"I'd like you to point out a large retailer that uses php for its online store, or an online banking site."
I am not sure where you are getting at with this. If you mean it's not possible to build a large, complex and busy site using php you need to look no further then sourceforge. Now sourceforge is not a commercial site but I bet it gets more use then 99% of the commercial sites on the net.
I don't know why it's so special to have a commercial site in php but I know of several. Here are just a few companies that I have dealt with which use php on their web sites.
Nonetheless if you insist on an example of a large online store using php look at Insight.com or catalog.com
MS and it's executives have used the word communist and cancer. They chose those words very carefully because they knew it would trigger negative reactions in the public at alrge and the media. It's a calculated effort to demonize open source programmers and users and to fan the flames of hate towards them. They want the US public to hate open source users and developers. So maybe they did not mention me by name but they did not have to they simply publicly smear an entire segment of the population. They are evil but they are smart. They have studied how other people in politics have demonized whole sections of the population throughout history and have applied those lessons to demonize open source developers and users. Using words like virus, cancer, communist, un-american etc are a carefully thought out and well orchastrated effort by the executives of M$ to attack us.
"You're suggesting there's no moral corruption at the top of Sears or IBM or WalMart or any of the other dozens of companies much larger than Microsoft?
No just not as much. Wally world is a very evil company (in different ways then M$). Their own employees sued them and won for making them work overtime without pay. This is why I will never walk into a wallmart store as long as I live and there are many people who feel the same way. I have never heard anything bad about sears or IBM. So I am
"MS is the pinnacle of evil incarnate?"
Yes pretty much. Worse then wallmart, worse then enron even (that's a close call though) definately up there with qwest, worldcom and the rest of the sleazeballs.
" What is so hard to understand about the concept of signal-to-noise-ratio? "
Sourceforge has a trove software map where you can filter content to your hearts content. Is that too hard for you to use.
"SourceForge is unhelpful because for any given problem, there are either zero solutions you can find, or a huge number of solutions, *all* of which are probably mediocre. I would rather have one good solution to each problem."
Either learn to use it or don't use it. Go somewhere else, better yet stop using linux and then bitching about it. Honestly just stop using it. Maybe you can even put a firewall rule in your windows firewall which will stop packets from srouceforge ever reaching your computer. That way even if you "accidentally" attempt to go the sourceforge site you won't be able to. You may not realize this but it's possible to use the internet without ever visiting sourceforge.
"275 IDE projects! Read through that list: it is almost completely a bunch of one-trick ponies. This one is good for Java. This one is good for Python. This one is good for Web pages."
Oh I am so sorry somebody did not write an all ecompassing IDE for you. I guess it's our fault that you are unable to get a free IDE to your liking. I apologize profusely for our inability to serve your whims and desires for nothing. How can you possibly forgive us.
"Anything in there that will ever be a threat to Visual Studio? Can you really believe that this is the 21st century, yet VS is the best we can do?"
Once again we apologize for not providing you with a superior IDE for free. I wish we were smarter or worked harder to make you happy but we just can't seem to be able to out compete a company with 40 billion dollars in the bank and thousands of programmers on staff.
"Other areas are even worse: MP3 players: 358 projects! What a waste of human effort."
Waste to who? The people who work on those projects do so for their own reasons.
"You seem to have latched on to my analogy without realizing you were the one who thought that "free shit" [note the quote marks, as in your words, not mine] was a good thing."
No you revelead the depths of your stupididy when you compared publishing code to somebody shitting on your keyboard. This last post you made just reinforced exactly how retarded you are.
What are you five year old or something. Quit whining because the world owes you nothing. If you don't like sourceforge don't use it, nobody is forcing you. Just go buy shit and be happy that the shit you buy works wonderfully and is worth every single penny. And finally shut the fuck up the more you open your mouth the more it's apparent what a stupid jerk you are.
Why? All those companies are not evil. They don't make their money unethically, they are not run by morally corrupt people, they don't have a history of stealing, lying or cheating, and finally they don't call me communist or cancerous.
If and when they act as evil as M$ I will refer to them in an insulting wat. Until then I will respect their the names they have chosen for themselves.
M$ is an evil company run by evil people which commits acts of evil. Using the $ in their names and not in other comanies names is very consistent if your rule is only insult evil comanies.
" I was hardly insulting the generous people who make excellent and free tools."
Yes you were.
"What I was insulting were the people who think that "freedom" is more important than "functional"
Freedom is more important then functional. Freedom is more important then just about anything else. Sorry you don't value freedom.
"that somehow, a project that is free even though it is less than pre-alpha quality, is somehow doing me a favor by polluting cyberspace with yet more superfluous crap."
How is it polluting the cyberspace? If you don't like it don't use it the choice is yours.
"If I come over to your office and take a dump on your keyboard, are you going to thank me giving you "shit for free" (as in feces), or are you going to complain that it stinks?"
The fact that you think putting code on the net is the equavalent of somebody coming over and shitting on your keyboard shows exactly how stupid you are. Going to sourceforge is a volutary activity, downloading software from sourceforge is a voluntary activity, installing that software is a voluntary activity, configuring and using that software is a voluntary activity. You have to actually exert effort to expose yourself to the pile of software on sourceforge.
How a person views a fantastic FREE service like sourceforge and the hundreds of excellant sourceforge products available there for free as equivalent to somebody shitting on their keyboard is beyond me. You must the one of the most moronic indivuduals on the planet ot make an anology like that.
"A SourceForge with diamonds buried under piles of self-indulgent shit is not the same as a jeweler's display case."
No it's not. Yet another stupid analogy by a retarded moron like you.
"When I can get a proprietary tool that *works*, I don't need the freedom to change it. The fact that I have the freedom to change a libre tool that doesn't work just means more work for me."
Fine then what are you doing here? Use your proprietary app and be done with it. Nobody are sourceforge is getting paid, all those people are volunteering their time and talent to write software that you can use for free and all you do is bitch.
Listen if you don't like it don't use it but it's rude and ungrateful to insult people who are giving you shit for free.
That indexing on W2K is just about worthless. It's much slower then anything in Unix and frequently It gets convinced that your hard drive is empty, by that I mean all searches instantly return false. I ended up turning it off it truly is a worthless piece of junk.
The water is not quite a closed system though. The water you flush down the toilet can not be put back into use until it has been treated so it's out of circulation for a while. Before it gets put back it also costs a ton of money to treat so the cost of the water put back into the system is much greater then before it was "used". These costs are not trivial and that's why it's better to use less water in the first place.
Also factor in a porlonged draught and the draining of the aquifers and you get a water shortage which will cause all kinds of strife and civil unrest.
For a prime example look no further then Oregon. The farmers had a bitter battle for water with the US govt until the Govt caved in and diverted water for farmland. Within two months it lead to a massive kill or salmon coming up the river to spawn which will effect salmon populations for years. The fishermen, indians, farmers, environmentalist, ranchers are now at each others throats all fighting over what little water there is left in the klamath basin. After years of mismanagement in the face of draught the people of Oregon now have to choose between farming and salmon. They can no longer have both.
"I like how you assume that the profit made is solely monetary, let alone that the only profiteers are faceless, souless corporations (yadda yadda yadda)."
Mmmm that's interesting. What an insane assumption to make considering how few words I used in the first place.
"I as a member from the general public would "profit" greatly from, say, not having to worry about category 5 hurricanes bearing down on my ass and flooding me out of my home (if not outright killing me). The same goes for tornadoes, lightning storms, hailstorms, blizzards..."
Even if it means those tornadoes are diverted and kill other people? What if saving you worry has enormous consequences for the environment, for the future, for animals and plants?
How is it that you are so convinced that diverting storms so you "don't have to worry" will have no consequences for anybody else?
"But if the first and only thing you're able to think about is money, you should be worrying about yourself instead of those "evil corporations" you resemble so well."
Because I recognize the power of the profit motive that does not mean that money is the first and only thing I worry about. As for comparing me to an "evil corporation" there you are way off. First of all a corporation is a soul-less immortal being. I on the other hand am a Human Being which makes me both mortal and endowed by my creator with a soul. I don't see how any logical creature could confuse beings with souls and beings without souls. Perhaps you should pick up a bible or a talmud or a quran or something and see what it says about immortal soul-less beings. It might be a good place to start. While you are reading that book you might also want to look at what it says about the love of money. Who knows maybe it contains some bit of wisdom.
" Before making any changes, we should know what we are doing and all the ramifications"
It will take many decades before we know what the ramifications are. Weather is an enourmously complex system. I doubt the people who stand to profit from weather modification will willingly wait one year let alone decades.
As usual the extent of peoples concern for the rest of mankind and the future is but a shadow of their love of money.
"Ahhh how the PC pendulum swings... A year and a half ago, you would have been villified for making a "racist" statement. Prejudging another society, culture and all that..."
When did ignorance become so fashionable.
The Sauidis are not a race. Saudi Arabia is a country, the term "saudis" refers to citizens of Saudi Arabia.
The words I used in no way or shape or form implied any sort of prejudging except to make a presumption what people who receive money are usually grateful for it. I think that's a pretty universal response to receiving money.
"Both my vehicles are biodiesel ready. The Saudi's can shut off the pumps tomorrow, and all I do is start buying fuel from ADM. Can you say the same?"
Why wait till tommorrow, do it today. I could also do the same thing but I hardly ever use my car. I walk and bike just about everywhere. I bought my car new 5 years ago and have less then 25K miles on it.
"Besides... Most of my state's oil comes from Alaska. I'm the guy hell bent on destroying the frozen tundra around ANWR."
I doubt "MOST" of your states oil comes from alaska. It's not like that oil is slated for certain states. It just goes into a big pile, gets refined and then gets shipped out. Alaskan oil is not the majority of oil consumed in the US. Even if we ere to drill ANWR it would take us at least five years to get the first drop and then we would have a few months worth of oil.
"If it's any consolation... I ride the train to work."
Wondeful. I am glad public transportation is an option for you. Where I live it sucks big time. It's the bike or the feet.
Worse comes to worse you sacrifice a little. In the end though your country is less dependent on foreign oil, you breathe cleaner air, and your children live in a better world. Worth a little sacrifice no?
"Actually, I can't believe that the continual repeating of a stupid joke would make a difference in the outcome of an election."
Once again this is due to your idioogical inflexibility. The race was decided by a few hundred votes. It is reasonably probable that repeatedly lying about Al Gore would have influenced a few hundred people (which represents a minute percentage of the voting population).
"Considering that Gore didn't do anything to make sure that voting machine fiasco didn't happen again, makes me think that he didn't care either."
He had no power to effect any change. If he had become the president then he would have had the power to do somthing about it. As a private citizen there was very little he could do. There was a class action suit in florida about denying black people the vote by wiping them off the rolls as felons and florida paid a bunch of money to a bunch of folks. As far as I know that was only real consequence for rigging the election.
"Lies are part of politics. If this one stupid joke wreaks havoc on the Gore family, then they're dead meat when the professional lies and spin comes along."
I did not say that it "wreaked havoc" I only said that it hurt them. Again your idiological inflexilibity prevents you from admitting what most people understand very well. Telling lies about people hurts them, making fun of people hurts them. Maybe like you say it's OK to hurt people a little or maybe it's OK to hurt Al Gore a little, maybe it's ok to hurt people as much as possible but not enough to "wreak havoc" with them. I really don't know where you are coming from in this regard. Even if you think it's OK to hurt Al Gore by lying about it (despite what the ten commandments says about bearing false witness) at least admit that it did most probably did hurt him.
"The Palestinians have been in this "Plight" for how long? 30 years? And despite the constant aid from many western nations and the UN, they have barely improved. Maybe trying something different, like Bush is doing, is the key to fixing the problems."
Well I don't want to get into a detail discussion about the plight of the palestenians here but I don't think anybody would agree that they are better off under a bush presidency then they were under any other administration. You are right for the last 30 years they have been suffering miserably under a military occupation by Israel but only in the last couple of years has that been compounded by widespread malnutrition and starvation.
"You're right though, Gore probably would of continued to push the same policies that don't work, causing no improvement in the situation. What bold leadership!"
IT might not have improved the situation but then again I bet most palestenians would have prefered their previous miserable conditions to their present event more miserable conditions. Sometimes staying where you are is better then losing ground.
"As to the "Tens of Thousands" that will die in Iraq from the future attack. Is that the total, or the people that Sadamm takes down with him as he invades?"
I am only counting the deaths that will be caused by our own bombing. Last time we attacked them we killed over 50,000 people and of course more died as a result of our destruction of crucial infrastructure such as electricy generation facilities, water treatment plants, roads and bridges and such. We also killed something like 30,000 people in afghanistan. I am presuming that we will kill at least 10,000 people in Iraq which is a very conservative estimate. Saddam might also kill some people while retreating or as a scortched earth last defense type of situation. Either way it's totally unnecessary. If we decided not to invade both types of deaths could be avoided. This war with iraq is very avoidable.
"It's probably just a rumor that he's been planting chemical bombs in his own cities for the US invasion. After all, he wouldn't kill his own people, would he?"
If we did not invade then he would have no need to deploy those weapons.
"But I'm glad you're here to stick up for Tyranny."
I am doing no such thing. Try another line of attack if you want to. Lying is not an effective argument method. You can not simply try to demonize whoever you are arguing with and make yourself right. The truth does not work that way.
"That no matter how bad other people have it, or how much our interests are threatened, you're here to let us know that we shouldn't do anything to solve it, if it involves people dying."
What a fine sentiment except that it's a non sequitor. We have no interests there except oil and I for one believe that's it's wrong to kill people and take their stuff even if that stuff is oil. You apparently also think the only way to solve whatever problem you perceive is by killing lots of iraquis and militarily occupying their country. I for one believe that there are many many other options. Any solution to whatever problem you perceive has to make the situation better for the people who "have it bad".
State the problem, consider the available options and choose the one with causes the least amount of harm. So far I have not even heard what the problem actually is.
If it is weapons of mass destruction then we should deal with it like we deal with other countries that have weapons of mass destruction.
If the iraqui people are suffering (and they are) then let's try to help them.
I have also heard people point out that Saddam has killed his own people (well they were kurds and he does not view them as his own people but that's beside the point). The fact is however that the US govt had no objection to that when it happened and it's a bit silly to have any objection to it now that's too late. In fact we gave him the knowhow and the technology to do that in the first place. What he did was evil and it should have been dealt with then.
"Two groups of people who are ideologically opposed to each other will pick up anything that sounds true, as long as it trashes the other side."
I don't dispute this. What I dispute is your contention that continually lying to the public by the republican party about what Al Gore said has either
a) Had no effect on the election b) Had a beneficial effect for Al Gore in the election.
You claimed both of these because you can not admit that a continual repeating of this lie could have made a difference in the outcome of the election (and therefore making profound difference in the world).
Not only that but you are incapable of admitting that lying about somebody is probably hurtful to them and their family.
Because of the rigidity introduced into your thinking process by strict adherence to an idiology your mind is incapable of coming to conclusions which may cause dissonance with that idology or point out that the idiology (and the idiological leaders) may end up using sleazy means to achieve their ends.
You insist that that it was a "harmless lie" and that it did not "hurt anybody". Any logical person would have to conclude that it was not a harmless lie because in a close election there is a high probability that it had an effect on the election and that it not only hurt Gore family but because of it's effect on the election it hurt all democrats.
Of course I can't see a Gore presidency being so indefferent to the plight of the palestenians and declaring a war on Iraq so you could theoretically add the upcoming deaths of tens of thousands of iraquis to the list of people hurt by that "harmless lie".
Just goes to show how idiologically rigid people are incapable of coming to any conclusion which may conflict with their religious beliefs.
The rebuclicans invented the lie and propagated it to HURT him both personally and in the election. In fact I saw John Sununu repeat that lie on tv (hardball IIRC) and follow it with the phrase "not only is Al Gore a liar he is a stupid liar".
How can you possibly think that propagating this lie over and over by prominent republicans and the republican media had an indeterminate effect. Rush Limbaugh, Bill Oreilly, Fox TV, CNBC and the wall street journal wield incredible power, certainly enough to make a less then one percent difference in a close election.
"It's a funny story that doesn't really hurt anyone."
Well it probably hurts him. It also probably hurts his family. It may well have cost him the election (it was a close one after all) and as a consequence has hurt lots and lots of people. Maybe, just maybe there would be less dead people in the world if that lie was not so widely circulated.
Even if it did not hurt anybody then it's still a lie and should be corrected whenever possible.
Al Gore did not invent the Internet but then again he never said that he did that's a republican lie that gets told over and over.
Despite the fact that Al Gore did not invent the internet he was chanpioning it when virtually every other politician knew nothing about it. Al Gore recognized the importance of the internet very early while the rest of the dunces in congress were totally ignorant about it.
Go ahead and do some research, I dare you. I know it will be harder then listening Bill )'Reilly and parroting what he says but you may find it educational.
"In serveral court cases, the ACLU (I think we can agree they are generally part of the left, can't we?"
No we can't the ACLU has their own agenda. For example they frequently defend nazis and the ku klux clan both of whom are "right wing" people. Certainly no member of the nazi party or the KKK would ever vote for a democrat.
"Don't get me wrong, I believe they are right when they go after "abstinence only" education"
They object when the so called abstinance education is a thinly disguised sermon and an attempt to convert kids into christianity. I too find that offensive and am glad somebody is standing up to the church. Imagine where this world would be if it was still being ruled by the church. Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church and changed history for ever. I for one have no desire to revert back to the dark ages when the bible was the entire store of acceptable knowledge.
That's a lie. It's a lie that MS employees (and I guess ex employees) like to tell. Of course I realize that lying is a virtue in MS but nevertheless it's a lie.
MS does not bet EVERYTHING on ANYTHING. MS is a hugely diversified company which makes hardware, games, owns controling and non controlling shares in hundreds of other companies, has lots of patents, owns many media outlets and makes a ton of money on services. If MS was to bet EVERYTHING on.NET they would have to abandon all their non.NET holdings. They won't do that because all those investments are a hedge in case they are not able to shove.NET down the throat of all their developers.
MS is not dumb, they will never put all their eggs in one basket.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'd like you to point out a large retailer that uses php for its online store, or an online banking site."
I am not sure where you are getting at with this. If you mean it's not possible to build a large, complex and busy site using php you need to look no further then sourceforge. Now sourceforge is not a commercial site but I bet it gets more use then 99% of the commercial sites on the net.
I don't know why it's so special to have a commercial site in php but I know of several. Here are just a few companies that I have dealt with which use php on their web sites.
Nonetheless if you insist on an example of a large online store using php look at
Insight.com or catalog.com
MS and it's executives have used the word communist and cancer. They chose those words very carefully because they knew it would trigger negative reactions in the public at alrge and the media. It's a calculated effort to demonize open source programmers and users and to fan the flames of hate towards them. They want the US public to hate open source users and developers. So maybe they did not mention me by name but they did not have to they simply publicly smear an entire segment of the population. They are evil but they are smart. They have studied how other people in politics have demonized whole sections of the population throughout history and have applied those lessons to demonize open source developers and users. Using words like virus, cancer, communist, un-american etc are a carefully thought out and well orchastrated effort by the executives of M$ to attack us.
"You're suggesting there's no moral corruption at the top of Sears or IBM or WalMart or any of the other dozens of companies much larger than Microsoft?
No just not as much. Wally world is a very evil company (in different ways then M$). Their own employees sued them and won for making them work overtime without pay. This is why I will never walk into a wallmart store as long as I live and there are many people who feel the same way. I have never heard anything bad about sears or IBM. So I am
"MS is the pinnacle of evil incarnate?"
Yes pretty much. Worse then wallmart, worse then enron even (that's a close call though) definately up there with qwest, worldcom and the rest of the sleazeballs.
" What is so hard to understand about the concept of signal-to-noise-ratio? "
Sourceforge has a trove software map where you can filter content to your hearts content. Is that too hard for you to use.
"SourceForge is unhelpful because for any given problem, there are either zero solutions you can find, or a huge number of solutions, *all* of which are probably mediocre. I would rather have one good solution to each problem."
Either learn to use it or don't use it. Go somewhere else, better yet stop using linux and then bitching about it. Honestly just stop using it. Maybe you can even put a firewall rule in your windows firewall which will stop packets from srouceforge ever reaching your computer. That way even if you "accidentally" attempt to go the sourceforge site you won't be able to. You may not realize this but it's possible to use the internet without ever visiting sourceforge.
"275 IDE projects! Read through that list: it is almost completely a bunch of one-trick ponies. This one is good for Java. This one is good for Python. This one is good for Web pages."
Oh I am so sorry somebody did not write an all ecompassing IDE for you. I guess it's our fault that you are unable to get a free IDE to your liking. I apologize profusely for our inability to serve your whims and desires for nothing. How can you possibly forgive us.
"Anything in there that will ever be a threat to Visual Studio? Can you really believe that this is the 21st century, yet VS is the best we can do?"
Once again we apologize for not providing you with a superior IDE for free. I wish we were smarter or worked harder to make you happy but we just can't seem to be able to out compete a company with 40 billion dollars in the bank and thousands of programmers on staff.
"Other areas are even worse: MP3 players: 358 projects! What a waste of human effort."
Waste to who? The people who work on those projects do so for their own reasons.
"You seem to have latched on to my analogy without realizing you were the one who thought that "free shit" [note the quote marks, as in your words, not mine] was a good thing."
No you revelead the depths of your stupididy when you compared publishing code to somebody shitting on your keyboard. This last post you made just reinforced exactly how retarded you are.
What are you five year old or something. Quit whining because the world owes you nothing. If you don't like sourceforge don't use it, nobody is forcing you. Just go buy shit and be happy that the shit you buy works wonderfully and is worth every single penny. And finally shut the fuck up the more you open your mouth the more it's apparent what a stupid jerk you are.
"Please lose the $, or use it evenly:"
Why? All those companies are not evil. They don't make their money unethically, they are not run by morally corrupt people, they don't have a history of stealing, lying or cheating, and finally they don't call me communist or cancerous.
If and when they act as evil as M$ I will refer to them in an insulting wat. Until then I will respect their the names they have chosen for themselves.
M$ is an evil company run by evil people which commits acts of evil. Using the $ in their names and not in other comanies names is very consistent if your rule is only insult evil comanies.
All I know is that the guy who got moderated so high yesterday for asking people not to attack MS should take his words back.
As long as MS is on the attack against open source and GPL it's OK for people to fight back.
" I was hardly insulting the generous people who make excellent and free tools."
Yes you were.
"What I was insulting were the people who think that "freedom" is more important than "functional"
Freedom is more important then functional. Freedom is more important then just about anything else. Sorry you don't value freedom.
"that somehow, a project that is free even though it is less than pre-alpha quality, is somehow doing me a favor by polluting cyberspace with yet more superfluous crap."
How is it polluting the cyberspace? If you don't like it don't use it the choice is yours.
"If I come over to your office and take a dump on your keyboard, are you going to thank me giving you "shit for free" (as in feces), or are you going to complain that it stinks?"
The fact that you think putting code on the net is the equavalent of somebody coming over and shitting on your keyboard shows exactly how stupid you are. Going to sourceforge is a volutary activity, downloading software from sourceforge is a voluntary activity, installing that software is a voluntary activity, configuring and using that software is a voluntary activity. You have to actually exert effort to expose yourself to the pile of software on sourceforge.
How a person views a fantastic FREE service like sourceforge and the hundreds of excellant sourceforge products available there for free as equivalent to somebody shitting on their keyboard is beyond me. You must the one of the most moronic indivuduals on the planet ot make an anology like that.
"A SourceForge with diamonds buried under piles of self-indulgent shit is not the same as a jeweler's display case."
No it's not. Yet another stupid analogy by a retarded moron like you.
here
Here
And
Here
I think all of these would suit your aunty very well. If you have customers you probably could spring for the more expensive models as well.
"When I can get a proprietary tool that *works*, I don't need the freedom to change it. The fact that I have the freedom to change a libre tool that doesn't work just means more work for me."
Fine then what are you doing here? Use your proprietary app and be done with it. Nobody are sourceforge is getting paid, all those people are volunteering their time and talent to write software that you can use for free and all you do is bitch.
Listen if you don't like it don't use it but it's rude and ungrateful to insult people who are giving you shit for free.
That indexing on W2K is just about worthless. It's much slower then anything in Unix and frequently It gets convinced that your hard drive is empty, by that I mean all searches instantly return false. I ended up turning it off it truly is a worthless piece of junk.
The water is not quite a closed system though. The water you flush down the toilet can not be put back into use until it has been treated so it's out of circulation for a while. Before it gets put back it also costs a ton of money to treat so the cost of the water put back into the system is much greater then before it was "used". These costs are not trivial and that's why it's better to use less water in the first place.
Also factor in a porlonged draught and the draining of the aquifers and you get a water shortage which will cause all kinds of strife and civil unrest.
For a prime example look no further then Oregon. The farmers had a bitter battle for water with the US govt until the Govt caved in and diverted water for farmland. Within two months it lead to a massive kill or salmon coming up the river to spawn which will effect salmon populations for years. The fishermen, indians, farmers, environmentalist, ranchers are now at each others throats all fighting over what little water there is left in the klamath basin. After years of mismanagement in the face of draught the people of Oregon now have to choose between farming and salmon. They can no longer have both.
"I like how you assume that the profit made is solely monetary, let alone that the only profiteers are faceless, souless corporations (yadda yadda yadda)."
Mmmm that's interesting. What an insane assumption to make considering how few words I used in the first place.
"I as a member from the general public would "profit" greatly from, say, not having to worry about category 5 hurricanes bearing down on my ass and flooding me out of my home (if not outright killing me). The same goes for tornadoes, lightning storms, hailstorms, blizzards..."
Even if it means those tornadoes are diverted and kill other people? What if saving you worry has enormous consequences for the environment, for the future, for animals and plants?
How is it that you are so convinced that diverting storms so you "don't have to worry" will have no consequences for anybody else?
"But if the first and only thing you're able to think about is money, you should be worrying about yourself instead of those "evil corporations" you resemble so well."
Because I recognize the power of the profit motive that does not mean that money is the first and only thing I worry about. As for comparing me to an "evil corporation" there you are way off. First of all a corporation is a soul-less immortal being. I on the other hand am a Human Being which makes me both mortal and endowed by my creator with a soul. I don't see how any logical creature could confuse beings with souls and beings without souls. Perhaps you should pick up a bible or a talmud or a quran or something and see what it says about immortal soul-less beings. It might be a good place to start. While you are reading that book you might also want to look at what it says about the love of money. Who knows maybe it contains some bit of wisdom.
" Before making any changes, we should know what we are doing and all the ramifications"
It will take many decades before we know what the ramifications are. Weather is an enourmously complex system. I doubt the people who stand to profit from weather modification will willingly wait one year let alone decades.
As usual the extent of peoples concern for the rest of mankind and the future is but a shadow of their love of money.
"Ahhh how the PC pendulum swings... A year and a half ago, you would have been villified for making a "racist" statement. Prejudging another society, culture and all that..."
When did ignorance become so fashionable.
The Sauidis are not a race. Saudi Arabia is a country, the term "saudis" refers to citizens of Saudi Arabia.
The words I used in no way or shape or form implied any sort of prejudging except to make a presumption what people who receive money are usually grateful for it. I think that's a pretty universal response to receiving money.
"Both my vehicles are biodiesel ready. The Saudi's can shut off the pumps tomorrow, and all I do is start buying fuel from ADM. Can you say the same?"
Why wait till tommorrow, do it today. I could also do the same thing but I hardly ever use my car. I walk and bike just about everywhere. I bought my car new 5 years ago and have less then 25K miles on it.
"Besides... Most of my state's oil comes from Alaska. I'm the guy hell bent on destroying the frozen tundra around ANWR."
I doubt "MOST" of your states oil comes from alaska. It's not like that oil is slated for certain states. It just goes into a big pile, gets refined and then gets shipped out. Alaskan oil is not the majority of oil consumed in the US. Even if we ere to drill ANWR it would take us at least five years to get the first drop and then we would have a few months worth of oil.
"If it's any consolation... I ride the train to work."
Wondeful. I am glad public transportation is an option for you. Where I live it sucks big time. It's the bike or the feet.
Worse comes to worse you sacrifice a little. In the end though your country is less dependent on foreign oil, you breathe cleaner air, and your children live in a better world. Worth a little sacrifice no?
"Evil 20mpg diesel Excursion owner..."
The Saudis thank you profusely, I am sure they will spend the money is the best possible way.
"Actually, I can't believe that the continual repeating of a stupid joke would make a difference in the outcome of an election."
Once again this is due to your idioogical inflexibility. The race was decided by a few hundred votes. It is reasonably probable that repeatedly lying about Al Gore would have influenced a few hundred people (which represents a minute percentage of the voting population).
"Considering that Gore didn't do anything to make sure that voting machine fiasco didn't happen again, makes me think that he didn't care either."
He had no power to effect any change. If he had become the president then he would have had the power to do somthing about it. As a private citizen there was very little he could do. There was a class action suit in florida about denying black people the vote by wiping them off the rolls as felons and florida paid a bunch of money to a bunch of folks. As far as I know that was only real consequence for rigging the election.
"Lies are part of politics. If this one stupid joke wreaks havoc on the Gore family, then they're dead meat when the professional lies and spin comes along."
I did not say that it "wreaked havoc" I only said that it hurt them. Again your idiological inflexilibity prevents you from admitting what most people understand very well. Telling lies about people hurts them, making fun of people hurts them. Maybe like you say it's OK to hurt people a little or maybe it's OK to hurt Al Gore a little, maybe it's ok to hurt people as much as possible but not enough to "wreak havoc" with them. I really don't know where you are coming from in this regard. Even if you think it's OK to hurt Al Gore by lying about it (despite what the ten commandments says about bearing false witness) at least admit that it did most probably did hurt him.
"The Palestinians have been in this "Plight" for how long? 30 years? And despite the constant aid from many western nations and the UN, they have barely improved. Maybe trying something different, like Bush is doing, is the key to fixing the problems."
Well I don't want to get into a detail discussion about the plight of the palestenians here but I don't think anybody would agree that they are better off under a bush presidency then they were under any other administration. You are right for the last 30 years they have been suffering miserably under a military occupation by Israel but only in the last couple of years has that been compounded by widespread malnutrition and starvation.
"You're right though, Gore probably would of continued to push the same policies that don't work, causing no improvement in the situation. What bold leadership!"
IT might not have improved the situation but then again I bet most palestenians would have prefered their previous miserable conditions to their present event more miserable conditions. Sometimes staying where you are is better then losing ground.
"As to the "Tens of Thousands" that will die in Iraq from the future attack. Is that the total, or the people that Sadamm takes down with him as he invades?"
I am only counting the deaths that will be caused by our own bombing. Last time we attacked them we killed over 50,000 people and of course more died as a result of our destruction of crucial infrastructure such as electricy generation facilities, water treatment plants, roads and bridges and such. We also killed something like 30,000 people in afghanistan. I am presuming that we will kill at least 10,000 people in Iraq which is a very conservative estimate. Saddam might also kill some people while retreating or as a scortched earth last defense type of situation. Either way it's totally unnecessary. If we decided not to invade both types of deaths could be avoided. This war with iraq is very avoidable.
"It's probably just a rumor that he's been planting chemical bombs in his own cities for the US invasion. After all, he wouldn't kill his own people, would he?"
If we did not invade then he would have no need to deploy those weapons.
"But I'm glad you're here to stick up for Tyranny."
I am doing no such thing. Try another line of attack if you want to. Lying is not an effective argument method. You can not simply try to demonize whoever you are arguing with and make yourself right. The truth does not work that way.
"That no matter how bad other people have it, or how much our interests are threatened, you're here to let us know that we shouldn't do anything to solve it, if it involves people dying."
What a fine sentiment except that it's a non sequitor. We have no interests there except oil and I for one believe that's it's wrong to kill people and take their stuff even if that stuff is oil. You apparently also think the only way to solve whatever problem you perceive is by killing lots of iraquis and militarily occupying their country. I for one believe that there are many many other options. Any solution to whatever problem you perceive has to make the situation better for the people who "have it bad".
State the problem, consider the available options and choose the one with causes the least amount of harm. So far I have not even heard what the problem actually is.
If it is weapons of mass destruction then we should deal with it like we deal with other countries that have weapons of mass destruction.
If the iraqui people are suffering (and they are) then let's try to help them.
I have also heard people point out that Saddam has killed his own people (well they were kurds and he does not view them as his own people but that's beside the point). The fact is however that the US govt had no objection to that when it happened and it's a bit silly to have any objection to it now that's too late. In fact we gave him the knowhow and the technology to do that in the first place. What he did was evil and it should have been dealt with then.
"Two groups of people who are ideologically opposed to each other will pick up anything that sounds true, as long as it trashes the other side."
I don't dispute this. What I dispute is your contention that continually lying to the public by the republican party about what Al Gore said has either
a) Had no effect on the election
b) Had a beneficial effect for Al Gore in the election.
You claimed both of these because you can not admit that a continual repeating of this lie could have made a difference in the outcome of the election (and therefore making profound difference in the world).
Not only that but you are incapable of admitting that lying about somebody is probably hurtful to them and their family.
Because of the rigidity introduced into your thinking process by strict adherence to an idiology your mind is incapable of coming to conclusions which may cause dissonance with that idology or point out that the idiology (and the idiological leaders) may end up using sleazy means to achieve their ends.
You insist that that it was a "harmless lie" and that it did not "hurt anybody". Any logical person would have to conclude that it was not a harmless lie because in a close election there is a high probability that it had an effect on the election and that it not only hurt Gore family but because of it's effect on the election it hurt all democrats.
Of course I can't see a Gore presidency being so indefferent to the plight of the palestenians and declaring a war on Iraq so you could theoretically add the upcoming deaths of tens of thousands of iraquis to the list of people hurt by that "harmless lie".
"Which scenario is more likely?"
Nobody knows.
----
Just goes to show how idiologically rigid people are incapable of coming to any conclusion which may conflict with their religious beliefs.
The rebuclicans invented the lie and propagated it to HURT him both personally and in the election. In fact I saw John Sununu repeat that lie on tv (hardball IIRC) and follow it with the phrase "not only is Al Gore a liar he is a stupid liar".
How can you possibly think that propagating this lie over and over by prominent republicans and the republican media had an indeterminate effect. Rush Limbaugh, Bill Oreilly, Fox TV, CNBC and the wall street journal wield incredible power, certainly enough to make a less then one percent difference in a close election.
"I doubt it hurts his family...at all."
And you know this how?
"It may have cost him the election? It may have gotten him votes. After all, if he invented the Internet, he must be a pretty smart guy."
Which scenario is more likely?
"You don't like to see your canidate look stupid. That's understandable. Let me know when you start protesting when people go "George Dubya Bush"."
He himself pronounces it dubya. What you want me to do correct him?
"It's a funny story that doesn't really hurt anyone."
Well it probably hurts him. It also probably hurts his family. It may well have cost him the election (it was a close one after all) and as a consequence has hurt lots and lots of people. Maybe, just maybe there would be less dead people in the world if that lie was not so widely circulated.
Even if it did not hurt anybody then it's still a lie and should be corrected whenever possible.
How do you get from that to "I invented it"
Oh man that's funny as hell.
Al Gore did not invent the Internet but then again he never said that he did that's a republican lie that gets told over and over.
Despite the fact that Al Gore did not invent the internet he was chanpioning it when virtually every other politician knew nothing about it. Al Gore recognized the importance of the internet very early while the rest of the dunces in congress were totally ignorant about it.
Go ahead and do some research, I dare you. I know it will be harder then listening Bill )'Reilly and parroting what he says but you may find it educational.
"In serveral court cases, the ACLU (I think we can agree they are generally part of the left, can't we?"
No we can't the ACLU has their own agenda. For example they frequently defend nazis and the ku klux clan both of whom are "right wing" people. Certainly no member of the nazi party or the KKK would ever vote for a democrat.
"Don't get me wrong, I believe they are right when they go after "abstinence only" education"
They object when the so called abstinance education is a thinly disguised sermon and an attempt to convert kids into christianity. I too find that offensive and am glad somebody is standing up to the church. Imagine where this world would be if it was still being ruled by the church. Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church and changed history for ever. I for one have no desire to revert back to the dark ages when the bible was the entire store of acceptable knowledge.
"Microsoft is betting EVERYTHING on it."
.NET they would have to abandon all their non .NET holdings. They won't do that because all those investments are a hedge in case they are not able to shove .NET down the throat of all their developers.
That's a lie. It's a lie that MS employees (and I guess ex employees) like to tell. Of course I realize that lying is a virtue in MS but nevertheless it's a lie.
MS does not bet EVERYTHING on ANYTHING. MS is a hugely diversified company which makes hardware, games, owns controling and non controlling shares in hundreds of other companies, has lots of patents, owns many media outlets and makes a ton of money on services. If MS was to bet EVERYTHING on
MS is not dumb, they will never put all their eggs in one basket.