cheaper' philosophy. As the complexity of a spacecraft increases, so does the testing. If you put 10,000 telemetry points into the downlink, then you have to test all 10,000 of them in such a way as to assure that they are fully functional. The same holds true for mechanical complexity and system interaction. When a project is behind schedule and over budget, one of the first things looked at for chopping is the testing.
This is not news to software engineers, but it seems to be something that the general public fails to grasp. NASA needs to revert to the slower, more reliable, more expensive philosophy that brought so much success throughout the sixties and seventies. We need to accept that space exploration is complex and expensive and attempts to shortcut will just result in horrible failures and even the loss of life. Diverting a little money from Bush's "War Against Imaginary Weapons" to NASA would be a good start.
The point is that morally there is almost no difference between theft and copyright infringement, so its pretty asinine[sic] of you to try to keep them distinct.
You are dead-flat-wrong. Morally there is a big difference between theft and copyright infringement. Downloading a copyrighted song that has been out of print for ten years is not the moral equivalent of stuffing a CD under your shirt and walking out of a record store. Photocopying an entry from an encyclopedia at the library is not the moral equivalent of ripping the pages out and putting them in your pocket. Downloading an MP3 from a CD that you already purchased is not morally the same as theft. If you like only one song on a $18.99 CD and, therefore, would not buy the CD, downloading that song as an MP3 is not the moral equivalent of picking the artist's pocket.
After a theft, the victim has less than he started with. After a copyright infringement, he does not. The strongest thing that can be said about copyright infringement is that it might lead to the copyright holder getting less revenue in the future.
Stop and think before you post next time.
If they don't want anybody to know their political views, then stop participating in the racket of "donations are political speech".
I'm completely opposed to the donations-as-political-speech argument. That's a bullshit argument was put forth by the people that want to prevent campaign finance reform. Every time that anyone, even a member of their own party like McCain, suggests limitations to campaign donations, the GOP launches into that tired old argument.
Donations are a form of "telling someone" (that's the point, isn't it?).
No, that's not the point. The point of donations is to provide a candidate with whom you agree the funds necessary to get out his message. If I want to tell the world that I support a candidate and plan to vote for that candidate, I can do so more effectively with yard signs, online postings, and personal conversations.
Hypothetical: You work in a non-unionized job. You want to unionize but all of those in management are fighting against it. You give money to a candidate who is very pro-union in the hopes that he will get elected and help your cause. He publishes a web site listing you as a contributer. Your boss goes to the web site, sees your name, and you get a pink slip on Friday.
That is why a political donation should be private matter unless the donor wishes to publicize it.
But I forget, we're talking about a politician here. . .
What you also forget is that we are talking about the most hounded, embattled Presidency in history. Every dirty trick that could be used against him by his GOP enemies was. They even went to far as to spend tens of millions of dollars to investigate a 20 year old land deal in which he lost money and somehow used that as a way to dig up dirt on his personal sex life.
Upholding the Constitution, in the long run, is best served by keeping people like Bush and Ashcroft out of office. Had Clinton not signed the CDA, his veto would have been used as a weapon to get right-wing, anti-Constitution Nazis like Ashcroft into positions of power sooner.
The world is not so clearly black and white as you would believe and sometimes a man has to choose the lesser of two evils.
Senator Exon may have run as a Democrat, but he is anything but liberal. He is a member of the Christian right.
From THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT AND INTERNET CENSORSHIP
by Jonathan WallaceNeed more evidence that Exon was not liberal? His votes were only in line with the ACLU only 17% of the time.
This is the prayer that Exon used to open the Senate debate on the CDA:
"Almighty God, Lord of all life, we praise You for the advancements in computerized communications that we enjoy in our time. Sadly, however, there are those who are littering this information superhighway with obscene, indecent, and destructive pornography. Virtual but virtueless reality is projected in the most twisted, sick misuse of sexuality. Violent people with sexual pathology are able to stalk and harass the innocent. Cyber solicitation of teenagers reveals the dark side of online victimization."
Now are you satisfied the Exon is a member of the Christian right?
. . .he only signed a law that said the First Amendment doesn't apply on the Net.
Had he not signed it, the Christian right would have labelled him 'pro-kiddie-porn' and 'more interested in pedophiles than their victims.' They would have done everything in their power to make it look like he was in favor of raping children. So he signed it knowing that it would be struck down by the courts.
We are not talking about calling a Senator, we are talking about normal people discussing issues on this web site. The nit picking that I have seen adds nothing.
/. is going to effect existing or future law.
The kind of people who discuss issues about upcoming legislation are often the same ones who call their Congressmen. I've called my Congressmen to express my opinions based on stories I've read on Slashdot.
Further, I doubt that the inaccurate terminology used here on
I'm not so sure. When we blur the distinctions between "theft" and "copyright infringement", there are no small number of people who will not fully appreciate the legal and moral difference between the two. I'm sure that you would agree that photocopying an article in the library, while copyright infringement, is a far different crime than slipping the magazine under your shirt and walking out.
I'm calling my Congressmen on this issue and I doubt I am the only Slashdot reader to do so. If we, as a group, sound like a bunch of pissed off kids that just want Napster back, then our opinions will be written off. If we sound like educated, intelligent voters, then what we say will carry more weight.
You need to lighten up.
On that, we will have to disagree. If we were discussing someone's Lego Star Wars space ships -- or just about any tech topic that does not involve legislation, then I'd agree. I just can't in this case.
This could be fixed by simply adding an other category and letting the writer specify.
That still would not allow anyone to express an opinion beyond for/against. Written correspondence, to be meaningful, must be read in its entirety. Someone who is writing to express concerns about nuances in a complex subject needs to have a person read his work to have it be effective. Being put in the "other/miscellaneous -- against" column is not going to be of much value.
I feel that this is a bad thing for another reason. If politicians are allowed to shield themselves from the spam that the rest of us face, then little will be done to stop it. While Bush has a monopoly on the Presidency, private industry does not have the option of walling themselves off with webforms. To be competitive, they often have to provide e-mail addresses. If a pro-spam lobbyist wants to claim that spam is not a big problem, then I'd rather be be talking to someone who is paying a staff of 200 to weed through it every day.
Hey you are right, you can't deduct a campaign contribution.
;-)
Thanks for admitting that.
Being that I've never contributed to any type of campaign, it doesn't really matter to me.
But what does matter is that Bush & company are publishing information that is tantamount to revealing someone's vote. It's a gross invasion of privacy and one that could allow people to be singled out because they did, or did not, contribute or even because of the amount of their contribution. No one should have to worry that their boss, colleagues, or neighbors will be able to find out what candidates they support. No one should have to worry that he was passed over for a promotion because his boss looked up information about his campaign contributions. It's just wrong.
Well I can always take solace in the fact that you're the proud Democrat.
Yeah, I guess it doesn't sting so much when it comes from one of your betters.