Iraq had water and electricity fine before the US invasion. Saddam Hussein's government didn't let schools and hospitals fall apart. The schools were running fine, albeit under Ba'ath rulership, and the hospitals crumbled under UN and US sanctions, regardless of what the Iraqi government tried to do. The hospitals would never get their medication until Saddam Hussein was overthrown, that was the whole point of the sanctions, to encourage that to happen.
This is propaganda of the worst sort. I'm sure that the hospitals, schools and so on would be a lot better off had Saddam not stolen $20 BILLION DOLLARS of UN Oil for Food Money. Medications were not on the list of sanctioned items, and in fact a substantial ammount of international aid went to buy Meds.
Saddam Hussein and his Baathist cronnies hold exclusive blame for the current misfortune that has befallen Iraq. Had Hussein:
A) Not invaded Kuwait B) Not swiped $20 Billion C) Not spent all his cash on the Military D) Complied with UN orders E) Had the best interests of his people in mind when he made decisions F) Complied with international pressure g) Not been a crook
the following things would have been possible:
1. Lifting the sanctions and eventually removal of the pariah stamp. 2. No Gulf wars vs. the US and allies. 3. Schools and hospitals would be good to go. 4. There would be fewer mass graves 5. Chemical weapons would not have been used agains Saddam's own people
It's quite different when a service provider stops people from using its service than it is when some third group stops people from using said service.
When that service is being used to attack the service provider... uh.... what's your point?
Apple is doing nothing legally, technically, ethically, morally or wrong.
If you consider taking away a feature post sale to be ethical, then you are right. To a consumer having an alternative to itunes is actually a feature. To apple it's competition and sucks.
Apple can do whatever it wishes with its own products, and consumers may decide whether or not they would like to purchase them.
Once I buy it, it ceases to belong to Apple. A firmware update that eliminates functionality is not an upgrade.
Look - what I like about open source is the quality that comes from peer review and years of incremental improvement. This idea of certifying open source packages is NOT A GOOD THING if you like to get your project seeded into corporations. If the certification exists doors may close to projects that are not QUALITY CERTIFIED(TM). It creates a barrier to entry for new projects and an unnecessary expense for FOSS development.
I'm convinced that Linux is ready for prime time on the desktop, especilly for enterprises that rely primarily on browser based software. Where GNU/Linux is short is thick client or.net style business software. Java is the best thing we have right now in this arena.
There's an opinion that says, if Islam had become the major religion of the world, and Christianity the minor one, then we'd have christian Bin Laden's out there..
This is a very insightful thought. Reality is that neither Islam or Christian teaching support those like Torquemada or Bin Laden. People seeking empires and power often find religous zeal to be a powerful tool in building their armies. Those like Robspire find the same power in using religion as the enemy as well.
An observation - the issues you've picked are not the most pressing, nor the most substantive of our time. The most crucial issues facing our nation are:
1) Islamists that want to conquer the world (btw: this is real imperialism). 2) Rampant poverty in a large majority of the world. 3) The environment 4) The impending scarcity of natural resources such as oil and fresh water is some regions.
1) Western imperialism (dare I say American imperialism?), of which terrorism is merely a facet.
No you may not say "American Imperialism" as we are not in the business of colonizing, conquering and subjugating nations for the sake of increasing our nations sphere of influence. The people of this nation and our leaders are not about making themselves emperors and lording it over the world.
Iraq and Afghanastan are a lot of things, but conquests they were not intended to be. The objective was to remove two governments, neither of which had a mandate from the people of their nation and allow the people to govern. Democracies generally do not attack other democratic nations - which is the basis of the removal of the previous administrations from Iraq and Afghanastan.
That said, I wish we had tried a different "strategery" than we did.
2) The rise of and lack of limits on corporate power - of which terrorism is also a facet.
The corporation has been very powerful - but today is less powerful than it was in the 1700's and 1800's when entire colonies were run by corporations.
MSFT?? Hell even IBM there are more monopolies in the computer industry than ANY other industry. Why becuase a select few force control on the rest.
What the FCC is doing is saying we can regulate computers because they connect to communication stuff that we can regulate. Their position has nothing to do with Microsoft, or monopolies.What they want, I have no idea, they just want it.
In this case, the cure is worse than the disease. It's a lot like treating a cold in humans with anti-locust pesticide. That there are dominant players in the industry is no surprise.
If there is one industry that does not need regulated, it's the computer industry. We are doing fine without you. Kind of makes you wonder what the state of radio, telecommunications, etc... would be without the FCC locking us into paradigms that are literally older than most of the people reading this message.
Get the hell out FCC we don't want or need your help.
But seriously, has anything like this ever happened
The election being close, not all that often. So far as disputed, I wouldn't go that far this time out. Last election was disputed into december. This one was disputed largely by CNN until Kerry conceded. Those continuing to clammor for a recount are without precident, and while they do have a valid issue, a recount is very unlikely to change the outcome of the election.
As far as cabinet members leaving, Yes, and often. Bill Clinton lost 7 cabinet members including his first secretary of state I think Warren Christopher. Reagan lost several. Four years is a lot of time to ask someone to take towards an often thankless job. And having lots of power doesn't necessarily pay the bills... and makes you worth a fortune to your next employer.
The furror over non-verifiable, non-recountable voting systems is working. In the next two years I fully expect to see the states ammend their election regulations to deal with this problem. That said when you look at maybe 60,000 problem votes in a system where 60,000,000 voters vote, you really do have a good system.
As time goes by, and as taxes increase (or new ones created), we are going to reach (or have reached) a point where taxes are no longer justified, where it costs less to hire a security firm to enforce laws, pay for healthcare out of your own pocket (cash), and send your kids to private school than it does to continue supporting the leviathon.
Actually, we reached that point long ago. Fortunately, our system accepts taxpayer feedback and we are in for four years of tax cutting... BTW - the candidate that said RAISE TAXES(*) lost. Asking people for more of their money in a recession is incredibly dumb.
To be fair--and give credit where it is due--I'm pretty sure Wal-mart is actually the leader in this area.
Wal-Mart offers a decent long term employment program and affordable health insurance. Best Buy likes to brag about "no commission sales reps". That is so they can pay $7-$9 per hour for what Circuit City, Sears, Frye's Lowes, (hell even guitar center and sam ash pay their moonlighting musicians more) and others pay an average of $14-$!8/hr for including commission. If you work at Best Buy as a blue-shirt for more than six months you are a complete and total idiot because you could be working for the cell phone shop in the mall making the same hourly plus $15 per activation... actually be trained and put up with less crap from management.
Recommendation for any Blueshirt... take a stack of resumes and go talk to the stores surrounding best buy. The 50% raise will offset the loss of the 10% employee discount.
Sam's Club (the Wal-Mart equivalent of Costco) had a "check the receipt against the contents of the cart" policy years before I'd ever heard of Best Buy
Sams may have put a cart checker at the door, but Best Buy moved the entire loss prevention office to the front door... video monitors and all. One thing that is fun is to just walk by the loss prevention guy... and be pursued into the parking lot by some 18 year old wanna be rent-a-cop: "Sir... sir... (pant) I can't let you go without checking your bag. (pant)" To which I give 'em my best shit-eatin grin and say you and what army are going to make me?
Best buy is possibly the worst thing to happen to retail in years. Their continued success is proof that human beings are idiots when offered easy credit and 6 mos same as cash. Here is Best Buy's track record to date:
*The FIRST store chain to move loss prevention to the exit door and rummage through their customer's stuff. * Innovative retroactive interest programs that were so ahead of their time that courts thought they were "unconciable" (I think that means that no one else is doing it, so we have to wait a few years for the market to catch up with us) * Computer service terms that would be an insult to even the worst run bureau of motor vehicles branch office. * Leading the retail industry charge to underpay, undertrain and screw over EVERY EMPLOYEE IN THE STORE. * Eatablishing a clear leadership position in selective screw over technology that limits paying customers from exchanging merchandise. * Innovating new ways to offer a discount that is never paid by leaning on rebate programs run by fly by night fullfillment houses designed to decline payment regularly. * Leapfrogging the retail world and creating a new way to ensure customer satisfaction by allowing consultants (we can't call them salespeople because they are underpaid and undertrained) to call customers "dude", "man" and "hey you".
Why the hell anyone would shop at Best Buy is beyond me - their prices are rarely the best, their service is always near the worst and to boot - you get treated like a criminal. Best Buy is the worst excuse for a bad retail store since Montgomery Ward closed the door... There are a few maxims in retail that have been built up over the years:
* Always treat your customers right. * Satisfaction Guaranteed... or your money back. * NEVER give up a lifetime customer over today's transaction. * If you don't take care of your customer, someone else will.
It doesn't take long to go out of business, and I for one will be paying cash at the Best Bye-Bye liquidation sale when their actions catch up with them.
Regardless, I think everyone should agree all investigations into vote counting should commence as it is the only way to really know and it is suspicious the all errors favor Bush./b?
More to the point, you will hear about errors in Bush's favor because Bush won. There is no need for the Republicans to look. Since only the Kerry supporters will look in detail, expect them to ignore problems that favor their candidate.
People said the same thing in 2000 and as a result we never did get enough information to really determine if these arguments had any merit.
I agree about 2000, but this time out there is no real question about who the legitimate winner of the election is. That said, the real problem in our voting system is the dramatic difference in how elections are run state to state and county to county.
HR, specifically: Pay Curves, Benefits, and Vacation.
In all three categories HP provided VASTLY better environments for their workers. By merging with Compaq, Carly was able to adopt the Compaq HR policies combined with HP's flatter structure, resulting in MILLIONS of dollars saved. Every Year. Forever.
They also made the classic mistake that if you merge two companies that do roughly the same thing, you can preserve market share and cut people and make profits. What usually happens when you do this is that you lose business and relationships when you shed people, your quality suffers, and you save half the money you thought on human synergies. Oh, yeah, and you pick up a huge debt monkey.
the imaging division might carry on for a while longer
Less than six years until all the key patents expire... on both laser and ink jet... F00k3d.
Carly is an idiot. HP is going in the tank, and you can hear laughs from Dallas and upstate New York... And screams of disgust from shareholders.
HP has lost it completely. In their zeal to compete with Dell, Gateway and IBM they made a couple of accidental gunshot wounds to the head:
* Spun off several sources of invention and innovation when they spun off Agilent. * Purchased Compaq in an ill advised grab for market share. Their reason: they wanted Digital's professional services... * Alienated their dealership channel by trying to be Dell and sell direct.
They will lose their independence sometime in the next few years when someone else wants to try to knock off IBM and Dell and wants HP -er- COmpaq -er- Digital's professional services unit.
I think he is ensuring a shot for Edwards in 08, who seemed to me to be a much more challenging candidate for the Republicans to beat this year as well.
Edwards is done as he is out of office, and does not have the track record to support a run in '08. Look for Kerry, Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Hillary Clinton to emerge in '08. I'm also sure we haven't heard the last from Dr. Dean, either.
It sickens me to think that people who never voted before said "Whoa, nothing else has mattered to me in the last 20 years, but the QUEERS WANT TO GET MARRIED! Jarlene, find me my votin' hat!"
The election wasn't just about this issue. Bush would have won Oregon if that was true. That said, what we learned was:
* Americans belive in the traditional family as our basic social structure and are not ready to alter that structure. (the vote percentages say that a Constitutional Ammendment prohibiting gay marriage would likely pass nationally)
* Jarlene voted with Bubba on this one.
* It was not a major factor in the presidential race - Oregon would have broke for Bush if that were the case. People were smart enough to seperate party and candidate from the issue.
* It will take years to change public opinion enough to allow gay marriage (and even civil unions) to legally exist in the US. Personally, I'm not sure conferring benefits designed to help people create and support unproductive to society children while we wait for them to grow up and become productive makes any sense at all. Marriage is a much more complex issue than love, taxes, sex, health insurance and spouses. Marriage is the method that we use to create support structures to allow children to grow to adults.
He's also the first president in many years (perhaps ever?) that won because he openly advocated limiting civil rights of an etnic group, and used it to divide the country.
This statement is false in two ways. The nation was not divided on the issue - there was a plurality against gay marriage, nor are gays a real ethnic group. Gays are *not* an ethnic group as they do not share a common nation or region (NOT RELIGION)of origin. It's the wrong use of the term unless you expand the definition - and that actually offends real ethnic groups that should support the issue.
That said, they are discriminated against and that is tragic. What is more tragic is that it appears that it will be a while before this is rectified. Part of rectifying the situation involves finding memes that work - and gay = ethnic group -> no gay marriage = civil rights violation does not work.
This situation can change, but I'm not optimistic that this will happen in my lifetime.
I personally am glad that Kerry has done this. My opinion of him has gone up and I am glad that he will not try to divide the country further by dragging us through a contested election.
What Kerry has done is guaranteed he has a shot in four years. Gore shot his credibility completely in 2000 and could not run again. Now Kerry has a few years to generate a record in line with his newfound centerist positions. He will be a formidable candidate, and may prevent a Hillary run in four years.
Had he screamed recount until the end, he would be a footnote in history like Gore. Thank you for being a statesman, Mr. Kerry, now please work with the President to bring America together and work to implement some of your ideas in the Senate.
I do not believe Kerry would be as effective at this as Bush, but I do believe he will pursue and destroy al Qaeda should he become our President. Anything else sets the precedence to begin the destruction of America.
The important point here is that we must win the war on terror. 9/11 was an ill advised attack, much like Pearl Harbor - it awoke a sleeping giant. The giant cannot afford to go back to sleep now.
I believe that all Americans should unite behind our President, whoever he is in January, to continue and win this war for our security and the security of free people everywhere.
Thank you for the words of sanity. Hopefully this is what happens. Unfortunately, the political operatives from our two political parties have set this election to be a very divisive, litigous experience. I am hoping that the loser, conceedes quickly and completely and washes his hands of all of the litigation and allegations.
Slashdot Mirror
Iraq had water and electricity fine before the US invasion. Saddam Hussein's government didn't let schools and hospitals fall apart. The schools were running fine, albeit under Ba'ath rulership, and the hospitals crumbled under UN and US sanctions, regardless of what the Iraqi government tried to do. The hospitals would never get their medication until Saddam Hussein was overthrown, that was the whole point of the sanctions, to encourage that to happen.
This is propaganda of the worst sort. I'm sure that the hospitals, schools and so on would be a lot better off had Saddam not stolen $20 BILLION DOLLARS of UN Oil for Food Money. Medications were not on the list of sanctioned items, and in fact a substantial ammount of international aid went to buy Meds.
Saddam Hussein and his Baathist cronnies hold exclusive blame for the current misfortune that has befallen Iraq. Had Hussein:
A) Not invaded Kuwait
B) Not swiped $20 Billion
C) Not spent all his cash on the Military
D) Complied with UN orders
E) Had the best interests of his people in mind when he made decisions
F) Complied with international pressure
g) Not been a crook
the following things would have been possible:
1. Lifting the sanctions and eventually removal of the pariah stamp.
2. No Gulf wars vs. the US and allies.
3. Schools and hospitals would be good to go.
4. There would be fewer mass graves
5. Chemical weapons would not have been used agains Saddam's own people
And so on.
It's quite different when a service provider stops people from using its service than it is when some third group stops people from using said service.
When that service is being used to attack the service provider... uh.... what's your point?
Apple is doing nothing legally, technically, ethically, morally or wrong.
If you consider taking away a feature post sale to be ethical, then you are right. To a consumer having an alternative to itunes is actually a feature. To apple it's competition and sucks.
Apple can do whatever it wishes with its own products, and consumers may decide whether or not they would like to purchase them.
Once I buy it, it ceases to belong to Apple. A firmware update that eliminates functionality is not an upgrade.
Look - what I like about open source is the quality that comes from peer review and years of incremental improvement. This idea of certifying open source packages is NOT A GOOD THING if you like to get your project seeded into corporations. If the certification exists doors may close to projects that are not QUALITY CERTIFIED(TM). It creates a barrier to entry for new projects and an unnecessary expense for FOSS development.
I'm convinced that Linux is ready for prime time on the desktop, especilly for enterprises that rely primarily on browser based software. Where GNU/Linux is short is thick client or .net style business software. Java is the best thing we have right now in this arena.
He has however headed for the hills with a six month supply of DiGourno pizzas and a kilo of white stuff...
There's an opinion that says, if Islam had become the major religion of the world, and Christianity the minor one, then we'd have christian Bin Laden's out there..
This is a very insightful thought. Reality is that neither Islam or Christian teaching support those like Torquemada or Bin Laden. People seeking empires and power often find religous zeal to be a powerful tool in building their armies. Those like Robspire find the same power in using religion as the enemy as well.
An observation - the issues you've picked are not the most pressing, nor the most substantive of our time. The most crucial issues facing our nation are:
1) Islamists that want to conquer the world (btw: this is real imperialism).
2) Rampant poverty in a large majority of the world.
3) The environment
4) The impending scarcity of natural resources such as oil and fresh water is some regions.
1) Western imperialism (dare I say American imperialism?), of which terrorism is merely a facet.
No you may not say "American Imperialism" as we are not in the business of colonizing, conquering and subjugating nations for the sake of increasing our nations sphere of influence. The people of this nation and our leaders are not about making themselves emperors and lording it over the world.
Iraq and Afghanastan are a lot of things, but conquests they were not intended to be. The objective was to remove two governments, neither of which had a mandate from the people of their nation and allow the people to govern. Democracies generally do not attack other democratic nations - which is the basis of the removal of the previous administrations from Iraq and Afghanastan.
That said, I wish we had tried a different "strategery" than we did.
2) The rise of and lack of limits on corporate power - of which terrorism is also a facet.
The corporation has been very powerful - but today is less powerful than it was in the 1700's and 1800's when entire colonies were run by corporations.
MSFT?? Hell even IBM there are more monopolies in the computer industry than ANY other industry. Why becuase a select few force control on the rest.
What the FCC is doing is saying we can regulate computers because they connect to communication stuff that we can regulate. Their position has nothing to do with Microsoft, or monopolies.What they want, I have no idea, they just want it.
In this case, the cure is worse than the disease. It's a lot like treating a cold in humans with anti-locust pesticide. That there are dominant players in the industry is no surprise.
If there is one industry that does not need regulated, it's the computer industry. We are doing fine without you. Kind of makes you wonder what the state of radio, telecommunications, etc... would be without the FCC locking us into paradigms that are literally older than most of the people reading this message.
Get the hell out FCC we don't want or need your help.
-- the entire computer industry
But seriously, has anything like this ever happened
The election being close, not all that often. So far as disputed, I wouldn't go that far this time out. Last election was disputed into december. This one was disputed largely by CNN until Kerry conceded. Those continuing to clammor for a recount are without precident, and while they do have a valid issue, a recount is very unlikely to change the outcome of the election.
As far as cabinet members leaving, Yes, and often. Bill Clinton lost 7 cabinet members including his first secretary of state I think Warren Christopher. Reagan lost several. Four years is a lot of time to ask someone to take towards an often thankless job. And having lots of power doesn't necessarily pay the bills... and makes you worth a fortune to your next employer.
The furror over non-verifiable, non-recountable voting systems is working. In the next two years I fully expect to see the states ammend their election regulations to deal with this problem. That said when you look at maybe 60,000 problem votes in a system where 60,000,000 voters vote, you really do have a good system.
As time goes by, and as taxes increase (or new ones created), we are going to reach (or have reached) a point where taxes are no longer justified, where it costs less to hire a security firm to enforce laws, pay for healthcare out of your own pocket (cash), and send your kids to private school than it does to continue supporting the leviathon.
Actually, we reached that point long ago. Fortunately, our system accepts taxpayer feedback and we are in for four years of tax cutting... BTW - the candidate that said RAISE TAXES(*) lost. Asking people for more of their money in a recession is incredibly dumb.
(*) Except on the people in the middle class
To be fair--and give credit where it is due--I'm pretty sure Wal-mart is actually the leader in this area.
Wal-Mart offers a decent long term employment program and affordable health insurance. Best Buy likes to brag about "no commission sales reps". That is so they can pay $7-$9 per hour for what Circuit City, Sears, Frye's Lowes, (hell even guitar center and sam ash pay their moonlighting musicians more) and others pay an average of $14-$!8/hr for including commission. If you work at Best Buy as a blue-shirt for more than six months you are a complete and total idiot because you could be working for the cell phone shop in the mall making the same hourly plus $15 per activation... actually be trained and put up with less crap from management.
Recommendation for any Blueshirt... take a stack of resumes and go talk to the stores surrounding best buy. The 50% raise will offset the loss of the 10% employee discount.
Sam's Club (the Wal-Mart equivalent of Costco) had a "check the receipt against the contents of the cart" policy years before I'd ever heard of Best Buy
... and be pursued into the parking lot by some 18 year old wanna be rent-a-cop: "Sir... sir... (pant) I can't let you go without checking your bag. (pant)" To which I give 'em my best shit-eatin grin and say you and what army are going to make me?
Sams may have put a cart checker at the door, but Best Buy moved the entire loss prevention office to the front door... video monitors and all. One thing that is fun is to just walk by the loss prevention guy
Best buy is possibly the worst thing to happen to retail in years. Their continued success is proof that human beings are idiots when offered easy credit and 6 mos same as cash. Here is Best Buy's track record to date:
*The FIRST store chain to move loss prevention to the exit door and rummage through their customer's stuff.
* Innovative retroactive interest programs that were so ahead of their time that courts thought they were "unconciable" (I think that means that no one else is doing it, so we have to wait a few years for the market to catch up with us)
* Computer service terms that would be an insult to even the worst run bureau of motor vehicles branch office.
* Leading the retail industry charge to underpay, undertrain and screw over EVERY EMPLOYEE IN THE STORE.
* Eatablishing a clear leadership position in selective screw over technology that limits paying customers from exchanging merchandise.
* Innovating new ways to offer a discount that is never paid by leaning on rebate programs run by fly by night fullfillment houses designed to decline payment regularly.
* Leapfrogging the retail world and creating a new way to ensure customer satisfaction by allowing consultants (we can't call them salespeople because they are underpaid and undertrained) to call customers "dude", "man" and "hey you".
Why the hell anyone would shop at Best Buy is beyond me - their prices are rarely the best, their service is always near the worst and to boot - you get treated like a criminal. Best Buy is the worst excuse for a bad retail store since Montgomery Ward closed the door... There are a few maxims in retail that have been built up over the years:
* Always treat your customers right.
* Satisfaction Guaranteed... or your money back.
* NEVER give up a lifetime customer over today's transaction.
* If you don't take care of your customer, someone else will.
It doesn't take long to go out of business, and I for one will be paying cash at the Best Bye-Bye liquidation sale when their actions catch up with them.
Regardless, I think everyone should agree all investigations into vote counting should commence as it is the only way to really know and it is suspicious the all errors favor Bush./b?
More to the point, you will hear about errors in Bush's favor because Bush won. There is no need for the Republicans to look. Since only the Kerry supporters will look in detail, expect them to ignore problems that favor their candidate.
People said the same thing in 2000 and as a result we never did get enough information to really determine if these arguments had any merit.
I agree about 2000, but this time out there is no real question about who the legitimate winner of the election is. That said, the real problem in our voting system is the dramatic difference in how elections are run state to state and county to county.
HR, specifically: Pay Curves, Benefits, and Vacation.
In all three categories HP provided VASTLY better environments for their workers. By merging with Compaq, Carly was able to adopt the Compaq HR policies combined with HP's flatter structure, resulting in MILLIONS of dollars saved. Every Year. Forever.
They also made the classic mistake that if you merge two companies that do roughly the same thing, you can preserve market share and cut people and make profits. What usually happens when you do this is that you lose business and relationships when you shed people, your quality suffers, and you save half the money you thought on human synergies. Oh, yeah, and you pick up a huge debt monkey.
the imaging division might carry on for a while longer
Less than six years until all the key patents expire... on both laser and ink jet... F00k3d.
Carly is an idiot. HP is going in the tank, and you can hear laughs from Dallas and upstate New York... And screams of disgust from shareholders.
HP has lost it completely. In their zeal to compete with Dell, Gateway and IBM they made a couple of accidental gunshot wounds to the head:
* Spun off several sources of invention and innovation when they spun off Agilent.
* Purchased Compaq in an ill advised grab for market share. Their reason: they wanted Digital's professional services...
* Alienated their dealership channel by trying to be Dell and sell direct.
They will lose their independence sometime in the next few years when someone else wants to try to knock off IBM and Dell and wants HP -er- COmpaq -er- Digital's professional services unit.
And HP's CEO is an idiot.
I think he is ensuring a shot for Edwards in 08, who seemed to me to be a much more challenging candidate for the Republicans to beat this year as well.
Edwards is done as he is out of office, and does not have the track record to support a run in '08. Look for Kerry, Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Hillary Clinton to emerge in '08. I'm also sure we haven't heard the last from Dr. Dean, either.
It sickens me to think that people who never voted before said "Whoa, nothing else has mattered to me in the last 20 years, but the QUEERS WANT TO GET MARRIED! Jarlene, find me my votin' hat!"
The election wasn't just about this issue. Bush would have won Oregon if that was true. That said, what we learned was:
* Americans belive in the traditional family as our basic social structure and are not ready to alter that structure. (the vote percentages say that a Constitutional Ammendment prohibiting gay marriage would likely pass nationally)
* Jarlene voted with Bubba on this one.
* It was not a major factor in the presidential race - Oregon would have broke for Bush if that were the case. People were smart enough to seperate party and candidate from the issue.
* It will take years to change public opinion enough to allow gay marriage (and even civil unions) to legally exist in the US. Personally, I'm not sure conferring benefits designed to help people create and support unproductive to society children while we wait for them to grow up and become productive makes any sense at all. Marriage is a much more complex issue than love, taxes, sex, health insurance and spouses. Marriage is the method that we use to create support structures to allow children to grow to adults.
He's also the first president in many years (perhaps ever?) that won because he openly advocated limiting civil rights of an etnic group, and used it to divide the country.
This statement is false in two ways. The nation was not divided on the issue - there was a plurality against gay marriage, nor are gays a real ethnic group. Gays are *not* an ethnic group as they do not share a common nation or region (NOT RELIGION)of origin. It's the wrong use of the term unless you expand the definition - and that actually offends real ethnic groups that should support the issue.
That said, they are discriminated against and that is tragic. What is more tragic is that it appears that it will be a while before this is rectified. Part of rectifying the situation involves finding memes that work - and gay = ethnic group -> no gay marriage = civil rights violation does not work.
This situation can change, but I'm not optimistic that this will happen in my lifetime.
I personally am glad that Kerry has done this. My opinion of him has gone up and I am glad that he will not try to divide the country further by dragging us through a contested election.
What Kerry has done is guaranteed he has a shot in four years. Gore shot his credibility completely in 2000 and could not run again. Now Kerry has a few years to generate a record in line with his newfound centerist positions. He will be a formidable candidate, and may prevent a Hillary run in four years.
Had he screamed recount until the end, he would be a footnote in history like Gore. Thank you for being a statesman, Mr. Kerry, now please work with the President to bring America together and work to implement some of your ideas in the Senate.
Your question is where do I find a suit who wants to be exploited. Stop trying to exploit and start trying to partner.
I do not believe Kerry would be as effective at this as Bush, but I do believe he will pursue and destroy al Qaeda should he become our President. Anything else sets the precedence to begin the destruction of America.
The important point here is that we must win the war on terror. 9/11 was an ill advised attack, much like Pearl Harbor - it awoke a sleeping giant. The giant cannot afford to go back to sleep now.
I believe that all Americans should unite behind our President, whoever he is in January, to continue and win this war for our security and the security of free people everywhere.
Thank you for the words of sanity. Hopefully this is what happens. Unfortunately, the political operatives from our two political parties have set this election to be a very divisive, litigous experience. I am hoping that the loser, conceedes quickly and completely and washes his hands of all of the litigation and allegations.