I would just like to know one thing: how am I responsible for the taxes you pay, especially allocation to education?
It seems to me that in our democracy that people vote for their own beliefs. A large majority of Americans believe that we should all pool our resources for the education of children, and elect people who make policy based on this. If you're in the minority that says "Screw you, I don't want a good education system, I want companies to make huge profits off of the education of children", then I'm sorry for you and your selfish narrowmindedness.
One other thing: I am absolutely free to pay taxes to the US government or not. I have many options:
1) I could move to another country & pay taxes there. 2) I could increase charitable contributions to the point that I recoup all income taxes. 3) I could make less than the minimum income tax amount. 4) I could strive to become so rich that I can afford to hire lawyers to find every tax loophole available and not pay much of anything.
I'm sure there's more that I could do, but I think that's enough.
From what I've seen, libertarians want liberty as long as they get the maximum benefit to the detriment of everyone around them. If living comfortably means that the rest of the world suffers, who cares? "I work hard for my money, and don't want to support the dregs of society, because they are lazy. But, I don't mind giving money to the ultrawealthy CEOs of companies, because they've earned it, and I want to be just like them!"
I may need a class in economics (though I doubt that you are an economist, or at any rate a successful one), but you need something even more fundamental, that I doubt you'll ever get: the ability to empathize with other people.
Yeah, fuck me for not wanting to base the education system on violent coercion and taxation at the point of a gun.
Where is this gun & who's holding it? Don't like taxes? Have the feds withhold the bare minimum, donate as much money to charity as you would pay in taxes (up to either 50% or 30% of your income is directly deductable, depending on what you're donating, cash, stocks, etc.), itemize your return, and voila! You get all of your money back that you paid to the feds, and you give money to a cause you believe in. You could even give just what you want to the feds for things you believe in, like national security, if you wanted to.
Anyway, what would you rather base the education system on? Corporations, which, of course, always have your best interest in mind? Because no company would start shorting your kids education just to make a higher profit. Right?
OK, do I deserve to have I (who have no kids) deserve to have my money taken from me and given to everyone who has kids, just so they can go to public schools, at all? No, but I give it freely because I believe that when everyone in our country is more educated, our economy does better, and everyone is better off.
I know that I am a good member of the community of Americans; I willingly support people who do not have the same advantages that I have now. I paid my own way through college (well, I'm still paying it off), and didn't use Federal grants, but I certainly would have if I had been eligible.
If your parents don't have enough money to provide you with the money to get you the education you feel you "deserve", I suggest you take the matter up with them.
I, unlike some, didn't rely on my parents to do anything for me. I don't think it's their responsiblity to do jack squat for me. BUT, if a student needs federal assistence to go to college, get a good, high-paying job, and start paying taxes, then he'll more than pay for his own college education in the long run.
You know, you probably benefit from your tax dollars more than you can ever imagine. You drive, I'll assume, so you probably use highways. You live in a free nation, that is (relatively) secure. We have dozens, if not hundreds, of products that are the result of the space program, government funded research, and military spending. There are hundreds of other things, some more subtle, like how reducing poverty decreases crime rates, etc. You don't get to pick & choose what your tax dollars go to; that's just the price you pay; hell, many tax payers wouldn't have given a dime for the Iraq war if you could pick & choose.
I took responsiblity for my own education. Those who go to college on Federal assistence will eventually pay for it, through paying more taxes. You, however, seem to think that paying taxes is a huge burden, but you still benefit directly & indirectly from programs that are payed for by that tax money. It sounds to me like you're the one who should think long & hard about responsibility.
'm not sure how I feel about federally funded student aid, but I know I have seen many, many students that probably wouldn't have been able to go to college without it. And you know what? Those students shouldn't have been in college, because they were wasting everyone else's time, going to drop/fail out anyway, and still getting a portion of the money the government takes from what I earn. I would imagine many others on/. can relate...
Where do you get off saying this? What possible information could you have that ties federal financial aid to drop-out rate or overall success?
You know, I think the pretty-boy frat assholes & bimbette, know-nothing sorority girls who went to college on mommy & daddy's dime and who spent far more time in bars than in class didn't deserve to go to college. All they did was party, but then cheat, lie & bribe their way into high paying jobs in sales. I imagine many others on/. can relate... </sarcasm>
Fuck you for saying that just because their parents couldn't afford to send them to college that they don't deserve to go. Fuck you for condemning unprivileged people to having less opportunity for education than upper-middle class kids. And fuck you very much for judging someone who went to college and got a good job to be equal to a bank robber.
You're totally missing Bush's strategery: You don't have to "pay later" if the apocolypse comes! Didn't Nostradamus predict these events?! Yea, these are the end times, people. </sarcasm>
Wait a minute. You're complaining because TMNT looks all chopped up, and you think you're getting old?
Christ. About 6 years ago, MTV started showing Speed Racer re-runs, and I thought: "Cool! I can relive part of my past by watching Speed Racer again! But, Pops, I know I can win the transcontinental race!"
After trying to watch an episode, I realized that:
1) There is no coherent plot to a Speed Racer episode; it's just a bunch of random clips all spliced together. 2) I still didn't know if Trixie was Speed's sister, cousin, lover, whatever. And what was her relationship to Spike, the mechanic? 3) Somehow I tolerated Chim-chim and the little brother (can't recall the name just now), but I don't know for the life of me how. 4) You just can't go back.
So, I know I'm getting old & crusty, but I think that if you watched TMNT as a kid, you're probably still too young to gripe about it. Sorry.
I actually think that a major drop in the price of oil & subsequent uptick in the stock market is a possible "October Surprise". Why would they do this?
o Oil is at the 20-year high, ~$50/barrel. o Prince Bandar bin Sultan has already said (though long enough ago that people have forgotten) he'll step up production to cut prices for the election. o Even a small drop in oil prices will cause the stock markets to rise.
It's a question of timing, I guess, when to drop prices so that everyone gets a nice gas-pump price reduction, but I'm waiting for it to happen.
Imagine if prices went back down to ~$40/barrel: stock market up, gas prices down & still ~$10/barrel up from a year ago. <sarcasm>Everyone wins!</sarcasm>
Did you miss that Kerry praised John Blair for taking responsibility for getting the intelligence wrong?
What is all this talk about Kerry bashing the UK? Where are your sources? Just because he says that we didn't use diplomacy long enough, nor did we build a strong collalition, doesn't mean he's slamming the allies that are in this collalition.
It's funny that those same blogs don't fact-check the Bush administration as much as they do the Kerry campaign. Here is an administration that has told more lies to the public (in the few press conferences that they've had; they're also very secretive) than any that I can remember (Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II).
1) Appointing more diverse cabinet ministers? 2) Picking more diverse white house staffs? 3) Picking VP running mates based on their merits, not just because they are "acceptable" to the voters? 4) Showing more support for a diverse set of gubernatorial candidates? 5) (Perhaps most important) Rally their parties to give more support (financial and otherwise) to more diverse candidates for all positions.
I know that Bush did pick Rice & Powell for his cabinet, which is 40% of the highest profile cabinet members (Tom Ridge, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Powell, Rice).
It's pretty shameful that we've had 43 President-Vice-President pairs, and at least 1/2 of the population are excluded from taking part. Even Ferraro, the Dem VP candidate back in '84 (w/ Mondale) was a long shot against the quite popular incumbant in that election. The female Presidential candidates have almost never been seriously considered as contenders, and don't get their party's full support. Why not? What can these candidates, as the leaders of their parties, do to make this happen?
Of the 43 Presidents of the United States, all have been male Protestant Christians (exception: Kennedy was Catholic) of European ethnicity. As far as I can tell, all Vice Presidents have been the same, demographically. Is it important to have women and men of a variety of ethnicities elected to the Presidential and Vice Presidential offices? If so, what will you do to help encourage these groups participate in the highest offices of the Executive Branch?
I submitted the story. I'm not a Slashdot editor. How could I be editorializing?
I find it very funny that he would be against polls, because it would be a huge loss & against the 1st amendment of the constitution to ban polling.
Why a loss? Well, polls gather informatino on not just who you're going to vote for, but what issues are important to you, and how you feel a candidate represents their stance on an issue. This kind of feedback is very important in gauging the effects of how you're getting your message out, and what issues you need to come out with clear information about.
If polls influence elections (especially for weeks before the election) and should be banned, then so should all political ads. By everyone. They are frequently filled with lies, distortions and misrepresentations of out-of-context information, and unduly influence elections. </sarcasm>
I guess I wasn't 100% clear. I don't think that we should get rid of cars and only use human-powered transportation. That wouldn't work for a number of reasons. But, my argument is that you should at least consider bicycles, etc. if they are a possibility. Saying "There is no way in hell that I am going to bike to the store (that's 2 miles away) to get a gallon of milk." when it is a possibility is lazy & selfish.
I also think that human-powered transportation should become more of a priority in terms of urban planning. I know that I'm lucky that I live near a major American campus, so there are quite a lot of (decent) bikepaths. But even when I lived in Chicago, I would bike places because:
1) Once I got a parking spot, I didn't want to give it up unless absolutely necessary. 2) Most anywhere I wanted to go was within a 10-15 minute ride. 3) As long as you were careful & considerate, it was no problem to ride on the street/sidewalk. 4) Why spend $1.50 on the el when you could get there faster on a bike?
As for the market solving the problem, I'm not entirely sure. You would think that more research would be going into alternative fuel vehicles. I mean, hybrids are certainly popular, but are still using gasoline. Electric vehicles are interesting, but not widely adopted, and until solar, wind & nuclear power completely replace fossil fuels, we're still consuming oil, coal & natural gas to power those. Hydrogen isn't a fuel, but just an energy transportation medium; that is, it takes energy to create the hydrogen to be used in a fuelcell. And, some people are advocating using hydrocarbons (i.e. oil) to make hydrogen, which is right back where we were.
So, what solutions are you seeing that perhaps I'm not? Until a viable, sustainable solution presents itself, I'll keep riding my bike and driving my car, when appropriate.
1) Destroying the ecosystem 2) Unnecessarily causing huge wars over scarce resources 3) Setting up an economy based on a non-renewable resource which is doomed to crash
then I'm all in favor of it. However, using fossil fuels to go everywhere is a short-sighted solution to an problem that can be solved without causing any of the problems like the three above.
So, yeah. If you don't wanna occasionally ride a bike or pedal a car, even though it's better for everyone on the entire planet, then you are lazy as well as selfish.
"The goal is to make it more difficult for hackers to deface and/or hijack the website," said Lieutenant Colonel Ellen Krenke.
Well, Netcraft says it's running Solaris 8 machine running Sun-ONE-Web-Server/6.1.
How about putting the webserver up on Trusted Solaris and locking down the webserver to have fewer privs, like no write access (enforced via MAC, mandatory access controls) to the pages that you're worried about getting defaced?
But, teh intarweb isn't the only way to get info for overseas voting. From the article:
"In the meantime, overseas voters can contact their embassy or consulate, use the FVAP toll-free number or contact their local election official or secretary of state via telephone or the internet for more information on obtaining an absentee ballot," said Lieutenant Colonel Krenke.
No, my blood pressure rises because people claim things as facts that are just outright lies. I don't see that very often with the sources that I choose to read, mainly because if I see outright lies, I tend not to read those sources anymore.
On the right, you've got such an echo chamber for the lies of the Bush administration:
1) Rush 2) O'Reilly 3) Hannity 4) Coulter
are 4 good examples. Facts don't matter to these guys, as facts are far less interesting than screaming & name-calling. (That is, calmly stated facts sell fewer books/get fewer viewers, than screaming lies and invective at people.) It is well documented that these guys lie like rugs, and I hardly need to enumerate things here; I'm not your damned search engine.
The other mainstream press (the mythical "liberal media": ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NPR, etc.) have a problem with balancing the views between Dems & Reps; Kerry says something that has merit and requires thought, Bush calls him a "flip-flopper" (or says that it's a "new position") and misrepresents what Kerry just said. No one says: "Hey, Bush. That's not what he said, he said X while you said Y." Why not? Balanced coverage would be Mr. A says "X, and here's why", and Mr. B says "Well, not really X, and here's why". But that doesn't happen, as far as I can tell. Bush likes to get "clear" messages out there that are short, oversimplified and are completely unsupported by facts.
As to anger: I get angry because people don't think critically about what Bush says. People just take whatever he says on faith, and without thinking for themselves, or trying to find out what the other guy actually said. Rove is a genius: he's able to feed Bush memorable, simple one-liners that resonate with the Bush faithful. But, it's a shame that those people are so out of the loop, news wise, that they never even see what Kerry actually said in the full context. I'm hoping that the debates will help a little with this, but I'm not convinced that it will.
Name calling is a problem on both sides. It's an easy trap to fall into, and is very unproductive. But, why do you think that this is limited to the left? I see a lot of it on the right: Hannity, Rush, O'Reilly, Bush, Dick "Go fuck yerself" Cheney, etc. And, one thing that I haven't seen from the left are remarks like (emphasis added):
"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that
we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States"
Who said that? Cheney did. Fear mongering for votes. That's someone I DO NOT want to make policy decisions for America. It's not "Bush/Cheney will make America safer, here's how", it's "Elect Kerry and terrorists will strike, and it will be devastating".
So, no, I don't think that emotional reactions are the problem. I think the problem is the unquestioning, unswerving, and unthinking acceptance of something that someone says. If you read the original sources as much as possible and question everything, you'll be doing yourself and your country a world of good. Just because someone gets emotional, that doesn't mean that you can just discount what they are saying. The statement should stand on their own merit, or fall if they aren't factual or accurate.
That is simply, bottom-line, no-kidding untrue. You're spreading falsehoods.
Did you read the link that I sent you to? I know, I know, it would take a little while to read it, and you've been posting to Slashdot a lot, but take a little time and poke around in the White House released documents, and follow his analysis. It's pretty convincing, if you have any interest in being open-minded.
I said: The secretary that would have typed these memos said there were memos that were substantially the same as these that she did type.
You said: No, she certainly did not. Read the fucking transcript of the interview.
Sorry, I can't find a transcript link on CBS's site. Care to provide one? At any rate, they quote her as saying: "I know that I didn't type them," says Knox. "However, the information in those is correct." And, more explicitly:
"These memos were not memos that you typed, and you don't think they came directly out of his files," Rather asked Knox.
"The information, yes," says Knox. "It seems that somebody did see those memos, and then tried to reproduce and maybe changed them enough so that he wouldn't get in trouble over it."
What would "those memos" be, but ones that held substantially the same information (and that she would have typed)? So, not true? Is she lying? Where's your evidence?
Ah, yes. See? That's the great thing about the rabid, frothing Bush-haters. They can't compose more than about two paragraphs without spinning off into irrational hatred.
It's hilarious that you're going to call me a "frothing Bush-hater" because I said that he lies about everything. Let's see a few of the things he's lied about:
I don't know, what else do you want? Since there's little-to-no-chance that you'll read those links & think about them, I'll post more only if you want me to respond to particular claims that Bush has made.
Yet another crazy person.
You were, of course, talking about yourself, right? Because, if someone credible came forward and said that "Bush did serve, I was there and here are some pictures", I'd have to say (as soon as the evidence was substantiated) that I was wrong to say that he's lying. Hell, I'll even email him an apology.
Are you willing to even consider that you're wrong about this? Can you think critically and question your deeply held beliefs? If not, then you're the one who is crazy.
News Hounds, the anti-Fox. "We watch Fox so you don't have to."
Greg Palast has a very informative and well-researched blog.
Salon's War Room '04 is awesome, even if you have to watch a 30-second ad to read the whole thing. Not really a "blog" per-se, but sort of blog flavored...
I tend not to read conservative blogs because I like my blood-pressure where it is. And, really, I read enough conservative BS when I read the stories that are run in the normal "liberally biased" press. In their zeal to be "balanced", news outlets feel they need to print a bunch of lies & distortions from the right in order to balance anything not from the right.
No, you're wrong. Lots of evidence exists that he didn't complete his commitments, and that he tried to scam the Texas ANG into letting him out of his service requirements.
Again, these memos were forged, and bad CBS for airing them. But:
1) The secretary that would have typed these memos said there were memos that were substantially the same as these that she did type. So, where are these memos? Were they, perhaps, destroyed? If so, who destroyed them? 2) This is not the only evidence that he didn't complete his commitment. 3) The story should not be "put to bed" because Bush is still lying about it, just like he lies about everything else.
Why the fuck is this being modded up as "Informative", anyway? There's no new information in this post, and, in fact, no other information other than the non-facts and opinions of Twirlip.
1) He voted to support giving the president authorization to send troops into Iraq. Read the freaking bill summary. His position is that Bush misused this authorization. He's been consistent in this view throughout his campaign.
2) He said that he would vote the same way again:
Yes, I would have voted for the authority [to use force in Iraq]. I believe it is the right authority for a president to have. But I would have used that authority, as I have said throughout this campaign, effectively.
source (also quotes from Bush & co. distorting the things Kerry has said)
3) Given that we are now in a war he supports our troops, and favors spending what is necessary to finish the job. However, (to nip this in the bud) he did vote against the $87 billion support bill, because it wasn't funded by temporarily rolling back Bush's tax cuts. In other words, he voted against adding $87 billion to the deficit, since Bush's tax cuts are obliterating our ability to fund all the programs that he supports. source
Another source on Kerry's position on the authorization vote & subsequent events.
Please get your facts straight, as these are very important distinctions on complex issues. But, they're not that subtle, if you do a little fact-finding/googling on your own to find the source quotes from Kerry without the slice & dice job that Fox/RNC/etc. have done to them.
He's actually advocating vigilate justice, judging by how he worded his answer: you or I (i.e. individuals, not governments). No need for trial, as you or I get to be judge, jury & executioner. I wonder if his view on this would fit with other, ordinary citizens, and not just immoral government officials.
And, really, if you think any other world leader is a "tyrant and murderer", could you just as well "unseat or kill" them? It sounds to me like he's advocating something that would be classified as "terrorism" by any western government these days...
OK, no. It's not. Posting documents in a window would be analogous to putting them on a webserver. Having them in an unsecured share drive is like having them sitting on a table in an unlocked room: you still have to enter the room and poke around to see what they say.
It's not OK to go rifling through someone's files. Yes, the Dems shouldn't put documents they care enough about on an unsecured share drive, but that doesn't give anyone the right to copy them for themselves and to distribute them to the press.
Whether the theft was material or not doesn't matter one whit. It was unethical for Miranda to do what he did, and he should take responsibility for that. It was stupid for the Democrats to do what they did, but not unethical, and it's not their fault that some jerk came in and stole documents from their computer.
I'm all for personal responsibility: Miranda needs to be held responsible for his actions.
I do remembering reading in an article once that, while speech recognition does not help in natural language interpretation, natural language interpretation can play into speech recognition.
Well, what you'd be doing is adding natural language processing to the utterance that was created via speech recognition as an additional step to help interpret the utterance, perhaps by using context. So, it's not really "playing into" speech recognition, but is being used as part of a larger system (say, speech-to-text) to increase the accuracy of the entire utterance. Phonemically, "their" and "there" are exactly the same, so you wouldn't be increasing the accuracy of the speech recognition. You would be if you used context to distinguish "their/there" from "where" or something like that. But, again, it would be a bolt-on of NLS post-processing as feedback to the speech recognition algorithms.
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I would just like to know one thing: how am I responsible for the taxes you pay, especially allocation to education?
It seems to me that in our democracy that people vote for their own beliefs. A large majority of Americans believe that we should all pool our resources for the education of children, and elect people who make policy based on this. If you're in the minority that says "Screw you, I don't want a good education system, I want companies to make huge profits off of the education of children", then I'm sorry for you and your selfish narrowmindedness.
One other thing: I am absolutely free to pay taxes to the US government or not. I have many options:
1) I could move to another country & pay taxes there.
2) I could increase charitable contributions to the point that I recoup all income taxes.
3) I could make less than the minimum income tax amount.
4) I could strive to become so rich that I can afford to hire lawyers to find every tax loophole available and not pay much of anything.
I'm sure there's more that I could do, but I think that's enough.
From what I've seen, libertarians want liberty as long as they get the maximum benefit to the detriment of everyone around them. If living comfortably means that the rest of the world suffers, who cares? "I work hard for my money, and don't want to support the dregs of society, because they are lazy. But, I don't mind giving money to the ultrawealthy CEOs of companies, because they've earned it, and I want to be just like them!"
I may need a class in economics (though I doubt that you are an economist, or at any rate a successful one), but you need something even more fundamental, that I doubt you'll ever get: the ability to empathize with other people.
Yeah, fuck me for not wanting to base the education system on violent coercion and taxation at the point of a gun.
Where is this gun & who's holding it? Don't like taxes? Have the feds withhold the bare minimum, donate as much money to charity as you would pay in taxes (up to either 50% or 30% of your income is directly deductable, depending on what you're donating, cash, stocks, etc.), itemize your return, and voila! You get all of your money back that you paid to the feds, and you give money to a cause you believe in. You could even give just what you want to the feds for things you believe in, like national security, if you wanted to.
Anyway, what would you rather base the education system on? Corporations, which, of course, always have your best interest in mind? Because no company would start shorting your kids education just to make a higher profit. Right?
OK, do I deserve to have I (who have no kids) deserve to have my money taken from me and given to everyone who has kids, just so they can go to public schools, at all? No, but I give it freely because I believe that when everyone in our country is more educated, our economy does better, and everyone is better off.
I know that I am a good member of the community of Americans; I willingly support people who do not have the same advantages that I have now. I paid my own way through college (well, I'm still paying it off), and didn't use Federal grants, but I certainly would have if I had been eligible.
If your parents don't have enough money to provide you with the money to get you the education you feel you "deserve", I suggest you take the matter up with them.
I, unlike some, didn't rely on my parents to do anything for me. I don't think it's their responsiblity to do jack squat for me. BUT, if a student needs federal assistence to go to college, get a good, high-paying job, and start paying taxes, then he'll more than pay for his own college education in the long run.
You know, you probably benefit from your tax dollars more than you can ever imagine. You drive, I'll assume, so you probably use highways. You live in a free nation, that is (relatively) secure. We have dozens, if not hundreds, of products that are the result of the space program, government funded research, and military spending. There are hundreds of other things, some more subtle, like how reducing poverty decreases crime rates, etc. You don't get to pick & choose what your tax dollars go to; that's just the price you pay; hell, many tax payers wouldn't have given a dime for the Iraq war if you could pick & choose.
I took responsiblity for my own education. Those who go to college on Federal assistence will eventually pay for it, through paying more taxes. You, however, seem to think that paying taxes is a huge burden, but you still benefit directly & indirectly from programs that are payed for by that tax money. It sounds to me like you're the one who should think long & hard about responsibility.
'm not sure how I feel about federally funded student aid, but I know I have seen many, many students that probably wouldn't have been able to go to college without it. And you know what? Those students shouldn't have been in college, because they were wasting everyone else's time, going to drop/fail out anyway, and still getting a portion of the money the government takes from what I earn. I would imagine many others on /. can relate...
/. can relate... </sarcasm>
Where do you get off saying this? What possible information could you have that ties federal financial aid to drop-out rate or overall success?
You know, I think the pretty-boy frat assholes & bimbette, know-nothing sorority girls who went to college on mommy & daddy's dime and who spent far more time in bars than in class didn't deserve to go to college. All they did was party, but then cheat, lie & bribe their way into high paying jobs in sales. I imagine many others on
Fuck you for saying that just because their parents couldn't afford to send them to college that they don't deserve to go. Fuck you for condemning unprivileged people to having less opportunity for education than upper-middle class kids. And fuck you very much for judging someone who went to college and got a good job to be equal to a bank robber.
You are seriously screwed up, jerk-weed.
You're totally missing Bush's strategery: You don't have to "pay later" if the apocolypse comes! Didn't Nostradamus predict these events?! Yea, these are the end times, people. </sarcasm>
while I enjoyed his answers, the endings tended to fall a little flat.
Wait a minute. You're complaining because TMNT looks all chopped up, and you think you're getting old?
Christ. About 6 years ago, MTV started showing Speed Racer re-runs, and I thought: "Cool! I can relive part of my past by watching Speed Racer again! But, Pops, I know I can win the transcontinental race!"
After trying to watch an episode, I realized that:
1) There is no coherent plot to a Speed Racer episode; it's just a bunch of random clips all spliced together.
2) I still didn't know if Trixie was Speed's sister, cousin, lover, whatever. And what was her relationship to Spike, the mechanic?
3) Somehow I tolerated Chim-chim and the little brother (can't recall the name just now), but I don't know for the life of me how.
4) You just can't go back.
So, I know I'm getting old & crusty, but I think that if you watched TMNT as a kid, you're probably still too young to gripe about it. Sorry.
I actually think that a major drop in the price of oil & subsequent uptick in the stock market is a possible "October Surprise". Why would they do this?
o Oil is at the 20-year high, ~$50/barrel.
o Prince Bandar bin Sultan has already said (though long enough ago that people have forgotten) he'll step up production to cut prices for the election.
o Even a small drop in oil prices will cause the stock markets to rise.
It's a question of timing, I guess, when to drop prices so that everyone gets a nice gas-pump price reduction, but I'm waiting for it to happen.
Imagine if prices went back down to ~$40/barrel: stock market up, gas prices down & still ~$10/barrel up from a year ago. <sarcasm>Everyone wins!</sarcasm>
1) Watergate was the national campaign headquarters for a national political party.
2) The Watergate burglars were caught red-handed in the offices
Trying to equate this to Watergate is really weak.
Did you miss that Kerry praised John Blair for taking responsibility for getting the intelligence wrong?
What is all this talk about Kerry bashing the UK? Where are your sources? Just because he says that we didn't use diplomacy long enough, nor did we build a strong collalition, doesn't mean he's slamming the allies that are in this collalition.
It's funny that those same blogs don't fact-check the Bush administration as much as they do the Kerry campaign. Here is an administration that has told more lies to the public (in the few press conferences that they've had; they're also very secretive) than any that I can remember (Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II).
"Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, and we know where they are."
"Saddam is in cahoots with al Qaeda, and could give WMD to them."
"We went to war for the freedom of the Iraqi people."
"These tax cuts are going to stimulate the economy and create many new jobs by stimulating investment."
"We've inherited a recession from Clinton."
"You don't need to know who Cheney spoke to in his secret energy policy meetings."
"We're going to whole-heartedly support fighting AIDS in third-world countries."
It's so funny that I could cry.
Well, how about:
1) Appointing more diverse cabinet ministers?
2) Picking more diverse white house staffs?
3) Picking VP running mates based on their merits, not just because they are "acceptable" to the voters?
4) Showing more support for a diverse set of gubernatorial candidates?
5) (Perhaps most important) Rally their parties to give more support (financial and otherwise) to more diverse candidates for all positions.
I know that Bush did pick Rice & Powell for his cabinet, which is 40% of the highest profile cabinet members (Tom Ridge, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Powell, Rice).
It's pretty shameful that we've had 43 President-Vice-President pairs, and at least 1/2 of the population are excluded from taking part. Even Ferraro, the Dem VP candidate back in '84 (w/ Mondale) was a long shot against the quite popular incumbant in that election. The female Presidential candidates have almost never been seriously considered as contenders, and don't get their party's full support. Why not? What can these candidates, as the leaders of their parties, do to make this happen?
Of the 43 Presidents of the United States, all have been male Protestant Christians (exception: Kennedy was Catholic) of European ethnicity. As far as I can tell, all Vice Presidents have been the same, demographically. Is it important to have women and men of a variety of ethnicities elected to the Presidential and Vice Presidential offices? If so, what will you do to help encourage these groups participate in the highest offices of the Executive Branch?
Sorry to distrub your editorializing here ...
I submitted the story. I'm not a Slashdot editor. How could I be editorializing?
I find it very funny that he would be against polls, because it would be a huge loss & against the 1st amendment of the constitution to ban polling.
Why a loss? Well, polls gather informatino on not just who you're going to vote for, but what issues are important to you, and how you feel a candidate represents their stance on an issue. This kind of feedback is very important in gauging the effects of how you're getting your message out, and what issues you need to come out with clear information about.
If polls influence elections (especially for weeks before the election) and should be banned, then so should all political ads. By everyone. They are frequently filled with lies, distortions and misrepresentations of out-of-context information, and unduly influence elections. </sarcasm>
I guess I wasn't 100% clear. I don't think that we should get rid of cars and only use human-powered transportation. That wouldn't work for a number of reasons. But, my argument is that you should at least consider bicycles, etc. if they are a possibility. Saying "There is no way in hell that I am going to bike to the store (that's 2 miles away) to get a gallon of milk." when it is a possibility is lazy & selfish.
I also think that human-powered transportation should become more of a priority in terms of urban planning. I know that I'm lucky that I live near a major American campus, so there are quite a lot of (decent) bikepaths. But even when I lived in Chicago, I would bike places because:
1) Once I got a parking spot, I didn't want to give it up unless absolutely necessary.
2) Most anywhere I wanted to go was within a 10-15 minute ride.
3) As long as you were careful & considerate, it was no problem to ride on the street/sidewalk.
4) Why spend $1.50 on the el when you could get there faster on a bike?
As for the market solving the problem, I'm not entirely sure. You would think that more research would be going into alternative fuel vehicles. I mean, hybrids are certainly popular, but are still using gasoline. Electric vehicles are interesting, but not widely adopted, and until solar, wind & nuclear power completely replace fossil fuels, we're still consuming oil, coal & natural gas to power those. Hydrogen isn't a fuel, but just an energy transportation medium; that is, it takes energy to create the hydrogen to be used in a fuelcell. And, some people are advocating using hydrocarbons (i.e. oil) to make hydrogen, which is right back where we were.
So, what solutions are you seeing that perhaps I'm not? Until a viable, sustainable solution presents itself, I'll keep riding my bike and driving my car, when appropriate.
Hey, when comfort can be had without:
1) Destroying the ecosystem
2) Unnecessarily causing huge wars over scarce resources
3) Setting up an economy based on a non-renewable resource which is doomed to crash
then I'm all in favor of it. However, using fossil fuels to go everywhere is a short-sighted solution to an problem that can be solved without causing any of the problems like the three above.
So, yeah. If you don't wanna occasionally ride a bike or pedal a car, even though it's better for everyone on the entire planet, then you are lazy as well as selfish.
Well, Netcraft says it's running Solaris 8 machine running Sun-ONE-Web-Server/6.1.
How about putting the webserver up on Trusted Solaris and locking down the webserver to have fewer privs, like no write access (enforced via MAC, mandatory access controls) to the pages that you're worried about getting defaced?
But, teh intarweb isn't the only way to get info for overseas voting. From the article:
On the right, you've got such an echo chamber for the lies of the Bush administration:
1) Rush
2) O'Reilly
3) Hannity
4) Coulter
are 4 good examples. Facts don't matter to these guys, as facts are far less interesting than screaming & name-calling. (That is, calmly stated facts sell fewer books/get fewer viewers, than screaming lies and invective at people.) It is well documented that these guys lie like rugs, and I hardly need to enumerate things here; I'm not your damned search engine.
The other mainstream press (the mythical "liberal media": ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NPR, etc.) have a problem with balancing the views between Dems & Reps; Kerry says something that has merit and requires thought, Bush calls him a "flip-flopper" (or says that it's a "new position") and misrepresents what Kerry just said. No one says: "Hey, Bush. That's not what he said, he said X while you said Y." Why not? Balanced coverage would be Mr. A says "X, and here's why", and Mr. B says "Well, not really X, and here's why". But that doesn't happen, as far as I can tell. Bush likes to get "clear" messages out there that are short, oversimplified and are completely unsupported by facts.
As to anger: I get angry because people don't think critically about what Bush says. People just take whatever he says on faith, and without thinking for themselves, or trying to find out what the other guy actually said. Rove is a genius: he's able to feed Bush memorable, simple one-liners that resonate with the Bush faithful. But, it's a shame that those people are so out of the loop, news wise, that they never even see what Kerry actually said in the full context. I'm hoping that the debates will help a little with this, but I'm not convinced that it will.
Name calling is a problem on both sides. It's an easy trap to fall into, and is very unproductive. But, why do you think that this is limited to the left? I see a lot of it on the right: Hannity, Rush, O'Reilly, Bush, Dick "Go fuck yerself" Cheney, etc. And, one thing that I haven't seen from the left are remarks like (emphasis added):
Who said that? Cheney did. Fear mongering for votes. That's someone I DO NOT want to make policy decisions for America. It's not "Bush/Cheney will make America safer, here's how", it's "Elect Kerry and terrorists will strike, and it will be devastating".
So, no, I don't think that emotional reactions are the problem. I think the problem is the unquestioning, unswerving, and unthinking acceptance of something that someone says. If you read the original sources as much as possible and question everything, you'll be doing yourself and your country a world of good. Just because someone gets emotional, that doesn't mean that you can just discount what they are saying. The statement should stand on their own merit, or fall if they aren't factual or accurate.
Did you read the link that I sent you to? I know, I know, it would take a little while to read it, and you've been posting to Slashdot a lot, but take a little time and poke around in the White House released documents, and follow his analysis. It's pretty convincing, if you have any interest in being open-minded.
I said: The secretary that would have typed these memos said there were memos that were substantially the same as these that she did type.
You said: No, she certainly did not. Read the fucking transcript of the interview.
Sorry, I can't find a transcript link on CBS's site. Care to provide one? At any rate, they quote her as saying: "I know that I didn't type them," says Knox. "However, the information in those is correct." And, more explicitly:
What would "those memos" be, but ones that held substantially the same information (and that she would have typed)? So, not true? Is she lying? Where's your evidence?
Ah, yes. See? That's the great thing about the rabid, frothing Bush-haters. They can't compose more than about two paragraphs without spinning off into irrational hatred.
It's hilarious that you're going to call me a "frothing Bush-hater" because I said that he lies about everything. Let's see a few of the things he's lied about:
I don't know, what else do you want? Since there's little-to-no-chance that you'll read those links & think about them, I'll post more only if you want me to respond to particular claims that Bush has made.
Yet another crazy person.
You were, of course, talking about yourself, right? Because, if someone credible came forward and said that "Bush did serve, I was there and here are some pictures", I'd have to say (as soon as the evidence was substantiated) that I was wrong to say that he's lying. Hell, I'll even email him an apology.
Are you willing to even consider that you're wrong about this? Can you think critically and question your deeply held beliefs? If not, then you're the one who is crazy.
I tend not to read conservative blogs because I like my blood-pressure where it is. And, really, I read enough conservative BS when I read the stories that are run in the normal "liberally biased" press. In their zeal to be "balanced", news outlets feel they need to print a bunch of lies & distortions from the right in order to balance anything not from the right.
No, you're wrong. Lots of evidence exists that he didn't complete his commitments, and that he tried to scam the Texas ANG into letting him out of his service requirements.
Again, these memos were forged, and bad CBS for airing them. But:
1) The secretary that would have typed these memos said there were memos that were substantially the same as these that she did type. So, where are these memos? Were they, perhaps, destroyed? If so, who destroyed them?
2) This is not the only evidence that he didn't complete his commitment.
3) The story should not be "put to bed" because Bush is still lying about it, just like he lies about everything else.
Why the fuck is this being modded up as "Informative", anyway? There's no new information in this post, and, in fact, no other information other than the non-facts and opinions of Twirlip.
1) He voted to support giving the president authorization to send troops into Iraq. Read the freaking bill summary.
His position is that Bush misused this authorization. He's been consistent in this view throughout his campaign.
2) He said that he would vote the same way again: source (also quotes from Bush & co. distorting the things Kerry has said)
3) Given that we are now in a war he supports our troops, and favors spending what is necessary to finish the job. However, (to nip this in the bud) he did vote against the $87 billion support bill, because it wasn't funded by temporarily rolling back Bush's tax cuts. In other words, he voted against adding $87 billion to the deficit, since Bush's tax cuts are obliterating our ability to fund all the programs that he supports. source
Another source on Kerry's position on the authorization vote & subsequent events.
Please get your facts straight, as these are very important distinctions on complex issues. But, they're not that subtle, if you do a little fact-finding/googling on your own to find the source quotes from Kerry without the slice & dice job that Fox/RNC/etc. have done to them.
If you or I want to unseat or kill a thug...
He's actually advocating vigilate justice, judging by how he worded his answer: you or I (i.e. individuals, not governments). No need for trial, as you or I get to be judge, jury & executioner. I wonder if his view on this would fit with other, ordinary citizens, and not just immoral government officials.
And, really, if you think any other world leader is a "tyrant and murderer", could you just as well "unseat or kill" them? It sounds to me like he's advocating something that would be classified as "terrorism" by any western government these days...
OK, no. It's not. Posting documents in a window would be analogous to putting them on a webserver. Having them in an unsecured share drive is like having them sitting on a table in an unlocked room: you still have to enter the room and poke around to see what they say.
It's not OK to go rifling through someone's files. Yes, the Dems shouldn't put documents they care enough about on an unsecured share drive, but that doesn't give anyone the right to copy them for themselves and to distribute them to the press.
Whether the theft was material or not doesn't matter one whit. It was unethical for Miranda to do what he did, and he should take responsibility for that. It was stupid for the Democrats to do what they did, but not unethical, and it's not their fault that some jerk came in and stole documents from their computer.
I'm all for personal responsibility: Miranda needs to be held responsible for his actions.
I do remembering reading in an article once that, while speech recognition does not help in natural language interpretation, natural language interpretation can play into speech recognition.
Well, what you'd be doing is adding natural language processing to the utterance that was created via speech recognition as an additional step to help interpret the utterance, perhaps by using context. So, it's not really "playing into" speech recognition, but is being used as part of a larger system (say, speech-to-text) to increase the accuracy of the entire utterance. Phonemically, "their" and "there" are exactly the same, so you wouldn't be increasing the accuracy of the speech recognition. You would be if you used context to distinguish "their/there" from "where" or something like that. But, again, it would be a bolt-on of NLS post-processing as feedback to the speech recognition algorithms.