Who the hell runs benchmarks with FireFox and iTunes.
Someone who's paid by Intel, in money and/or product, to write a review whose conclusions match Intels marketing materials?
That's not a guess, it happens pretty much every day. Some people are naive enough to believe that a website like this can make tons on cash on google ads and a couple of banners, but not folks that have seen how trade press reviews work.
All the CGI talent in the world... all the carefully choreographed sabre battles... the bad-assness of a 2-chick 1-dude 3-way (sabre fight, you perv)... the originality of the idea...
It all goes for not if your dialogue and acting isn't even up to Lucas-standard.
Nobody's expecting Patrick Stewart doing Shakespeare quality here, folks; but seriously-- geeks are not generally the best actors, and it really shows. And the dialgoue sounds like it was ripped off from writers who were creating a Desperate Housewives knockoff.
Some rules: I do not do friend of a friend. I have a 50-hour-a-week salaried IT job.
Friends: Barter services/labor, or charge flat $25 per hour. VERY LOW compared to "some stranger who knows what they are doing," but I only have 5-10 clients, and only see them 5-10 hours per year.
Family: I make it seem like I am already extremely busy, but if things get dire enough, will drop 1-2 hours. If they are work past that, I usually work out things like babysitting my son so wife and I can go out, etc. Bartering is severely underrated. You both get something you want out of it, and no money changes hands... just a mutual agreement on what something is worth. In other words, I do this as a service because it needs to be done, but I make sure they are making it worth my while.
That's OK, sir, I am playing with one-eight-millionth-scale nanotube space elevators in my basement.
You're named after a character on The West Wing and have a user number 840,000 above mine. Yeah, seems like you've been real hot on this here technology bandwagon to have discovered Slashdot in the waning minutes of 2004...
I can't tell if you're really an arrogant, judgemental jerk, or just a troll. Why am I feeding you?
I'm not sure who you think I am, but *I* have a skillset well outside Windows desktop administration, including SunOne Web Server, IBM WebSphere and IBM/Tivoli Access Manager, LDAP administration, PERL scripting, REXX scripting, and software distribution. I make good salary, and have had a solid employment history at my present job for seven years. If Windows suddenly goes away, I have a half-dozen other options.
My point was that I make my living doing this because it is here to do. Go back and read again. I know that your big Unix beard is getting in the way, but pull down those giant bi-focals and look closely at the text in the browser window that's obscuring your bash shell.
OK, you just made no sense, Commander Anonymous. I was defining my lifestyle for the grandparent posts which talked about all the whiny brats and their games not even leaving their parents' basements. Secondly, if gaming falls lower on the priority list for you, great for you. Third, I was not defending whiners, I was saying that people have a legit beef with the company denying them access (on an ongoing basis) to a game they paid for.
Why is it that anyone who is not a living, breathing clone of yourself is a "whiner?" Who needs to grow up and get mature?
You can be as deprecating as you want. I don't care. I do this job because it's here to be done. I'd like to highlight the point of my post, however. There are 12 of us that do the 2nd-level support for 21,000 machines, and we get 3-5 calls a week about Windows issues. All the rest of our work is centered around evaluation, packaging, staging, and distribution of Win32 software applications. AND PATCHES. We do all the patching.
My point was that the product is good enough that it practically runs itself. It sounds to me like you're trying to say the product can't run itself, and that's why people like me are hired.
For reference, we have approximately 280 Unix servers (Solaris, AIX, and RHEL), employ 22 Engineers and Operations staff to support those. Is that because those products suck to? No, it's because there is work to do.
there are so many elevator operators whose livelihoods are dependent on Microsoft's continuing to build creaky elevators
You are talking about the thousands of paper MCSEs that showed up 6-8 years ago. Those people are either doing end-user desktop installs, went to more classes and became trainers, or found a different career. I make my living supporting Microsoft's OS and its applications, but only because we have ongoing business needs for new and improved applications, not because Microsoft's product is crap.
Dude, when you have a userbase that has been using Windows for ten years, you don't hear about Windows "quirks" very much. Especially when you're running a locked-down version of XP with centralized software distribution management.
I help manage 21,000 desktops for a global financial services company. Our field support handles most basic administration, but we get a few "hardcore Windows quirk" type questions. Maybe... 3-5 a week.
I have used MacOS X, it's nice. But you were only mentioning Linux against Windows? Oh my God, are you KIDDING? Every 18 months since 1994, I've had the urge to "give Linux another shot" on one of my desktops. I've been through early Slackware to SuSe to Debian to Gentoo, six different revisions of RadHat/Fedora... I can't stand the interface quirks. Unless you make your living, or a serious hobby, out of managing Linux, it's not remotely intuitive to "average desktop users."
The only things I successfully use linux for are a text-only firewall box (486/33) and the Knoppix boot CD for memory testing. WinPE boot CDs CAN BE nearly as good for managing Windows-OS PCs, though, FYI.
Coincidentally enough, I was at a LAN Party last night, and some of the group wanted to get their CounterStrike on. They kept knocking on our host's networking abilities, saying Steam couldn't connect 'cuz his network was misconfigured. I play mostly Quake 3 and Call of Duty, and if the game required me to authenticate on an unavailable system to play the game I paid $50 for in the store, I'd be pissed too. Steam is great for content delivery, but as an authentication system, it clearly has shortcomings.
As for your commentary on my lifestyle, I'd like to point out that I have been married for 8 years, and have a son and a child on the way. My wife lets me have some time to play video games, and I let her go out to scrapbooking meetings with her friends. It's called a HOBBY. If the time I allocated to my hobby of choice was infringed upon by the poor technology of a third party, I'd say I have a right to be irritated. On the other hand, I'd find something else to do.
FWIW, Microsoft Internet Hearts has never been down when I have tried to get on...;)
Seriously, we should boycott this film and send the message that we won't settle for mediocre films.
Even if you convince a thousand people to agree, that is a drop in the bucket compared to the loot Lucas will bring in via the millions of sheeple who will pay for (and pay for again) anything Star Wars...
Good luck. Me? I'll go so it once, and buy the DVD. I have the other 5, how am I going to explain the mssing disc to my son when he goes to watch them?
If you lack a sense of purpose, you probably don't have one.
Maybe you were just being deliberately generic, but from the quick anecdotes you shared, it sounds like you don't know what you're doing, nor what you are supposed to be doing. "I manage normals." What does that mean?
When you are evaluating PC gaming performance, it's not customary to gauge new chipsets (within last 18 months) by games that are 6 years old (Quake 3). That is why I said horrifyingly bad.
I spend 90% of my gaming time playing Quake 3 (3wave Capturestrike), but I also like to pop in some Doom 3 and UT2004. Unichrome ain't going there!:)
I remember seeing this video sometime between 1994 and 1999, when I still had my Macintosh Quadra 840av. It was Quicktime clip on a CD, and while the video size was similar or a little smaller, it was digitzed much more "crisply" than this cassette transfer.
Now if only I could remember if it was on a CD that came with my Mac, or maybe the CD with one of the "Late Night with MacHack" books... I honestly don't remember.
But somebody had this "lost" content in QuickTime format between 6 and 10 years ago.
Nice disection; I just wanted to point out that the Mac mini has a fullRadeon 9200, not a mobility. And I agree, UniChrome is horrifyingly bad for anything except a very basic 2D display.
I have been playing Quake 3 for 4 years, the last 18 months competitively. I am occaisionally having dreams about using rocket launchers and railguns to pick off bots (Tank Jr. model, which I use for enemy) across a busy cityscape.
I think that this normal daydreaming associated with creative minds.
As someone who has followed this for almost 18 months (the original article was 9/2003), I am loving the prospect of Tim Roberts et al. having to cough up Kyle's costs!
I have followed this case as well, but I am less optimistic. Legal fees being covered by the losing party is much more common in the EU than in the US.
I would like to see it happen more often, though, as harassment suits such as those threatened by the media corporations against individualswould (hopefully) slow way the heck down.:) They would be gunshy about paying to bring cases to court except those they knew they could win... in other words, they had solid evidence of wrongdoing and clear-cut proof of monetary loss.
I hate to say soemthing in favor of the hideously negligent corporation(s) behind this disaster, but they did try to make ammend. CEO Anderson arrived immediately after the disaster to try to "assess and assist," but was placed under house arrest and threatened with a murder trial if he did not flee the country. ('Shoot first, ask questions later' comes to mind.) Also, while 470,000,000 dollars is hardly a lot to compensate the current count of over half a million injured and more than 15,000 dead; at the time UC was negotiating a compensation settlement, they were being told 8,000 dead and 100,000 injured... and half a billion US dollars in mid-'80s money is quite a chunk of change. The Indian official responsible for managing and dispensing the money have bungled the situation for 15 years, shouldn't they be accepting some of the responsibility for letting these victims live horribly painful lives without proper care this whole time?
That's what you get from publications such as the "IT Managers Journal."
It's like when our CTO told us he expects us to average 48 hour workweeks, and bill accordingly, when he read in "several trade publications" that the average IT workweek is 48 hours./Wondered why 8 hours of vacation appears billed as ".89 days"...:(
He wrote about this a couple of years ago. Basically he said he spent high school drawing stuff and wanting to do it for a living enough, that with practice every day, he found new techniques, tools, and skills.
It sounds like he had all the "ideas" in his head on how it should have looked, and just worked hard enough to make what was on the paper look like that.
No Tivo, xbox or PS2 here. Home-brew PVR records direct to DivX, all files uploaded to SMB shares on server, and all PCs have the K++ mega-codec pack installed so they can all read almost any type of encoded media.
Windows Media Player then runs everything from the server's shares.
Works for me, and I find DivX is great for size and quality balance.
Have you noticed that AOL's recent marketing campaign is explicitly promoting the notion that AOL is "The Internet?"
One customer arrives and says, "I have some ideas on how to make The Internet better..."...a voiceover says "When people told us how to make The Internet better, we listened..."
I have an idea on how to make The Internet better: AOL files for Chapter 11 and all of its customers suddenly and painfully lose @AOL.COM email and AIM.
This would help spare-time tech consultants (any suburban kid over the age of 10) bring people up to speend on how to use the "real" Internet, make a little dough, and vastly improve the quality of their family and friends' online experience.:D (Tyler Durden probably already thought of this idea though.)
I sent this letter to my family and friends. Enjoy... -----
I had to get this off my chest, because it is important to me. You're certainly not obligated to respond.:) But usually when I feel strong enough about something I have to share. This is one of those times.
Those of you who I've engaged in political discussion in the past probably know that I'm a Libertarian in core ideology, and in practicality, a moderate who leans toward conservative (especially in fiscal matters.) I voted for Dole in 96, McCain in the 2000 primary, Harry Browne (Libertarian) in the 2000 election... though I was not sad to see Bush defeat Gore.
It may surprise you to learn that I voted for John Kerry yesterday. While I understand the whole thing about him being liberal yankee senator with a history of flip flops, I think that there was a good deal of spin on the parts of both the major parties in this election. For instance, Bush's flipflops were never addressed; in 2000 Bush campaigned and sold himself as a moderate in world affairs and domestic issues, I think we have found that this has not been the case. Bush specifically stated that he did not agree with sending American troops into foreign countries to do "nation building." While he did not have the foresight of what would happen in 2001, and there is no question Afghanistan NEEDED our "nation building," look at what a mess Iraq has become. If that is not a flip-flop, what is? Or if you consider it someone making a better decision based on new information, then why is Kerry as flip-flopper for doing the same thing? Given Kerry's record of public service, he's AT LEAST as qualified as Bush to run the country, and frankly, I think we could have used the change.
What I want to get to in this message is why I think four more years of Bush has the potential to be a very bad thing.
FACT: Bush has won the election. Forget what CNN is telling you about Ohio.
Even if the Ohio provisional ballots were something irrational like 80% for Kerry, Bush would still win, he has 140,000 vote advantage. The Secretary of State has told his campaign that is it statistically impossibly for Kerry to win Ohio.
I am not happy with this outcome because we now have a more Republican Congress, a VERY conservative Republican executive branch, and a delicate balance of ideology in the Supreme Court. There is no incentive for the partisan interests in charge to attract any kind of coalition or create any sense of compromise on anything.
I am of the opinion that this is a bad thing. It's bad for the country and her people, at least 54 million of which believe another guy should be president.
As near as I can tell, Bush won fair and square. (If he didn't, we'll never know-- tinfoil hat time! *smirk*) Yay, democracy works. I just don't think a lot of people have considered the big picture of how our country stands in the world or even how our country looks to our moderate and liberal domestic neighbors, who now have basically no representative interests for their legitimate concerns. Bush gave 'em tax cuts and got rid of Saddam, and that's good enough.
What about my friends who are without manufacturing jobs, many right here in Ohio? What about a half-trillion dollar deficit? (That is not fiscal responsibility!) What about the long and lingering war in Iraq, where my brother is likely to return in the near future? What about the continuing debate on the vice president's corporate interests? And the Attorney General's moral interests? (Had I known John Ashcroft would be selected Attorney General, I would have voted for Gore four years ago. This is a guy who not only lost a Senate race to a dead man, he also said things regarding Congress such as "I think all we should legislate is morality." Last week, he calls for a "War on Piracy," ostensibly to protect corp
The ultimate test of freedom is standing up for it in the face of that which you don't like.
What a load of crap.
The ultimate test of freedom is standing up for it in the face of what is wrong.
I am a very outspoken Libertarian ideologically (maybe moderate/conservative in a practical sense, but striving toward a gradual implementation of libertarianism in the big picture). But even I cannot stand by and let someone "exercise their personal rights" while I have to walk through a cloud of smoke, which typically gives me headaches and sneezing fits when I get a good whiff. Yes, the rest of the city stinks. But your rights to smoke end where my rights to inhale a "clean" (relatively) breath and enjoy a smoke-free meal begin.
Having personal liberty does not mean you get to do whatever you want, it means you make your own personal choices without interferring with, or interference from, others. And smoking anywhere other than in a private location with no minors around infringes on other peoples' rights. END OF STORY, CASE CLOSED, NEXT F@CKING CASE!
And even if there were someone with the passion and marketing-savvy to keep the RDF intact, Steve Jobs is the kind of person who would either 1)recognize this as an immediate threat to his "control" of the company, or 2)not recognize the potential usefulness of said person and instead not get along with them because they are similarly egotistical and/or bullheaded.
Even pushing 50, Steve is still convinced he's going to be there for Apple, forever. There is no heir-apparent because Steve won't let there be one, not because one doesn't exist.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Who the hell runs benchmarks with FireFox and iTunes.
Someone who's paid by Intel, in money and/or product, to write a review whose conclusions match Intels marketing materials?
That's not a guess, it happens pretty much every day. Some people are naive enough to believe that a website like this can make tons on cash on google ads and a couple of banners, but not folks that have seen how trade press reviews work.
All the CGI talent in the world... all the carefully choreographed sabre battles... the bad-assness of a 2-chick 1-dude 3-way (sabre fight, you perv)... the originality of the idea...
It all goes for not if your dialogue and acting isn't even up to Lucas-standard.
Nobody's expecting Patrick Stewart doing Shakespeare quality here, folks; but seriously-- geeks are not generally the best actors, and it really shows. And the dialgoue sounds like it was ripped off from writers who were creating a Desperate Housewives knockoff.
Some rules: I do not do friend of a friend. I have a 50-hour-a-week salaried IT job.
Friends: Barter services/labor, or charge flat $25 per hour. VERY LOW compared to "some stranger who knows what they are doing," but I only have 5-10 clients, and only see them 5-10 hours per year.
Family: I make it seem like I am already extremely busy, but if things get dire enough, will drop 1-2 hours. If they are work past that, I usually work out things like babysitting my son so wife and I can go out, etc. Bartering is severely underrated. You both get something you want out of it, and no money changes hands... just a mutual agreement on what something is worth.
In other words, I do this as a service because it needs to be done, but I make sure they are making it worth my while.
That's OK, sir, I am playing with one-eight-millionth-scale nanotube space elevators in my basement.
You're named after a character on The West Wing and have a user number 840,000 above mine. Yeah, seems like you've been real hot on this here technology bandwagon to have discovered Slashdot in the waning minutes of 2004...
I can't tell if you're really an arrogant, judgemental jerk, or just a troll. Why am I feeding you?
Dear Leo McGarry,
I'm not sure who you think I am, but *I* have a skillset well outside Windows desktop administration, including SunOne Web Server, IBM WebSphere and IBM/Tivoli Access Manager, LDAP administration, PERL scripting, REXX scripting, and software distribution. I make good salary, and have had a solid employment history at my present job for seven years. If Windows suddenly goes away, I have a half-dozen other options.
My point was that I make my living doing this because it is here to do. Go back and read again. I know that your big Unix beard is getting in the way, but pull down those giant bi-focals and look closely at the text in the browser window that's obscuring your bash shell.
Thanks.
OK, you just made no sense, Commander Anonymous. I was defining my lifestyle for the grandparent posts which talked about all the whiny brats and their games not even leaving their parents' basements. Secondly, if gaming falls lower on the priority list for you, great for you. Third, I was not defending whiners, I was saying that people have a legit beef with the company denying them access (on an ongoing basis) to a game they paid for.
Why is it that anyone who is not a living, breathing clone of yourself is a "whiner?" Who needs to grow up and get mature?
You can be as deprecating as you want. I don't care. I do this job because it's here to be done. I'd like to highlight the point of my post, however. There are 12 of us that do the 2nd-level support for 21,000 machines, and we get 3-5 calls a week about Windows issues. All the rest of our work is centered around evaluation, packaging, staging, and distribution of Win32 software applications. AND PATCHES. We do all the patching.
My point was that the product is good enough that it practically runs itself. It sounds to me like you're trying to say the product can't run itself, and that's why people like me are hired.
For reference, we have approximately 280 Unix servers (Solaris, AIX, and RHEL), employ 22 Engineers and Operations staff to support those. Is that because those products suck to? No, it's because there is work to do.
there are so many elevator operators whose livelihoods are dependent on Microsoft's continuing to build creaky elevators
You are talking about the thousands of paper MCSEs that showed up 6-8 years ago. Those people are either doing end-user desktop installs, went to more classes and became trainers, or found a different career. I make my living supporting Microsoft's OS and its applications, but only because we have ongoing business needs for new and improved applications, not because Microsoft's product is crap.
Dude, when you have a userbase that has been using Windows for ten years, you don't hear about Windows "quirks" very much. Especially when you're running a locked-down version of XP with centralized software distribution management.
I help manage 21,000 desktops for a global financial services company. Our field support handles most basic administration, but we get a few "hardcore Windows quirk" type questions. Maybe... 3-5 a week.
I have used MacOS X, it's nice. But you were only mentioning Linux against Windows? Oh my God, are you KIDDING? Every 18 months since 1994, I've had the urge to "give Linux another shot" on one of my desktops. I've been through early Slackware to SuSe to Debian to Gentoo, six different revisions of RadHat/Fedora... I can't stand the interface quirks. Unless you make your living, or a serious hobby, out of managing Linux, it's not remotely intuitive to "average desktop users."
The only things I successfully use linux for are a text-only firewall box (486/33) and the Knoppix boot CD for memory testing. WinPE boot CDs CAN BE nearly as good for managing Windows-OS PCs, though, FYI.
Coincidentally enough, I was at a LAN Party last night, and some of the group wanted to get their CounterStrike on. They kept knocking on our host's networking abilities, saying Steam couldn't connect 'cuz his network was misconfigured. I play mostly Quake 3 and Call of Duty, and if the game required me to authenticate on an unavailable system to play the game I paid $50 for in the store, I'd be pissed too. Steam is great for content delivery, but as an authentication system, it clearly has shortcomings.
;)
As for your commentary on my lifestyle, I'd like to point out that I have been married for 8 years, and have a son and a child on the way. My wife lets me have some time to play video games, and I let her go out to scrapbooking meetings with her friends. It's called a HOBBY. If the time I allocated to my hobby of choice was infringed upon by the poor technology of a third party, I'd say I have a right to be irritated. On the other hand, I'd find something else to do.
FWIW, Microsoft Internet Hearts has never been down when I have tried to get on...
Seriously, we should boycott this film and send the message that we won't settle for mediocre films.
Even if you convince a thousand people to agree, that is a drop in the bucket compared to the loot Lucas will bring in via the millions of sheeple who will pay for (and pay for again) anything Star Wars...
Good luck. Me? I'll go so it once, and buy the DVD. I have the other 5, how am I going to explain the mssing disc to my son when he goes to watch them?
My quick analysis is,
If you lack a sense of purpose, you probably don't have one.
Maybe you were just being deliberately generic, but from the quick anecdotes you shared, it sounds like you don't know what you're doing, nor what you are supposed to be doing. "I manage normals." What does that mean?
It can run neverball fine, and even quake3
:)
When you are evaluating PC gaming performance, it's not customary to gauge new chipsets (within last 18 months) by games that are 6 years old (Quake 3). That is why I said horrifyingly bad.
I spend 90% of my gaming time playing Quake 3 (3wave Capturestrike), but I also like to pop in some Doom 3 and UT2004. Unichrome ain't going there!
I remember seeing this video sometime between 1994 and 1999, when I still had my Macintosh Quadra 840av. It was Quicktime clip on a CD, and while the video size was similar or a little smaller, it was digitzed much more "crisply" than this cassette transfer.
Now if only I could remember if it was on a CD that came with my Mac, or maybe the CD with one of the "Late Night with MacHack" books... I honestly don't remember.
But somebody had this "lost" content in QuickTime format between 6 and 10 years ago.
Nice disection; I just wanted to point out that the Mac mini has a full Radeon 9200, not a mobility. And I agree, UniChrome is horrifyingly bad for anything except a very basic 2D display.
I have been playing Quake 3 for 4 years, the last 18 months competitively. I am occaisionally having dreams about using rocket launchers and railguns to pick off bots (Tank Jr. model, which I use for enemy) across a busy cityscape.
I think that this normal daydreaming associated with creative minds.
As someone who has followed this for almost 18 months (the original article was 9/2003), I am loving the prospect of Tim Roberts et al. having to cough up Kyle's costs!
:) They would be gunshy about paying to bring cases to court except those they knew they could win... in other words, they had solid evidence of wrongdoing and clear-cut proof of monetary loss.
I have followed this case as well, but I am less optimistic. Legal fees being covered by the losing party is much more common in the EU than in the US.
I would like to see it happen more often, though, as harassment suits such as those threatened by the media corporations against individualswould (hopefully) slow way the heck down.
I hate to say soemthing in favor of the hideously negligent corporation(s) behind this disaster, but they did try to make ammend. CEO Anderson arrived immediately after the disaster to try to "assess and assist," but was placed under house arrest and threatened with a murder trial if he did not flee the country. ('Shoot first, ask questions later' comes to mind.) Also, while 470,000,000 dollars is hardly a lot to compensate the current count of over half a million injured and more than 15,000 dead; at the time UC was negotiating a compensation settlement, they were being told 8,000 dead and 100,000 injured... and half a billion US dollars in mid-'80s money is quite a chunk of change. The Indian official responsible for managing and dispensing the money have bungled the situation for 15 years, shouldn't they be accepting some of the responsibility for letting these victims live horribly painful lives without proper care this whole time?
The article's like totally content-free.
/Wondered why 8 hours of vacation appears billed as ".89 days"... :(
That's what you get from publications such as the "IT Managers Journal."
It's like when our CTO told us he expects us to average 48 hour workweeks, and bill accordingly, when he read in "several trade publications" that the average IT workweek is 48 hours.
He wrote about this a couple of years ago. Basically he said he spent high school drawing stuff and wanting to do it for a living enough, that with practice every day, he found new techniques, tools, and skills.
It sounds like he had all the "ideas" in his head on how it should have looked, and just worked hard enough to make what was on the paper look like that.
For that, Gabe, I SALUTE YOU!
No Tivo, xbox or PS2 here. Home-brew PVR records direct to DivX, all files uploaded to SMB shares on server, and all PCs have the K++ mega-codec pack installed so they can all read almost any type of encoded media.
Windows Media Player then runs everything from the server's shares.
Works for me, and I find DivX is great for size and quality balance.
AOL=Internet
...a voiceover says "When people told us how to make The Internet better, we listened..."
:D (Tyler Durden probably already thought of this idea though.)
Have you noticed that AOL's recent marketing campaign is explicitly promoting the notion that AOL is "The Internet?"
One customer arrives and says, "I have some ideas on how to make The Internet better..."
I have an idea on how to make The Internet better:
AOL files for Chapter 11 and all of its customers suddenly and painfully lose @AOL.COM email and AIM.
This would help spare-time tech consultants (any suburban kid over the age of 10) bring people up to speend on how to use the "real" Internet, make a little dough, and vastly improve the quality of their family and friends' online experience.
I sent this letter to my family and friends. Enjoy...
:) But usually when I feel strong
-----
I had to get this off my chest, because it is important to me. You're
certainly not obligated to respond.
enough about something I have to share. This is one of those times.
Those of you who I've engaged in political discussion in the past
probably know that I'm a Libertarian in core ideology, and in
practicality, a moderate who leans toward conservative (especially in
fiscal matters.) I voted for Dole in 96, McCain in the 2000 primary,
Harry Browne (Libertarian) in the 2000 election... though I was not
sad to see Bush defeat Gore.
It may surprise you to learn that I voted for John Kerry yesterday.
While I understand the whole thing about him being liberal yankee
senator with a history of flip flops, I think that there was a good
deal of spin on the parts of both the major parties in this election.
For instance, Bush's flipflops were never addressed; in 2000 Bush
campaigned and sold himself as a moderate in world affairs and
domestic issues, I think we have found that this has not been the
case. Bush specifically stated that he did not agree with sending
American troops into foreign countries to do "nation building." While
he did not have the foresight of what would happen in 2001, and there
is no question Afghanistan NEEDED our "nation building," look at what
a mess Iraq has become. If that is not a flip-flop, what is? Or if
you consider it someone making a better decision based on new
information, then why is Kerry as flip-flopper for doing the same
thing? Given Kerry's record of public service, he's AT LEAST as
qualified as Bush to run the country, and frankly, I think we could
have used the change.
What I want to get to in this message is why I think four more years
of Bush has the potential to be a very bad thing.
FACT: Bush has won the election. Forget what CNN is telling you about Ohio.
Even if the Ohio provisional ballots were something irrational like
80% for Kerry, Bush would still win, he has 140,000 vote advantage.
The Secretary of State has told his campaign that is it statistically
impossibly for Kerry to win Ohio.
I am not happy with this outcome because we now have a more Republican
Congress, a VERY conservative Republican executive branch, and a
delicate balance of ideology in the Supreme Court. There is no
incentive for the partisan interests in charge to attract any kind of
coalition or create any sense of compromise on anything.
I am of the opinion that this is a bad thing. It's bad for the country
and her people, at least 54 million of which believe another guy
should be president.
As near as I can tell, Bush won fair and square. (If he didn't, we'll
never know-- tinfoil hat time! *smirk*) Yay, democracy works. I just
don't think a lot of people have considered the big picture of how our
country stands in the world or even how our country looks to our
moderate and liberal domestic neighbors, who now have basically no
representative interests for their legitimate concerns. Bush gave 'em
tax cuts and got rid of Saddam, and that's good enough.
What about my friends who are without manufacturing jobs, many right
here in Ohio? What about a half-trillion dollar deficit? (That is not
fiscal responsibility!) What about the long and lingering war in
Iraq, where my brother is likely to return in the near future? What
about the continuing debate on the vice president's corporate
interests? And the Attorney General's moral interests? (Had I known
John Ashcroft would be selected Attorney General, I would have voted
for Gore four years ago. This is a guy who not only lost a Senate
race to a dead man, he also said things regarding Congress such as "I
think all we should legislate is morality." Last week, he calls for a
"War on Piracy," ostensibly to protect corp
The ultimate test of freedom is standing up for it in the face of that which you don't like.
What a load of crap.
The ultimate test of freedom is standing up for it in the face of what is wrong.
I am a very outspoken Libertarian ideologically (maybe moderate/conservative in a practical sense, but striving toward a gradual implementation of libertarianism in the big picture). But even I cannot stand by and let someone "exercise their personal rights" while I have to walk through a cloud of smoke, which typically gives me headaches and sneezing fits when I get a good whiff. Yes, the rest of the city stinks. But your rights to smoke end where my rights to inhale a "clean" (relatively) breath and enjoy a smoke-free meal begin.
Having personal liberty does not mean you get to do whatever you want, it means you make your own personal choices without interferring with, or interference from, others. And smoking anywhere other than in a private location with no minors around infringes on other peoples' rights. END OF STORY, CASE CLOSED, NEXT F@CKING CASE!
At work, we just started buying executives these:
0 0/ blackberry7100r.shtml
http://www.blackberry.com/products/blackberry71
They seem pretty cool...
And even if there were someone with the passion and marketing-savvy to keep the RDF intact, Steve Jobs is the kind of person who would either 1)recognize this as an immediate threat to his "control" of the company, or 2)not recognize the potential usefulness of said person and instead not get along with them because they are similarly egotistical and/or bullheaded.
:)
Even pushing 50, Steve is still convinced he's going to be there for Apple, forever. There is no heir-apparent because Steve won't let there be one, not because one doesn't exist.