I applaud you for hiring musicians, but my point is that "some small $" isn't going to go very far paying the rent.
What you need to understand is that *no* system of payment for digital content will ever be workable for the content creators if digital restrictions are not placed on the content, at least in terms of the content creator's right to profit from their labors.
Lest you think me a shill for the RIAA, let me inform you that I freely make available some of my music on the Internet, with no restrictions on copying the files, so long as proper attribution is given. Note that I do not reliquish my copyright in doing so. I simply provide free license to share the music.
Yes, you are right, most P2P users are selfish thieves. Somehow, they seem to think it's OK to steal the fruits of my labor because it's not a tangible item to them.
5 cents of 1000 sales? You do realize that's a grand total of $50, right? That wouldn't pay my DSL bill for a month. And what, pray tell, prevents people from completely circumventing the payment system without DRM?
Now, having stated that I truly believe that DRM is an absolute necessity, I should also state that I believe that any DRM system that provides much more than token protection will ultimately be doomed to failure. Apple's FairPlay is a perfect example. What is it now? 3 computers and unlimited iPod's? Oh, and you can change which 3 computers at anytime, as many times as you like. Any subsequent DRM system should follow this example.
There has to be a reasonable distinction between "sharing among friends" and "publishing to the whole world". And DRM has to allow reasonable personal usage while protecting against wholesale piracy.
BTW, what you propose doesn't address the most pressing concern of artists without a mediation system--how do I attract attention to my work? Word of mouth? Only in exceptional circumstances will "word of mouth" result in an income large enough to support a family and a career as a musician.
It seems to me that there are a lot of people out there in Internet LaLa Land who seem to think they have plenty of answers for the plight of content creators in the digital age without actually having "walked a mile in their shoes".
Go ahead, try and make a good living at performing. Let's see how fast you jump on the DRM bandwagon...yeah, we all hate the RIAA and the majors when we're at the bottom of the heap, but once your livelihood is at stake, things start to look a bit different, don't they?
Those "100,000's" of local artists wouldn't be any better off without the recording industry machine, I assure you. We would still be, and still are, struggling.
The money you seem to think would just magically appear doesn't exist. That's the whole point of what I was saying. People these days don't care that much about live music. They care much more about being entertained.
That said, the RIAA and their kind would improve their lot immeasurably if they adopted honest business practices and stopped believing that manufactured pseudo-culture has to be rammed down everybody's throats in order for it to be profitable. The labels need to adopt more guerilla marketing tactics so they can promote without giant budgets. There's a market out there for a real alternative.
Of course, now that the giant cartel machine controls most of the venues for music in this country, it's a self-fullfilling prophecy. I wonder if you know how many of your favorite little hometown small clubs are controlled by Clear Channel?
You're missing the point. There may very well be thousands of people seeing live performances every night. How much money do you think the majority of those bands are making? As a veteran of the club circuit, I can tell you that the most money we've ever gotten paid for a live gig in one of those small venues was about $300.
The fact is, the only money being made out there for live performances in these small venues you're so fond of is being made by cover bands. A good cover band can make $5000 a night in some markets, if not more.
And while, again, there may very well be thousands of people seeing these performances...there are literallt millons upon millions more who couldn't care less, but are perfectly willing to buy prerecorded music every day.
You're probably right that most of the poetry books out there are of "mostly-dead-poets", but thanks to Congress and Sonny Bono, there is actually quite a lot of poetry being published that has not yet fallen in to the public domain.
On the other hand, I very well may need my head examined, anyway:)
No, what makes iPod's sell is Apple's superb design and engineering. The fact that it costs more and has less features than some of the competition, and yet, still outsells them by a wide margin and garners glowing reviews should tell you something about this...
Re:The music industry must die and be reborn
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Sony Admits MP3 Error
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
You are hopelessly naive.
The "small minority" of professional musicians that you claim "mostly make their money from live performances" is mostly made up of of cover acts, not acts playing original compositions.
And no, the "vast majority of great music" wasn't "written without the RIAA's help and without the 'protection' of copyright". First of all, copyright has existed for a lot longer than the RIAA, or the invention of recording. Second of all, the sum total of the the musical output of the human race prior to the invention of recording pales in comparison to the weight of the recordings that have been produced since the invention of audio reproduction.
I see you've trotted out Albini's old gem of an essay. While Albini may be correct about *some* of the points he makes, I find I have to take everything he says with a grain of salt, as Albini is not only elitist scum, but has himself made quite a lot of money working the RIAA system.
Musicians only make money from live performances when there is an audience willing to pay for that performance. Before the invention of recording, attending formal live performances was mostly the province of the wealthy. How many times, do you think, in the past ten years, has the average Joe or Jane gone out to see a band that they've never heard before? How many people are willing, in the 21st Century, to take a night out of their lives and spend their hard earned entertainment money on an evening out that may not actually result in entertainment?
This is the reason why DJ's have supplanted live bands in most venues. This is the reason why only large recording acts play the large venues. And don't bother me with anecdotes about the Greatful Dead. The GD machines is one of the most far-reaching corporate enterprises ever developed by mankind. Regardless of what anyone might think of their musical talents, it's recording technologies and copyright protections that got them where they are today.
BTW, *lots* of money is made on poetry. If you don't believe it, go take a look at all the poetry books on your favorite bookstore's shelves. Books don't get published and/or carried in major bookstores unless there's a market for them--that is, paying customers.
I am also a musician. An independent recording musician. Yes, the RIAA sucks. Yes, the general practices of the media empires suck.
But, if you think the situation will much improved by the elimination of mediation in the marketplace, you only have to look at the current state of the independent music marketplace (and this does not mean illegally gotten downloads of copyright protected materials) on the Internet to see that this Great Equalizer of Communications has not had, and will not have, the effect of suddenly causing society to take much more notice of artistic culture.
Let me ask you this: would you be willing to give up any chance of a normal lifestyle so that *you* could play gigs every night, like it's a regular job? I'm not. Do you think that club owners are easier to deal with than the labels? They're not. Where, exactly are all these venues that you think you're going to play? They don't exist--the only markets where live music is performed on a regular basis are in cities, where the cost of real estate pretty much forces every venue that doesn't cater to the popular out of business. Where are the massive audiences willing to shell out the bucks to pay you? They don't exist. In the modern world, most people simply don't have the time to constantly patronize live music establishments.
The reason we're all drowning is a "sea of garbage" produced by the members of the RIAA is that most people, including most musicians, do not have a well-developed sense of musical good taste.
Here's another question for our gentle readers? When's the last time *you* commissioned a live act to play at a function? When's the last time *you* commissioned an original composition? For most people, the answers to the above questions will be:
a. At my wedding (if they can answer this affirmatively, at all). b. Never.
And again, when is the last time *you* went to see a band you've never heard before?
The most important thing Apple Computer needs to get to market is a small 1U rack-mountable server in the sub-$1000 price range.
Like, say, if you took a 17" iMac G5, ripped out the display, put it on it's side and racked it...but reconfig'd it so that the ports and slots would be easy to access while in a rack. Give me a single-processor G5 mobo, 2 internal SATA drives, a CD-ROM, a single PCI slot, and a choice of Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server, and I'm good to go.
I have visions of Apple Network Appliances dancing in my head..email, DNS, DHCP, Open Directory nodes, web servers, etc, etc. All that nifty infrastructure stuff that doesn't really require a full-blown XServe, but that works great on multiple cheap boxen.
It's very simple, really. VAG has proven (with the Lupo 3L) that it is possible to build a production passenger car that can carry as much cargo in relative comfort as any of the compact Japanese hybrids and still achieve close to or even over 100 MPG without the added complexity, expense, weight, and danger of the electric motors and batteries currently employed by the "hybrid" vehicles.
And in case you missed it, VAG has even built a prototype two-seater that can achieve about 300 MPG on real roads--the VW 1L car (that is, 1 litre of fuel consumed for 100 KM of travel). The actual figure for the inaugural trip was about 260 MPG (2.1 L consumed over about 230 KM in bad weather). The Lupo 3L, on an around the world trip, attained an average 98.82 MPG over 33,000+ KM of travel.
You might want to search the 'net for "Lupo 3L" and "VW 1L".
With these numbers, why bother going hybrid? The added complexity, expense, weight, and danger would not make a better, cheaper, safer, or more fuel-efficient transport, even if it were a diesel-electric hybrid rather than a gas-electric. Remember, the goal here is personal transportation, not the massive moving of hundreds of thousands of tons of goods that is the design goal of railroad motive power.
I couldn't reply sooner because I've been on the road working on a large project halfway across the country...
1. I am not an EE, but I did go to Carnegie-Mellon for Theatre Production as a Lighting and Sound Design student. I am a fairly knowledgeable person, however, so I do understand most of the basic electronics concepts that have been addressed, especially the audio concepts. Plus, I've done quite a bit of studying on electronics since college (if I had it to do over, I'd probably go EE!).
2. Yes, there is a significant amount of Knob & Tube wiring in my house. In fact, most of the lighting is running on the old stuff (two circuits for the whole four floors, actually). There are some newer circuits installed, which is where all the expensive audio gear is plugged in.
3. All of the actual recording gear is running with balanced cabling, with proper signal and chassis grounding (as far as I can tell). The noise is being introduced mostly through the unbalanced signal cables in my guitar and bass rigs (though the bass rig is all balanced once it hits the preamp).
4. No, I haven't bothered to attempt to improve the shielding of my guitars. I know I should do this. I've had problems at gigs because of this, but pulling apart an expensive instrument and shielding all the electronics cavities is an expensive and time-consuming proposition that can actually damage the resale value of the intstrument (crazy vintage gear collectors! Arrgh...).
5. I have replaced most of the compact fluo bulbs with regular 40w or 60w bulbs. It *has*helped, of course, but some fluo fixtures remain that are definitely not grounded properly (they're all on two-wire power).
6. The reverb circuit in my Mesa/Boogie F-50 combo picks up an amazing amount of RFI when I switch it on. Perhaps replacing the driver tube might help? I'm not sure...
7. Ground loops are fairly easy to detect and usually result in relatively loud hum (or odd oscillations in tube amps). Most of my problem is related to the lighting on the older circuits.
8. No, I can't afford to pull apart all the walls and re-wire the whole house. After all, I've recently spent a whole bunch of money on a new G5 and recording equipment. It *will* be done eventually, though, along with insulating the walls properly.
9. Yes, the incandescents do help heat up the place now that it's winter...and yes, it's probable that the fluo's don't really save much in the end.
10. I *do* actually own an APC Line-R line conditioner that I use with some of my gear. It's not plugged in right now, but my experience is that it does nothing to help with airborne RFI.
11. Thanks so much for all the suggestions and comments. It's helped me get over my mind block and given me some relief to hear other's similar situations and solutions.
It is generally accepted by most reasonable legal scholars that one of the most glaring omissions of the Constitution is an effective limitation of the power of Congress to pass unreasonable legislation.
Especially as the Constitution has been Amended to remove most of the barriers between the Legislative and Executive Branches (by means of popular election of Senators, the "running mate" concept, etc), Congress today functions much more like a "tyranny of the masses" than the Framers ever intended.
This is exactly why the concept of "judicial review" has been one of the most important legal ideas ever introduced since the Constitution. Of course, a better way to institute judicial review would be to Amend the Constitution, rather than have a precedent set by what would today be termed "activist judges" by those opposed to the idea.
But we all need to realize that judicial review *is* needed, and I don't see those calling judges "activist" complaining about those "activist judges" out when the decisions go in their favor...
The point is, the courts *can* and *should* be used to stop legislation that should never have been passed in the first place. It would be better no to have passed the law, but when it does pass, the people need a remedy other than the Branch which passed the damned thing in the first place.
Anyway, you're pretty short-sighted. Like I said before, if the world were populated with people like you, than today we'd have highly-optimized horse-drawn carriages and cobbled roads, without the money-wasting inconveniences of digital electronics, for example.
You're assuming that we are better off *with* the "inconveniences"...perhaps highly-optimized horse-drawn carriages and cobbled roads aren't such a bad idea, after all...
Hmm...that's pretty funny, because Apple seems to be doing just fine on less than 30%, and they have to cover *both* hardware and software development and manufacturing costs...
I'd be even happier with an Apple head unit with built-in AirPort Extreme or long-range Bluetooth so I could wirelessly sync the hard drive to my iTunes connection from my driveway.
Even better would be a docking port for an iPod instead of a fixed-mount HDD...
Ah, a question near and dear to my heart these days. I am in the process of preparing several articles on this very subject, so I will give a brief overview here...
The first thing we need to do is enact legislation to require all voting procedures to be transparent and to produce a physical audit trail which can be independently and repeatably verified. We can go no further in this great experiment until we resolve this fundamental flaw in our electoral process.
The second problem we face is that Public Law 62-5, effective as of 1913, limits the number of Representatives in the House to 435. The long-term effect of this limitation is to drastically increase to power of the less populous states at the expense of the more populous states. We need to change this system. Fortunately, this is part of the United States Code, and not part of the Constitution, as Amended, so passage of such a measure would be somewhat more easily accomplished than if it were enshrined as the Law of the Land.
I believe that the Federal system works well, even some 200-odd years after its inception, but that there are a few inconsistencies which we need to clear up.
We need to move to system by which Representatives are apportioned based upon the percentage of the population which resides in each state. For example, according to the 2000 Census data, the least populous state, Wyoming, has 493,782 residents, and is apportioned 1 Representative, whereas the most populous state, California, has 33,871,648 residents, and is apportioned 53 Representatives.
As we can see from this data, the ratio of Representatives to Constituents in Wyoming is 1:493,782, and in California it is approximately 1:639088. Counting the Senate representation, this gives a ratio of Members of Congress to Constituents of 1:164594 to Wyoming, and a ratio of 1:615848 in California. This is grossly unfair.
The effect is to cause the more populous states to compete for a fixed number of Seats, while the less populous states retain the same number. A large population move to the urban areas would mean less representation for those areas, and an even greater imbalance in Congress.
We can improve upon this system while still retaining a more fair, but still increased power to the less populous states by simply enacting a rule which removes the limit on the number of House seats and apportions them by population ratio. Under such a system, using the 2000 Census data, I have calculated that using the ratio of 1 House Seat to every 493,782 residents, that the total number of Representatives (rounding down for each state) would increase to 647. California, for example, would recieve 68 House Seats under this rule, and thus, 70 Electors to Wyoming's three.
It is interesting to note, for those of you who would argue that the balance of power would be too drastically changed, that under this system, I have calculated that, based on the voting tallies of each state thus far, that Mr. Bush would still have won the Electoral College 340:307 (barring any further discoveries of election anomalies that might change this outcome). While the Electoral College under this system would reflect more closely the views of the Electorate in general, it would tend to reinforce the election of a candidate who carried a majority of the vote.
The more important effect of this would be to give proper weight to the voices of the more populous states in Congress.
The two biggest downsides? We'd have to build a new Capitol Building and probably some new House Office Buildings, and our government would be somewhat larger and more unwieldy. I should point out, however, that many might find a slower legislative process to be more to their liking...
This would insulate the fair makeup of Congress from population shifts. Should more population shift to rural areas, those areas would be proportionately better represented. Should more population shift to the urban areas, the same would be true.
Ah, again with the Rovian tactics. Assert enough times that your opponent has not addressed the question, and people will begin to believe that it is true.
It would be sadly funny--except for the fact that so many people have fallen for it...
I should point out that I've seen your user page, and there is a striking paucity of posts there that have won the respect of this community, so I will not waste much more effort in an attempt to further your understanding. As they say, never wrestle with a pig...
So now you, who were quick to renounce any need for spiritual guidance in determining right/wrong, is invoking Christian passages? I know consistency isn't necessarily your strong point but come on, that's just folly.
Yet you invoked His word in your own post. Could you be any more hypocritical?
That wasn't hypocrisy...it was irony. I suspected that you might not see the humor in this.
You seem to have concluded that because I oppose this particular military action that I am somehow an "anti-war activist" who "doesn't really understand global politics". This sort of limited thinking pervades your posts and is a prime example of the sort of truncated consideration that has led the United States to the debacle in which we now find ourselves enmeshed.
While there are many people in this world who believe that violence is never an acceptable response to any situation, I am not one of those people. What I am is a person who understands that violence is a method of last resort, which once undertaken, must be pursed with a supreme resolve so that violence may be ended in as quickly a manner as possible.
The power to remove the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of another human being should only be invoked when and if all other means of resolving a life-threatening conflict have proven ineffective, and only to prevent subsequent and imminent loss of life. Neither of these cases were true prior to our invasion of Iraq--and as much as the Administration would like you to think otherwise, the evidence supporting this statement was overwhelming.
Unfortunately, this is a point which the Bush Administration and their supporters have proven incapable of understanding.
There is a difference between a moral conviction and being right/wrong.
You know, you almost had a glimmer of understanding there...since you clearly didn't get the reference, my original comment was meant to convey a sense of irony toward Mr. Bush's repeated confession of his "moral convictions". Oddly, you yourself did an even better job of this than I.
Was invading Iraq the right thing to do? A brutal dictator has been removed. A threat to regional stability has been eliminated. Millions of people are no longer the subject of crippling economic sanctions. Millions of people will enjoy democracy once the terrorists have been eliminated. And the new democracy may lead to additional freedom and democracy in an area of the world that is in desperate need of both. Yes, it seems that invading Iraq was the right thing to do.
Any sentence that refers to Hussein as a "brutal dictator" should be tempered with the fact that the United States was instrumental in Hussein's rise to and continuance in power. Yes, we have removed a "brutal dictator" and "eliminated a threat to regional stability", only to replace him with the chaos of an inept occupation and resulting insurgency that has killed over 1,000 US troops and countless Iraqis so far. And as Colonel Thomas Hammes stated earlier today on NPR, an optimistic estimate of our withdrawal from Iraq is ten years from today, and a pessimistic estimate is twenty years. You might want to check into Col. Hammes' credentials.
Woo hoo, millions of people who longer suffer under crippling sanctions can now suffer under the fear of their very lives thanks to the United States of America. God Damn, I feel patriotic now! It remains to be seen whether or not any of this will result in their enjoyment of "democracy" at some future point.
No, I'm sorry, it's quite clear that invading Iraq was exactly the wrong thing to do.
Does that mean that someone who has a moral conviction against war and killing necessarily have to participate in it? No. But they should at least be able to recognize the benefit of the action even if they have a moral problem with participating in it.
Benefit? What benefit? For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Is the United States safer because we invaded Iraq, a country which never directly harmed the United States, instead of hunting down the people who actually did attack us? Is it a benefit that we have lost the respect of nearly the entire world? (Oh, wait..I forgot Poland again.) What benefits did we, as a people, derive from this action? Was it a benefit to the American people to throw away countless lives and hundreds of billions of dollars all for the sake of Mr. Bush's incompetence and pride? You poor, sick, deluded fool.
Oh, yes. I am out to eliminate religion everywhere. Superstition has no place in the world of rational thought and civil government. Let me say this loud and clear--THERE IS NO GOD. Religion is nothing more than a false path of morality--false and doomed to failure because it is based upon a fantasy, not reality, and flies in the face of the priniciples of civil equality that this great nation was founded upon. And just for the record, I couldn't give two shits what the Democratic Party thinks of me, you, or anything.
Thank you for clearly illustrating my point regarding arrogance in liberals.
Sorry to burst your bubble--I'm not a liberal. Or maybe you think it's liberal to have a strict constructionist view of constitutional law? You know, those little things like complete and total separation of religion and civil law, or the utterly unabridged right to keep and bear arms, or the right to due process? Oh, wait...I forgot--fiscal responsibility is "liberal" these days, and so is keepin
Ah yes, I see you have adopted the tactics of Karl Rove--when the truth is staring you and the rest of the world right in the face...lie. Lie some more. And then once you've got people's attention--lie again.
I produced two documented examples, as the world can see from my post, but since you seem unconvinced by the facts, allow me to humor you...
I invite you to go obtain footage from any source of the 2003 State of the Union address. Hell, go right to the source:
"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda."
Real research? People like you despise real research. All you can do is bleat like a sheep and attempt to discredit the objective truth when it doesn't swing your way. Then to top it all off you resort to the "adult" high road.
Here's the citation for Cheney on Meet The Press, 14 September 2003:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3080244/
"We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization."
You discredit yourself every time you post. I, on the other hand, back up my posts with objective, verifiable facts. That's not liberal arrogance, that's just smarter than you. I feel pity for you that you cannot rise above your limited powers of reasoning and understand that some of us do know better. But take heart, after you nut jobs have made a complete mess of things, we'll still be here to pick up the shattered pieces of the American Dream and knit them back into a nation the world can be proud of once again.
Actually, I dispute that the documents were "obvious forgeries". This smacks to me of revisionist history. While it seems that the documents in question are very likely to be forgeries, I dispute that this was known beforehand.
And if you want a story about a Democrat using an "obviously forged" document, well, all I can say is, go dig one up. Blog about it if you like. There's probably a story or two out there that's not being reported.
It's pathetic the way the insane right in this country continues to flip and flop about the media. It seems to me that the right-wing has absolutely no problem embracing yellow media tactics to drive the stake of fear right into the heart of America with stories that have been long proven to be utter fabrications, but when any reportage criticizes a fellow "conservative", they immediately trot out the "liberal media bias" horn and start blowing for all it's worth.
The documents weren't there to prop up a non-story. The documents were themselves the story. No basic fact-checking was bypassed. The documents were vetted, even if in the end the vetting didn't turn out to be perfect (or even all that good). Dan Rather is a reporter with a long history of excellence in journalism--when you've been there and done that, then maybe your simplistic criticism of him would carry more weight.
Was a mistake made? Probably. Boo hoo. The man did the right thing and explained the error. This is good journalism. Even the best of us can be mislead on occasion.
Look, the fact of the matter is that no one has been able to reproduce these documents. There is widespread speculation about the source of the typefaces used, etc.--but no one can point to any solid, conclusive proof that such and such a method was used to create these documents. Yes, it does not seem that the documents were created on the particular type of IBM Selectric typewriter that was in common use at the time the documents were supposedly created, but the evidence that has been purported to show that they were created using Microsoft Word or another like program is not in any way conclusive.
In fact, as a person who has studied graphic design and typography extensively, not to mention a technology consultant, I can tell you that even experts in the field can have difficulty identifying relevant features. It's not in any way surprising that a vetting of the documents might have gone awry.
More to the point - CBS never possessed the original documents. So all of this talk about typefaces, typewriters, and Microsoft Word is essentially meaningless. This does, however, reinforce the point that CBS should not have gone forward with the story without seeing actual originals.
The "essential point" is indeed correct--Mr. Bush has failed to produce any evidence that would support his presence on duty for large spans of time during his term of service. All the available evidence indicates that Mr. Bush was AWOL and should have been shipped off to Vietnam for a two-year tour. This, of course, did not happen, but is not evidence in and of itself that Mr. Bush fulfilled his duty obligations.
Dan Rather is a credible journalist, whether or not you think so is irrelevant. One failed story does not erase decades of top-notch reporting. Rather is one of the old school--meaning he's out to report the truth, even if you don't like it. Unfortunately for him, this time the truth may not be what he thought it was, initially.
And, by the way, objectivity doesn't mean allowing insane right attack dogs to slaver over you because they don't like the smell of Truth. And objectivity also doesn't mean ignoring the truth because it paints somebody in a color they don't like.
Dan Rather was in Vietnam. Where was George W. Bush?
Give it a rest, already. I wonder if know the actual facts of the Rather/CBS case, or if you've just picked up your own bias from pseudo-conservative blogs.
quote:
The poor journalistic integrity of those two institutions has been revealed by their own reporters.
You do realize this actually means that the journalistic integrity of both institutions was preserved by that self-same method, don't you? Even Rather's journalistic integrity was preserved, if not Blair's...
Journalistic integrity doesn't mean not being wrong sometimes--it just means getting to the bottom of the story. Rather made a mistake that a reporter of his experience should not have made, and he has been well-chastised for it.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the essential point of the story is wrong at it's heart, just that the particular documents that were presented to CBS were of dubious origin and that CBS's analysts didn't catch it.
Of course it doesn't mean you're not right, but if you find yourself in the minority over a great many years it is a strong indication that you very well may be wrong. The electorate is made up of both thinking and non-thinking individuals--but if we assume that there about as many sheep on each side of the political spectrum then we still come to the conclusion that the majority of thinking individuals voted for Bush.
You could be right but the longer you are in the minority the more statistically improbable that becomes.
Maybe "sheep" wasn't the right word. Perhaps "lemmings" would be better.
This reminds me of an old aphorism that parents are likely to trot out for their adolescent children:
If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?
In other words, if everyone in the country thought war was the right thing, but you didn't, would you blindly march off to die, or would you stand on your moral convictions, and object?
And perhaps I should mention here that I do not need to have my "moral convictions" thrust upon me from on high. I'm quite capable of making moral distinctions without the dubious beneficience of an imaginary deity.
There are those among us who have a greater power of intelligence than yourself. We understand that you fear us. Your fear does not make us less correct in our conclusions. There is a thing called objective verification of reality that those of lesser mental function cannot comprehend. You may call us arrogant. This does not make us less right, less good, or less moral.
Congratulations, you and your kind have finally succeeded in creating an atmosphere in our society where excellence is to be denigrated rather than celebrated. Do you feel better now? Does your irrational fear make you feel safer at night than my rational consideration? Will your moralistic anti-superiority complex lead us to a better world?
Oh, yes, and even if there are, as you claim, "about as many sheep on each side of the political spectrum", your conclusion that most thinking people voted for Bush is still dead wrong. All study and commentary seems to point that the number one factor in the election was "moral issues", and that of those voters who cited this as their primary issue, an exceedingly vast majority broke for the Republican Party. The turnout among "evangelical/fundamentalist Christians", driven by a plethora of Hateful Referenda was the deciding factor--a group of people who, I might point out, certainly cannot be characterized as "thinking" people, especially as Mr. Bush and his posse have violated practically every moral principal they seem to espouse.
I don't know about you, but at the top of my list of "immoral principals" is Hypocrisy, not Homosexuality.
No-one ever said there was a connection between the two despite what Michael Moore would have you believe.
Where have you been for the last few years? Outer Jibip? There are numerous, well-documented examples of administration officials (including Dr. Rice, Mr. Cheney, and Mr. Bush) stating explicitly that there was a connection.
I suspect that like so many other people who wish Michael Moore would just go away, you have not even bothered to see the movie. While I think Mr. Moore has been wrong about many things in the past, he hit the nail dead on this time with Fahrenheit 9/11.
Allow me to direct your attention to the portion of the movie beginning at 1:15:33. You should note that all the source material from this segment can be easily verified. This segment opens with a clip from Mr. Bush's State of the Union Address, in which he links Hussein to Al-Qaeda. It moves to Mr. Cheney on NBC's Meet The Press, with Mr. Cheney saying, "There was a relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda."
If this is not seem to you like anyone claiming a link between Iraq/Hussein and Al-Qaeda/Bin Laden, then you must be smoking something particularly potent.
Mr. Cheney, to add insult to injury, has continued to this day to claim there was, in fact, a relationship despite a mountain of evidence from members of our intelligence community that was made available to the highest levels of the Administration prior to both 2001-09-11 and the invasion of Iraq on 2003-03-19, not to mention account after account from persons with inside access to the White House that have revealed the fact that the Administration simply chose to ignore all evidence that did not support their desire to invade Iraq and depose Hussein--a man who I would like to point out, we propped up for years because it was politically expedient at the time to do so.
Unfortunately we didn't know the intel was bad until after.
Again, this is utterly wrong. Our intelligence community, even while hamstrung by the short-sighted policies of both the Bush Administration and prior administrations, acquitted themselves admirably. We had the information we needed. The Administration chose to ignore all evidence that did not assist with the justification to invade.
Those that call things like Iraq "pre-emptive war" are not being entirely honest. It's a proactive response to terrorism. We don't wait for them to attack us, we take the fight to them. And based on the amount of insurgents/terrorists in Iraq it looks like we hit the bullseye.
And again, I say it--there is no evidence other than some minor anecdotal evidence that anyone related to Al-Qaeda ever coordinated in any way with representatives of the government of Iraq. This is not a "proactive response to terrorism", it is war on another sovereign nation without provocation. Whether you consider that illegal or not is irrelevant. The United States is a signatory to the Charter of the United Nations. Treaty obligations approved by the Senate are as binding as domestic law. This war is illegal, by any legal standard. The only possible wiggle room here is that the United States, as a full voting member of the UN Security Council with veto power, can either veto a UN Security resolution, or circumvent international convention entirely.
International law is by its very nature a compact between sovereign nations, who by definition must preserve the power to act unilaterally if they so desire. This does not mean that unilateral action is inherently right, or even legal, let alone wise.
And, by the way, "We don't wait for them to attack us, we take the fight to them", would not hold up in a simple assault and battery case or even a self-defensive murder case. We didn't attack the terrorists when we invaded Iraq and depos
Fuck, do I have to write a goddamned novel with each slashdot post to prove I'm aware of the facts so I don't get accosted by people who assume that the only way you can have an opinion in opposition to theirs is if you don't have all the "facts"...and their version of the "facts" at that?
No, but you should be aware that if you consistently demonstrate that your awareness of the facts has evidently not resulted in any actual independent thought about the implications of those facts that people may not take you as seriously as you might desire.
Why?
Because you say so? Because blackboxvoting.org says so?
No, because there is no independently verifiable, repeatable audit trail. Such lax accounting practices wouldn't get you through an IRS audit, so why should we accept such a low standard for the system which is meant to ensure the proper functioning of our sovereign franchise?
What's more, the circumstances surrounding this election constitute a clear reasonable suspicion that the reported results might not match the actual tally. I simply don't see how any sentient being can possibly refute that there is definitive grounds for an investigation here.
Or might it be that you don't have any idea what elements might be used for in proprietary software. Note: I DO NOT think it should be proprietary, and I think that the source code of all operational components of such a system be available for public inspection, including all subsequent patches and updates, and overseen by a government custodian.
You're missing the point entirely here, though you do have the seedling of the answer here. "Overseen by a government custodian"? Government officials, by the very definition of the term, cannot be considered as impartial auditors of the electoral process. It is an unequivocalconflict of interest for those whose livelihoods are determined by the outcome of the vote to be responsible for the tabulation of that vote.
Of course, you may say, "But we all have *some* interest in the outcome." True. Therefore, the only way the auditing can be done is to have it performed by multiple parties. If the system is designed correctly, all independent audits should return the exact same result.
More importantly, the deployment of proprietary, closed-source systems in the tabulation of a public election is inherently unethical.
I know this will mean nothing to you, but:
Diebold strongly refutes the existence of any "back doors" or "hidden codes" in its GEMS software. These inaccurate allegations appear to stem from those not familiar with the product, misunderstanding the purpose of legitimate structures in the database. These structures are well documented and have been reviewed (including at a source code level) by independent testing authorities as required by federal election regulations.
In addition to the facts stated above, a paper and an electronic record of all cast ballots are retrieved from each individual voting machine following an election. The results from each individual machine are then tabulated, and thoroughly audited during the standard election canvass process. Once the audit is complete, the official winners are announced. Any alleged changes to a vote count in the election management software would be immediately discovered during this audit process, as this total would not match the true official total tabulated from each machine.
So yeah, consider the source and all that. The operative word here being consider.
Sir, place the Kool-Aid on the ground and place your hands over your head! Of course Diebold's refutations are meaningless! Diebold not only possesses, but the Chief Executive Officer of the corporation has publicly demonstratedboth the m
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I have to laugh...the parent of this post gets rated "+4 Informative", but a reply to it gets rated "Offtopic"!
By definition, it's the parent post that was "Offtopic"...
I applaud you for hiring musicians, but my point is that "some small $" isn't going to go very far paying the rent.
What you need to understand is that *no* system of payment for digital content will ever be workable for the content creators if digital restrictions are not placed on the content, at least in terms of the content creator's right to profit from their labors.
Lest you think me a shill for the RIAA, let me inform you that I freely make available some of my music on the Internet, with no restrictions on copying the files, so long as proper attribution is given. Note that I do not reliquish my copyright in doing so. I simply provide free license to share the music.
Yes, you are right, most P2P users are selfish thieves. Somehow, they seem to think it's OK to steal the fruits of my labor because it's not a tangible item to them.
5 cents of 1000 sales? You do realize that's a grand total of $50, right? That wouldn't pay my DSL bill for a month. And what, pray tell, prevents people from completely circumventing the payment system without DRM?
Now, having stated that I truly believe that DRM is an absolute necessity, I should also state that I believe that any DRM system that provides much more than token protection will ultimately be doomed to failure. Apple's FairPlay is a perfect example. What is it now? 3 computers and unlimited iPod's? Oh, and you can change which 3 computers at anytime, as many times as you like. Any subsequent DRM system should follow this example.
There has to be a reasonable distinction between "sharing among friends" and "publishing to the whole world". And DRM has to allow reasonable personal usage while protecting against wholesale piracy.
BTW, what you propose doesn't address the most pressing concern of artists without a mediation system--how do I attract attention to my work? Word of mouth? Only in exceptional circumstances will "word of mouth" result in an income large enough to support a family and a career as a musician.
It seems to me that there are a lot of people out there in Internet LaLa Land who seem to think they have plenty of answers for the plight of content creators in the digital age without actually having "walked a mile in their shoes".
Go ahead, try and make a good living at performing. Let's see how fast you jump on the DRM bandwagon...yeah, we all hate the RIAA and the majors when we're at the bottom of the heap, but once your livelihood is at stake, things start to look a bit different, don't they?
Those "100,000's" of local artists wouldn't be any better off without the recording industry machine, I assure you. We would still be, and still are, struggling.
The money you seem to think would just magically appear doesn't exist. That's the whole point of what I was saying. People these days don't care that much about live music. They care much more about being entertained.
That said, the RIAA and their kind would improve their lot immeasurably if they adopted honest business practices and stopped believing that manufactured pseudo-culture has to be rammed down everybody's throats in order for it to be profitable. The labels need to adopt more guerilla marketing tactics so they can promote without giant budgets. There's a market out there for a real alternative.
Of course, now that the giant cartel machine controls most of the venues for music in this country, it's a self-fullfilling prophecy. I wonder if you know how many of your favorite little hometown small clubs are controlled by Clear Channel?
You're missing the point. There may very well be thousands of people seeing live performances every night. How much money do you think the majority of those bands are making? As a veteran of the club circuit, I can tell you that the most money we've ever gotten paid for a live gig in one of those small venues was about $300.
The fact is, the only money being made out there for live performances in these small venues you're so fond of is being made by cover bands. A good cover band can make $5000 a night in some markets, if not more.
And while, again, there may very well be thousands of people seeing these performances...there are literallt millons upon millions more who couldn't care less, but are perfectly willing to buy prerecorded music every day.
You're probably right that most of the poetry books out there are of "mostly-dead-poets", but thanks to Congress and Sonny Bono, there is actually quite a lot of poetry being published that has not yet fallen in to the public domain.
:)
On the other hand, I very well may need my head examined, anyway
No, what makes iPod's sell is Apple's superb design and engineering. The fact that it costs more and has less features than some of the competition, and yet, still outsells them by a wide margin and garners glowing reviews should tell you something about this...
You are hopelessly naive.
The "small minority" of professional musicians that you claim "mostly make their money from live performances" is mostly made up of of cover acts, not acts playing original compositions.
And no, the "vast majority of great music" wasn't "written without the RIAA's help and without the 'protection' of copyright". First of all, copyright has existed for a lot longer than the RIAA, or the invention of recording. Second of all, the sum total of the the musical output of the human race prior to the invention of recording pales in comparison to the weight of the recordings that have been produced since the invention of audio reproduction.
I see you've trotted out Albini's old gem of an essay. While Albini may be correct about *some* of the points he makes, I find I have to take everything he says with a grain of salt, as Albini is not only elitist scum, but has himself made quite a lot of money working the RIAA system.
Musicians only make money from live performances when there is an audience willing to pay for that performance. Before the invention of recording, attending formal live performances was mostly the province of the wealthy. How many times, do you think, in the past ten years, has the average Joe or Jane gone out to see a band that they've never heard before? How many people are willing, in the 21st Century, to take a night out of their lives and spend their hard earned entertainment money on an evening out that may not actually result in entertainment?
This is the reason why DJ's have supplanted live bands in most venues. This is the reason why only large recording acts play the large venues. And don't bother me with anecdotes about the Greatful Dead. The GD machines is one of the most far-reaching corporate enterprises ever developed by mankind. Regardless of what anyone might think of their musical talents, it's recording technologies and copyright protections that got them where they are today.
BTW, *lots* of money is made on poetry. If you don't believe it, go take a look at all the poetry books on your favorite bookstore's shelves. Books don't get published and/or carried in major bookstores unless there's a market for them--that is, paying customers.
I am also a musician. An independent recording musician. Yes, the RIAA sucks. Yes, the general practices of the media empires suck.
But, if you think the situation will much improved by the elimination of mediation in the marketplace, you only have to look at the current state of the independent music marketplace (and this does not mean illegally gotten downloads of copyright protected materials) on the Internet to see that this Great Equalizer of Communications has not had, and will not have, the effect of suddenly causing society to take much more notice of artistic culture.
Let me ask you this: would you be willing to give up any chance of a normal lifestyle so that *you* could play gigs every night, like it's a regular job? I'm not. Do you think that club owners are easier to deal with than the labels? They're not. Where, exactly are all these venues that you think you're going to play? They don't exist--the only markets where live music is performed on a regular basis are in cities, where the cost of real estate pretty much forces every venue that doesn't cater to the popular out of business. Where are the massive audiences willing to shell out the bucks to pay you? They don't exist. In the modern world, most people simply don't have the time to constantly patronize live music establishments.
The reason we're all drowning is a "sea of garbage" produced by the members of the RIAA is that most people, including most musicians, do not have a well-developed sense of musical good taste.
Here's another question for our gentle readers? When's the last time *you* commissioned a live act to play at a function? When's the last time *you* commissioned an original composition? For most people, the answers to the above questions will be:
a. At my wedding (if they can answer this affirmatively, at all).
b. Never.
And again, when is the last time *you* went to see a band you've never heard before?
I repeat, you are hopelessly naive.
"...consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro."
Sounds to me like consumers are already winning, and HP is using dirty tricks to stop them.
Makes me glad I own only used, built-like-tanks, laser printers. I won't feel bad about not buying those little crack rocks called ink cartridges.
The most important thing Apple Computer needs to get to market is a small 1U rack-mountable server in the sub-$1000 price range.
Like, say, if you took a 17" iMac G5, ripped out the display, put it on it's side and racked it...but reconfig'd it so that the ports and slots would be easy to access while in a rack. Give me a single-processor G5 mobo, 2 internal SATA drives, a CD-ROM, a single PCI slot, and a choice of Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server, and I'm good to go.
I have visions of Apple Network Appliances dancing in my head..email, DNS, DHCP, Open Directory nodes, web servers, etc, etc. All that nifty infrastructure stuff that doesn't really require a full-blown XServe, but that works great on multiple cheap boxen.
It's very simple, really. VAG has proven (with the Lupo 3L) that it is possible to build a production passenger car that can carry as much cargo in relative comfort as any of the compact Japanese hybrids and still achieve close to or even over 100 MPG without the added complexity, expense, weight, and danger of the electric motors and batteries currently employed by the "hybrid" vehicles.
And in case you missed it, VAG has even built a prototype two-seater that can achieve about 300 MPG on real roads--the VW 1L car (that is, 1 litre of fuel consumed for 100 KM of travel). The actual figure for the inaugural trip was about 260 MPG (2.1 L consumed over about 230 KM in bad weather). The Lupo 3L, on an around the world trip, attained an average 98.82 MPG over 33,000+ KM of travel.
You might want to search the 'net for "Lupo 3L" and "VW 1L".
With these numbers, why bother going hybrid? The added complexity, expense, weight, and danger would not make a better, cheaper, safer, or more fuel-efficient transport, even if it were a diesel-electric hybrid rather than a gas-electric. Remember, the goal here is personal transportation, not the massive moving of hundreds of thousands of tons of goods that is the design goal of railroad motive power.
I couldn't reply sooner because I've been on the road working on a large project halfway across the country...
1. I am not an EE, but I did go to Carnegie-Mellon for Theatre Production as a Lighting and Sound Design student. I am a fairly knowledgeable person, however, so I do understand most of the basic electronics concepts that have been addressed, especially the audio concepts. Plus, I've done quite a bit of studying on electronics since college (if I had it to do over, I'd probably go EE!).
2. Yes, there is a significant amount of Knob & Tube wiring in my house. In fact, most of the lighting is running on the old stuff (two circuits for the whole four floors, actually). There are some newer circuits installed, which is where all the expensive audio gear is plugged in.
3. All of the actual recording gear is running with balanced cabling, with proper signal and chassis grounding (as far as I can tell). The noise is being introduced mostly through the unbalanced signal cables in my guitar and bass rigs (though the bass rig is all balanced once it hits the preamp).
4. No, I haven't bothered to attempt to improve the shielding of my guitars. I know I should do this. I've had problems at gigs because of this, but pulling apart an expensive instrument and shielding all the electronics cavities is an expensive and time-consuming proposition that can actually damage the resale value of the intstrument (crazy vintage gear collectors! Arrgh...).
5. I have replaced most of the compact fluo bulbs with regular 40w or 60w bulbs. It *has*helped, of course, but some fluo fixtures remain that are definitely not grounded properly (they're all on two-wire power).
6. The reverb circuit in my Mesa/Boogie F-50 combo picks up an amazing amount of RFI when I switch it on. Perhaps replacing the driver tube might help? I'm not sure...
7. Ground loops are fairly easy to detect and usually result in relatively loud hum (or odd oscillations in tube amps). Most of my problem is related to the lighting on the older circuits.
8. No, I can't afford to pull apart all the walls and re-wire the whole house. After all, I've recently spent a whole bunch of money on a new G5 and recording equipment. It *will* be done eventually, though, along with insulating the walls properly.
9. Yes, the incandescents do help heat up the place now that it's winter...and yes, it's probable that the fluo's don't really save much in the end.
10. I *do* actually own an APC Line-R line conditioner that I use with some of my gear. It's not plugged in right now, but my experience is that it does nothing to help with airborne RFI.
11. Thanks so much for all the suggestions and comments. It's helped me get over my mind block and given me some relief to hear other's similar situations and solutions.
It is generally accepted by most reasonable legal scholars that one of the most glaring omissions of the Constitution is an effective limitation of the power of Congress to pass unreasonable legislation.
Especially as the Constitution has been Amended to remove most of the barriers between the Legislative and Executive Branches (by means of popular election of Senators, the "running mate" concept, etc), Congress today functions much more like a "tyranny of the masses" than the Framers ever intended.
This is exactly why the concept of "judicial review" has been one of the most important legal ideas ever introduced since the Constitution. Of course, a better way to institute judicial review would be to Amend the Constitution, rather than have a precedent set by what would today be termed "activist judges" by those opposed to the idea.
But we all need to realize that judicial review *is* needed, and I don't see those calling judges "activist" complaining about those "activist judges" out when the decisions go in their favor...
The point is, the courts *can* and *should* be used to stop legislation that should never have been passed in the first place. It would be better no to have passed the law, but when it does pass, the people need a remedy other than the Branch which passed the damned thing in the first place.
You're assuming that we are better off *with* the "inconveniences"...perhaps highly-optimized horse-drawn carriages and cobbled roads aren't such a bad idea, after all...
Hmm...that's pretty funny, because Apple seems to be doing just fine on less than 30%, and they have to cover *both* hardware and software development and manufacturing costs...
I'd be even happier with an Apple head unit with built-in AirPort Extreme or long-range Bluetooth so I could wirelessly sync the hard drive to my iTunes connection from my driveway.
Even better would be a docking port for an iPod instead of a fixed-mount HDD...
Ah, a question near and dear to my heart these days. I am in the process of preparing several articles on this very subject, so I will give a brief overview here...
The first thing we need to do is enact legislation to require all voting procedures to be transparent and to produce a physical audit trail which can be independently and repeatably verified. We can go no further in this great experiment until we resolve this fundamental flaw in our electoral process.
The second problem we face is that Public Law 62-5, effective as of 1913, limits the number of Representatives in the House to 435. The long-term effect of this limitation is to drastically increase to power of the less populous states at the expense of the more populous states. We need to change this system. Fortunately, this is part of the United States Code, and not part of the Constitution, as Amended, so passage of such a measure would be somewhat more easily accomplished than if it were enshrined as the Law of the Land.
I believe that the Federal system works well, even some 200-odd years after its inception, but that there are a few inconsistencies which we need to clear up.
We need to move to system by which Representatives are apportioned based upon the percentage of the population which resides in each state. For example, according to the 2000 Census data, the least populous state, Wyoming, has 493,782 residents, and is apportioned 1 Representative, whereas the most populous state, California, has 33,871,648 residents, and is apportioned 53 Representatives.
As we can see from this data, the ratio of Representatives to Constituents in Wyoming is 1:493,782, and in California it is approximately 1:639088. Counting the Senate representation, this gives a ratio of Members of Congress to Constituents of 1:164594 to Wyoming, and a ratio of 1:615848 in California. This is grossly unfair.
The effect is to cause the more populous states to compete for a fixed number of Seats, while the less populous states retain the same number. A large population move to the urban areas would mean less representation for those areas, and an even greater imbalance in Congress.
We can improve upon this system while still retaining a more fair, but still increased power to the less populous states by simply enacting a rule which removes the limit on the number of House seats and apportions them by population ratio. Under such a system, using the 2000 Census data, I have calculated that using the ratio of 1 House Seat to every 493,782 residents, that the total number of Representatives (rounding down for each state) would increase to 647. California, for example, would recieve 68 House Seats under this rule, and thus, 70 Electors to Wyoming's three.
It is interesting to note, for those of you who would argue that the balance of power would be too drastically changed, that under this system, I have calculated that, based on the voting tallies of each state thus far, that Mr. Bush would still have won the Electoral College 340:307 (barring any further discoveries of election anomalies that might change this outcome). While the Electoral College under this system would reflect more closely the views of the Electorate in general, it would tend to reinforce the election of a candidate who carried a majority of the vote.
The more important effect of this would be to give proper weight to the voices of the more populous states in Congress.
The two biggest downsides? We'd have to build a new Capitol Building and probably some new House Office Buildings, and our government would be somewhat larger and more unwieldy. I should point out, however, that many might find a slower legislative process to be more to their liking...
This would insulate the fair makeup of Congress from population shifts. Should more population shift to rural areas, those areas would be proportionately better represented. Should more population shift to the urban areas, the same would be true.
The next change that we
Ah, again with the Rovian tactics. Assert enough times that your opponent has not addressed the question, and people will begin to believe that it is true.
It would be sadly funny--except for the fact that so many people have fallen for it...
That wasn't hypocrisy...it was irony. I suspected that you might not see the humor in this.
You seem to have concluded that because I oppose this particular military action that I am somehow an "anti-war activist" who "doesn't really understand global politics". This sort of limited thinking pervades your posts and is a prime example of the sort of truncated consideration that has led the United States to the debacle in which we now find ourselves enmeshed.
While there are many people in this world who believe that violence is never an acceptable response to any situation, I am not one of those people. What I am is a person who understands that violence is a method of last resort, which once undertaken, must be pursed with a supreme resolve so that violence may be ended in as quickly a manner as possible.
The power to remove the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of another human being should only be invoked when and if all other means of resolving a life-threatening conflict have proven ineffective, and only to prevent subsequent and imminent loss of life. Neither of these cases were true prior to our invasion of Iraq--and as much as the Administration would like you to think otherwise, the evidence supporting this statement was overwhelming.
Unfortunately, this is a point which the Bush Administration and their supporters have proven incapable of understanding.
You know, you almost had a glimmer of understanding there...since you clearly didn't get the reference, my original comment was meant to convey a sense of irony toward Mr. Bush's repeated confession of his "moral convictions". Oddly, you yourself did an even better job of this than I.
Any sentence that refers to Hussein as a "brutal dictator" should be tempered with the fact that the United States was instrumental in Hussein's rise to and continuance in power. Yes, we have removed a "brutal dictator" and "eliminated a threat to regional stability", only to replace him with the chaos of an inept occupation and resulting insurgency that has killed over 1,000 US troops and countless Iraqis so far. And as Colonel Thomas Hammes stated earlier today on NPR, an optimistic estimate of our withdrawal from Iraq is ten years from today, and a pessimistic estimate is twenty years. You might want to check into Col. Hammes' credentials.
Woo hoo, millions of people who longer suffer under crippling sanctions can now suffer under the fear of their very lives thanks to the United States of America. God Damn, I feel patriotic now! It remains to be seen whether or not any of this will result in their enjoyment of "democracy" at some future point.
No, I'm sorry, it's quite clear that invading Iraq was exactly the wrong thing to do.
Benefit? What benefit? For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Is the United States safer because we invaded Iraq, a country which never directly harmed the United States, instead of hunting down the people who actually did attack us? Is it a benefit that we have lost the respect of nearly the entire world? (Oh, wait..I forgot Poland again.) What benefits did we, as a people, derive from this action? Was it a benefit to the American people to throw away countless lives and hundreds of billions of dollars all for the sake of Mr. Bush's incompetence and pride? You poor, sick, deluded fool.
Oh, yes. I am out to eliminate religion everywhere. Superstition has no place in the world of rational thought and civil government. Let me say this loud and clear--THERE IS NO GOD. Religion is nothing more than a false path of morality--false and doomed to failure because it is based upon a fantasy, not reality, and flies in the face of the priniciples of civil equality that this great nation was founded upon. And just for the record, I couldn't give two shits what the Democratic Party thinks of me, you, or anything.
Sorry to burst your bubble--I'm not a liberal. Or maybe you think it's liberal to have a strict constructionist view of constitutional law? You know, those little things like complete and total separation of religion and civil law, or the utterly unabridged right to keep and bear arms, or the right to due process? Oh, wait...I forgot--fiscal responsibility is "liberal" these days, and so is keepin
I produced two documented examples, as the world can see from my post, but since you seem unconvinced by the facts, allow me to humor you...
I invite you to go obtain footage from any source of the 2003 State of the Union address. Hell, go right to the source:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01
Real research? People like you despise real research. All you can do is bleat like a sheep and attempt to discredit the objective truth when it doesn't swing your way. Then to top it all off you resort to the "adult" high road.
Here's the citation for Cheney on Meet The Press, 14 September 2003:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3080244/
You discredit yourself every time you post. I, on the other hand, back up my posts with objective, verifiable facts. That's not liberal arrogance, that's just smarter than you. I feel pity for you that you cannot rise above your limited powers of reasoning and understand that some of us do know better. But take heart, after you nut jobs have made a complete mess of things, we'll still be here to pick up the shattered pieces of the American Dream and knit them back into a nation the world can be proud of once again.
Actually, I dispute that the documents were "obvious forgeries". This smacks to me of revisionist history. While it seems that the documents in question are very likely to be forgeries, I dispute that this was known beforehand.
And if you want a story about a Democrat using an "obviously forged" document, well, all I can say is, go dig one up. Blog about it if you like. There's probably a story or two out there that's not being reported.
It's pathetic the way the insane right in this country continues to flip and flop about the media. It seems to me that the right-wing has absolutely no problem embracing yellow media tactics to drive the stake of fear right into the heart of America with stories that have been long proven to be utter fabrications, but when any reportage criticizes a fellow "conservative", they immediately trot out the "liberal media bias" horn and start blowing for all it's worth.
The documents weren't there to prop up a non-story. The documents were themselves the story. No basic fact-checking was bypassed. The documents were vetted, even if in the end the vetting didn't turn out to be perfect (or even all that good). Dan Rather is a reporter with a long history of excellence in journalism--when you've been there and done that, then maybe your simplistic criticism of him would carry more weight.
Was a mistake made? Probably. Boo hoo. The man did the right thing and explained the error. This is good journalism. Even the best of us can be mislead on occasion.
Look, the fact of the matter is that no one has been able to reproduce these documents. There is widespread speculation about the source of the typefaces used, etc.--but no one can point to any solid, conclusive proof that such and such a method was used to create these documents. Yes, it does not seem that the documents were created on the particular type of IBM Selectric typewriter that was in common use at the time the documents were supposedly created, but the evidence that has been purported to show that they were created using Microsoft Word or another like program is not in any way conclusive.
In fact, as a person who has studied graphic design and typography extensively, not to mention a technology consultant, I can tell you that even experts in the field can have difficulty identifying relevant features. It's not in any way surprising that a vetting of the documents might have gone awry.
More to the point - CBS never possessed the original documents. So all of this talk about typefaces, typewriters, and Microsoft Word is essentially meaningless. This does, however, reinforce the point that CBS should not have gone forward with the story without seeing actual originals.
The "essential point" is indeed correct--Mr. Bush has failed to produce any evidence that would support his presence on duty for large spans of time during his term of service. All the available evidence indicates that Mr. Bush was AWOL and should have been shipped off to Vietnam for a two-year tour. This, of course, did not happen, but is not evidence in and of itself that Mr. Bush fulfilled his duty obligations.
Dan Rather is a credible journalist, whether or not you think so is irrelevant. One failed story does not erase decades of top-notch reporting. Rather is one of the old school--meaning he's out to report the truth, even if you don't like it. Unfortunately for him, this time the truth may not be what he thought it was, initially.
And, by the way, objectivity doesn't mean allowing insane right attack dogs to slaver over you because they don't like the smell of Truth. And objectivity also doesn't mean ignoring the truth because it paints somebody in a color they don't like.
Dan Rather was in Vietnam. Where was George W. Bush?
The question remains unanswered.
Give it a rest, already. I wonder if know the actual facts of the Rather/CBS case, or if you've just picked up your own bias from pseudo-conservative blogs.
quote:
The poor journalistic integrity of those two institutions has been revealed by their own reporters.
You do realize this actually means that the journalistic integrity of both institutions was preserved by that self-same method, don't you? Even Rather's journalistic integrity was preserved, if not Blair's...
Journalistic integrity doesn't mean not being wrong sometimes--it just means getting to the bottom of the story. Rather made a mistake that a reporter of his experience should not have made, and he has been well-chastised for it.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the essential point of the story is wrong at it's heart, just that the particular documents that were presented to CBS were of dubious origin and that CBS's analysts didn't catch it.
Bush still hasn't explained where he was.
Maybe "sheep" wasn't the right word. Perhaps "lemmings" would be better.
This reminds me of an old aphorism that parents are likely to trot out for their adolescent children:
If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?
In other words, if everyone in the country thought war was the right thing, but you didn't, would you blindly march off to die, or would you stand on your moral convictions, and object?
And perhaps I should mention here that I do not need to have my "moral convictions" thrust upon me from on high. I'm quite capable of making moral distinctions without the dubious beneficience of an imaginary deity.
There are those among us who have a greater power of intelligence than yourself. We understand that you fear us. Your fear does not make us less correct in our conclusions. There is a thing called objective verification of reality that those of lesser mental function cannot comprehend. You may call us arrogant. This does not make us less right, less good, or less moral.
Congratulations, you and your kind have finally succeeded in creating an atmosphere in our society where excellence is to be denigrated rather than celebrated. Do you feel better now? Does your irrational fear make you feel safer at night than my rational consideration? Will your moralistic anti-superiority complex lead us to a better world?
Oh, yes, and even if there are, as you claim, "about as many sheep on each side of the political spectrum", your conclusion that most thinking people voted for Bush is still dead wrong. All study and commentary seems to point that the number one factor in the election was "moral issues", and that of those voters who cited this as their primary issue, an exceedingly vast majority broke for the Republican Party. The turnout among "evangelical/fundamentalist Christians", driven by a plethora of Hateful Referenda was the deciding factor--a group of people who, I might point out, certainly cannot be characterized as "thinking" people, especially as Mr. Bush and his posse have violated practically every moral principal they seem to espouse.
I don't know about you, but at the top of my list of "immoral principals" is Hypocrisy, not Homosexuality.
What fools these mortals be.
Where have you been for the last few years? Outer Jibip? There are numerous, well-documented examples of administration officials (including Dr. Rice, Mr. Cheney, and Mr. Bush) stating explicitly that there was a connection.
I suspect that like so many other people who wish Michael Moore would just go away, you have not even bothered to see the movie. While I think Mr. Moore has been wrong about many things in the past, he hit the nail dead on this time with Fahrenheit 9/11.
Allow me to direct your attention to the portion of the movie beginning at 1:15:33. You should note that all the source material from this segment can be easily verified. This segment opens with a clip from Mr. Bush's State of the Union Address, in which he links Hussein to Al-Qaeda. It moves to Mr. Cheney on NBC's Meet The Press, with Mr. Cheney saying, "There was a relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda."
If this is not seem to you like anyone claiming a link between Iraq/Hussein and Al-Qaeda/Bin Laden, then you must be smoking something particularly potent.
Mr. Cheney, to add insult to injury, has continued to this day to claim there was, in fact, a relationship despite a mountain of evidence from members of our intelligence community that was made available to the highest levels of the Administration prior to both 2001-09-11 and the invasion of Iraq on 2003-03-19, not to mention account after account from persons with inside access to the White House that have revealed the fact that the Administration simply chose to ignore all evidence that did not support their desire to invade Iraq and depose Hussein--a man who I would like to point out, we propped up for years because it was politically expedient at the time to do so.
Again, this is utterly wrong. Our intelligence community, even while hamstrung by the short-sighted policies of both the Bush Administration and prior administrations, acquitted themselves admirably. We had the information we needed. The Administration chose to ignore all evidence that did not assist with the justification to invade.
And again, I say it--there is no evidence other than some minor anecdotal evidence that anyone related to Al-Qaeda ever coordinated in any way with representatives of the government of Iraq. This is not a "proactive response to terrorism", it is war on another sovereign nation without provocation. Whether you consider that illegal or not is irrelevant. The United States is a signatory to the Charter of the United Nations. Treaty obligations approved by the Senate are as binding as domestic law. This war is illegal, by any legal standard. The only possible wiggle room here is that the United States, as a full voting member of the UN Security Council with veto power, can either veto a UN Security resolution, or circumvent international convention entirely.
International law is by its very nature a compact between sovereign nations, who by definition must preserve the power to act unilaterally if they so desire. This does not mean that unilateral action is inherently right, or even legal, let alone wise.
And, by the way, "We don't wait for them to attack us, we take the fight to them", would not hold up in a simple assault and battery case or even a self-defensive murder case. We didn't attack the terrorists when we invaded Iraq and depos
Amen, brother.
No, but you should be aware that if you consistently demonstrate that your awareness of the facts has evidently not resulted in any actual independent thought about the implications of those facts that people may not take you as seriously as you might desire.
No, because there is no independently verifiable, repeatable audit trail. Such lax accounting practices wouldn't get you through an IRS audit, so why should we accept such a low standard for the system which is meant to ensure the proper functioning of our sovereign franchise?
What's more, the circumstances surrounding this election constitute a clear reasonable suspicion that the reported results might not match the actual tally. I simply don't see how any sentient being can possibly refute that there is definitive grounds for an investigation here.
You're missing the point entirely here, though you do have the seedling of the answer here. "Overseen by a government custodian"? Government officials, by the very definition of the term, cannot be considered as impartial auditors of the electoral process. It is an unequivocal conflict of interest for those whose livelihoods are determined by the outcome of the vote to be responsible for the tabulation of that vote.
Of course, you may say, "But we all have *some* interest in the outcome." True. Therefore, the only way the auditing can be done is to have it performed by multiple parties. If the system is designed correctly, all independent audits should return the exact same result.
More importantly, the deployment of proprietary, closed-source systems in the tabulation of a public election is inherently unethical.
Sir, place the Kool-Aid on the ground and place your hands over your head! Of course Diebold's refutations are meaningless! Diebold not only possesses, but the Chief Executive Officer of the corporation has publicly demonstrated both the m