"Extraordinary renditions were a travesty under all administrations, Clinton is just as guilty as Bush in that regard and only the most rigid partisan would argue otherwise."
Ok, I'll take that. I don't necessarily agree with it, but you have the virtue of being consistent in your argument, so I can respect that.
Now, now. Don't stoop to false dichotomy. Both China and Bush are a disgrace. Bush may not be a tyrant, but I'd argue that his offenses in the realm of human rights differ from China's primarily in scale, not in degree. Bush limits himself to a few hundred Gitmo inmates (or so we hope), China oppresses much larger segments of the population. I'm fairly sure that a human rights travesty remains a travesty even if it only affects a single person.
So you're basically claiming that if someone commits a wrong, no matter how small, he's just a smaller version of a criminal that commits a far greater wrong?
Taking stationary from work home is just scaled down grand larceny? Spitting on someone else is assault and battery?
You have managed to take the "slippery slope" argument to another level completely. Congrats.
So, was Bill a Little Hitler too? Was Al a Mini-Mao? In your own words, isn't excluding them from the ranks of tyrants a "false dichotomy"? Just a question of scale, right?
Don't worry, you'll be voting regularly after you've died...
You don't need E-Voting machines for that. We use paper ballots here in Alabama, and every single election, there's always a scandal in some counties because according to the voting rolls, people showed up to vote who've long been dead. The dead seem to particularly love voting by absentee ballot in some of our counties.
At least our officials are finally doing something about it. Of course, this wouldn't be a much of a problem if we made them purge the voter rolls more often. This seems to go on in a lot of states with an electronic database of voters, but with paper balloting for election day. Mississippi purged 100,000 dead voters from their rolls earlier this year to try and eliminate some of this zombie voting.
"Don't forget that people went to jail for rigging the recount in Ohio. The big question is, why rig a recount if the regular count wasn't rigged in the first place?"
Because you're looking for a political conspiracy where there is none. And your "Brad Blog" would know that too if he would RTFA he himself linked from. The women weren't convicted of conspiracy, they were convicted of negligence. The conviction was for, and I quote, "for rigging the 2004 presidential election recount to make their job easier.". This was a case of two elections workers being lazy and getting caught, not colluding in a conspiracy to throw the election. One of them was a Democrat. Their supervising board consisted of two Republicans, and two Democrats. And in the recount, Kerry actually gained votes, and Bush lost votes, something the court never disputed. The court also didn't allege that the recount was fraudulent. Their boss said they simply made some mistakes, but the prosecutor and judge stated they thought there was "more" to the story, and seemed to imply that they thought more election workers were cutting their workload in violation of election laws, and that the two convicted women were covering for fellow workers, who came from both the Democratic and Republican parties.
"They have already done that and it is called pen and paper."
Nothing wrong with using a machine, either, and like everything else, it should be an improvement. The problem isn't that they were using machines, the problem is that the software apparently sucked, and there weren't enough auditing procedures in place to satisfy watchdog groups (though lets face it, like you, short of pen and paper, some watchdog groups won't be satisfied with anything, no matter how well made). Machine does not equal bad here. Poorly designed machine equals bad. You're essentially taking a luddite position.
"And the 'best' should mean the best for the people and the voting process, not the best for the news media and Fox News."
What the hell does Fox News have to do with it? What did they have to do with states buying voting machines that suck?
Border guards testify that they saw child pornography on the defendant's laptop when the PC was on
wow, so cops testify that it's true? that's good enough for me!
So you're assuming cops are automatically liars? We all know cops are human too, and they haven't been perfect, but really, you automatically assume they're all corrupt?
"Not so. Physical compliance is one thing. Compelling someone to speak is something entirely different."
Ah, but we're in new and evolving legal territory here, and that's why this could still be overturned. While the key to unlock the HD is memorized knowledge, and thus testimony, it's also a tool, just like a hardware key would be to open a physical lock. It is, in fact, a virtual key for a virtual lock, but the result is the same... a real safe, so to speak, containing real evidence. And there's a lot of precedent that computer and telecommunications equipment and code don't have the same kinds of Constitutional protections as other physical mediums. So things really could go either way on appeal.
There won't be one. Now that our beloved Internet gives assholes like him the ability to, well, spread their asshole essence, there simply aren't enough agents to check out every faux-brave attempt to poke the Secret Service in the eye. Even if someone here reported him, since it's a brief statement, they'd probably ignore it. They simply have too many other possible loonies to deal with. So the asshole up there gets think he's being courageous without consequence.
"Windows 98 was slower than Windows 95, running on the same hardware Windows XP was slower than Windows 98, running on the same hardware Windows Vista is slower than Windows XP, running on the same hardware."
On a 486 with decent memory, it was hard to tell the difference in performance between 95 and 98. There's no mistaking the difference between XP and Vista on the same hardware, though. 1 gig of memory is fast for XP. On the same amount, Vista runs like a dog. Well, actually, Vista runs like a dog with any amount of memory.
As far as 98 to XP, Microsoft has an out there... 98 ran on the old DOS-based core, while XP has the much-more-capable but resource intensive NT core. So you're really comparing apples and oranges there. Vista has an NT based kernel, just like XP, so no excuse there.
This is like when they put up park benches that are intentionally made uncomfortable to sleep on. I understand why, but something is just wrong with society when that happens.
That sucks, but this is how progress works. You can't know if something will pan out in advance, because there are too many variables.
And if it had been a massive success, $5M would have been pocket change compared to the convenience and cost effectiveness of full automation.
Setting aside the cost-benefit question for a second, the reason these toilets were "unsuccessful" has nothing to do with the toilets. From what I've read, they worked as advertised. The problem isn't technological, it's human, specifically the shady characters that monopolized the place. If "progress" wasn't achieved here, look to the lowlifes that ruined it for everyone else, not the product itself.
Yeah, because it's so much better if you let the smack addicts do it anywhere.
I"ve got my qualms with the so-called "war on drugs" too, but I get tired of people blaming things like junkies ruining public toilets on the government, when the fault lies with junkies ruining public toilets. Nobody made that asshole stick a needle in his arm. And unless the guy was born yesterday, I'm pretty sure he knew what he was getting into when he chose to stick that needle in his arm. Everyone pretty much knows what happens to you when you start shooting heroin. So can we have a moritorium on the poor-drug-victim bullshit, please? It's the rest of us that can't do things like, oh, use a public toilet that are the victims, not the junkie. He did this to himself. And if the "war on drugs" goes away tomorrow, and we open thousands of utopian "treatment centers", junkies are still going to do things like ruin public parks... because that's what junkies do.
"The public toilets getting abused is a sign of a much deeper problem. It's the puritanical mindset of Americans that pushes these normal behaviors into the shadows and away from the help that the victims so desperately need."
That's a crock of BS. It's puritanical to expect people not to do really, really stupid things? Because heroin isn't exactly an unknown quantity. We've known that it's 100 percent addictive for, oh, centuries now. If you're a smack addict, you're not a victim. You did it to yourself. You know what's going to happen when you put that needle in your arm. You know because everyone else that's done it has ended up the same way.
Prostitution is a little different, because sometimes prostitutes are victims. But many aren't. Many do it willingly and like it. Don't fool yourself on that.
People like to hold up Las Vegas and Amsterdam as examples of tolerance, examples of how we can integrate drug users and prostitution into "normal" society (well, not drugs for Vegas, but hooking is legal there). And yet, after decades of "tolerance" they're busy dismantling the Red Light district in Amsterdam, chasing out the porn places with normal shops. They're tired of dirty needles and trash in their parks, and they're arresting and re-locating junkies. And in Vegas, they're kicking the hookers out of places formerly friendly to them. There are social costs involved with junkies and hookers that go beyond police protection, and even in the Netherlands, they've woken up to that fact.
"Obama is no more serious about NASA's lofty aspirations that Bush or Clinton. It's just political pandering for Florida. And I am tired of hearing promises from politicians that they know damn well they can never deliver on."
Usually, I'd agree with that, however, I think you're ignoring the "new cold war" aspect here. China is developing an aggressive space program, and if they say they're going to the moon, they mean it.
Frankly, I think McCain is a little more inclined to beef up NASA precisely because of that aspect, and Obama will say damn near anything to win Florida. But it's also possible that he's reconsidered his positions on space because if he becomes President, he knows people aren't going to let him slide on the space race.
This brings to mind an interesting question; guys like RMS, and even our own IdontBelieveInImaginaryProperty here at slashdot like to rail about how copyright is basically a scam, a crime against the public because it restricts "sharing".
Photos are copyrighted too. If this tech were for tracking copyrighted MP3's, there'd be howls of indignation here. It'll be interesting to see the reaction on the copyright side of the argument. If we don't see the standard "this is anti-freedom" arguments, it'll be interesting to ask if photos are somehow more worthy of copyright protection than movies, games, or songs.
Despite the conspiracy theories you're likely to hear about this, the reason why the DMCA sailed through Congress is the same reason it'll sail through Canada's legislative process... media companies are responsible for a nice chunk of GNP (and whatever they call it in Canada), and neither side, liberal or conservative, is willing give up that wealth. And both sides believe that things like high technology for consumers and piracy is a danger to their broadcasters and publishers.
The reason opponents are going to lose on this is that all major parties will be on board with the copyright holders. And average voters don't give a rat's ass about copyright reform crusades.
"I'd agree with you, except that right after the blog line McCain said he "would have felt very much at home in the medium", obviously taking a cheap shot at bloggers as people who "dominate the conversation about anything and everything as if they knew the best approach and all others had nothing to offer."
And? What did he say that was wrong? Are you going to deny that the blogosphere is filled with lots of hot air? There's a reason why most blogs go unread. Most people are normal, average folks with no great insight on anything, nor the talent to write it with any level of interest.
Put simply, not everyone grows up to be an astronaut. Most of us are just average schmucks without anything really interesting to say, myself included in that. The Internet just gives us the freedom to say it anyway. John Lennon was wrong. We don't all shine on, at least not brightly. Most of us are, at best, average, and that's just fine. In fact, that's reality. That's the normal state of things.
While I truly love the Internet and appreciate it, it has given us experts with no expertise, pundits with no insight, and an avenue for people who think they know it all to try and prove it. McCain is probably right that the young and arrogant are right at home, here.
"and took the opportunity to mock individual expression"
Oh good Lord, he did no such thing.
Read your own quote. He was mocking his own arrogance when he was young, and by extension, was cautioning the crowd against the same thing. He was admitting that like many young people, he thought he knew everything when he was a young man. That's mocking free expression?
"His contempt for citizens expressing their views is, presumably, why he introduced legislation that would basically have shut down comments on blogs and on sites like Slashdot."
How about a link from a site that doesn't have your own personal political axe to grind? ThinkProgress? Why not throw in Truthout.org while you're at it?
Here's a link on the actual bill (and not just TP's embellishments) from a reputable news source:
What you failed to mention in your post that this law specifically targeted kiddie porn pictures, and posts by registered sex offenders. The law was meant to punish websites that didn't report them to the proper authorities. Whether or not this is workable, it wasn't the fascist attempt to stifle speech you describe. Reporting a pedophile posting pics of children engaged in sex is "contempt for individual expression"? Are you serious?
You make it sound like he was trying to pass a law regulating speech on blogs. He was doing no such thing, and I think you know that. Unless you and the other editors start allowing links to kiddie porn, this wouldn't have affected Slashdot at all. "Shut down comments on blogs"? Bullshit, sir. Regardless of the merits, or lack of, of the bill in question, you went into hysterical drama queen mode on this one.
There are ways to keep porn out of the hands of children without regulating the Internet itself. That isn't a contradiction. Using your logic, I could also say "Protect people from libel and have a free press. Yay contradiction".
No freedom we have is completely unencumbered. There are always limitations, like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. No judge is going to let you slide on that one with a free speech argument.
Uhhh, please explain. Slashdot is generally pretty right-libertarian leaning. Hardly 80% strongly liberal.
I don't agree with that at all. I'd say its more to the left-libertarian side, and there's a big difference. I think the audience has moved somewhat to the right, at least on some issues, but I'd wager the majority of people here are still mostly on the left. Look at attitudes towards religion, conventional morality, drug use, and right wing political figures. And then tell me Slashdot is "right-libertarian". Not yet, it isn't.
Slashdot Mirror
"Extraordinary renditions were a travesty under all administrations, Clinton is just as guilty as Bush in that regard and only the most rigid partisan would argue otherwise."
Ok, I'll take that. I don't necessarily agree with it, but you have the virtue of being consistent in your argument, so I can respect that.
Now, now. Don't stoop to false dichotomy. Both China and Bush are a disgrace. Bush may not be a tyrant, but I'd argue that his offenses in the realm of human rights differ from China's primarily in scale, not in degree. Bush limits himself to a few hundred Gitmo inmates (or so we hope), China oppresses much larger segments of the population. I'm fairly sure that a human rights travesty remains a travesty even if it only affects a single person.
So you're basically claiming that if someone commits a wrong, no matter how small, he's just a smaller version of a criminal that commits a far greater wrong?
Taking stationary from work home is just scaled down grand larceny? Spitting on someone else is assault and battery?
You have managed to take the "slippery slope" argument to another level completely. Congrats.
BTW, it was the Clinton Administration that created and implemented "extraordinary rendition". Both Bill Clinton and Al Gore were well aware of what it was.
So, was Bill a Little Hitler too? Was Al a Mini-Mao? In your own words, isn't excluding them from the ranks of tyrants a "false dichotomy"? Just a question of scale, right?
Don't worry, you'll be voting regularly after you've died...
You don't need E-Voting machines for that. We use paper ballots here in Alabama, and every single election, there's always a scandal in some counties because according to the voting rolls, people showed up to vote who've long been dead. The dead seem to particularly love voting by absentee ballot in some of our counties.
Alabama county accused of voter fraud
Officials Investigate 3 Alabama Counties in Voter Fraud Accusations
VOTER FRAUD SPREADING IN ALABAMA, CRADLE OF CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
At least our officials are finally doing something about it. Of course, this wouldn't be a much of a problem if we made them purge the voter rolls more often. This seems to go on in a lot of states with an electronic database of voters, but with paper balloting for election day. Mississippi purged 100,000 dead voters from their rolls earlier this year to try and eliminate some of this zombie voting.
"Don't forget that people went to jail for rigging the recount in Ohio. The big question is, why rig a recount if the regular count wasn't rigged in the first place?"
Because you're looking for a political conspiracy where there is none. And your "Brad Blog" would know that too if he would RTFA he himself linked from. The women weren't convicted of conspiracy, they were convicted of negligence. The conviction was for, and I quote, "for rigging the 2004 presidential election recount to make their job easier.". This was a case of two elections workers being lazy and getting caught, not colluding in a conspiracy to throw the election. One of them was a Democrat. Their supervising board consisted of two Republicans, and two Democrats. And in the recount, Kerry actually gained votes, and Bush lost votes, something the court never disputed. The court also didn't allege that the recount was fraudulent. Their boss said they simply made some mistakes, but the prosecutor and judge stated they thought there was "more" to the story, and seemed to imply that they thought more election workers were cutting their workload in violation of election laws, and that the two convicted women were covering for fellow workers, who came from both the Democratic and Republican parties.
From the AP article:
The prosecutor did not claim the rigged recount affected the outcome of the election; Kerry gained 17 votes and Bush lost six in the county recount
The BradBlog took a negligence case and spun it as a conspiracy theory to suit his own political ends.
"They have already done that and it is called pen and paper."
Nothing wrong with using a machine, either, and like everything else, it should be an improvement. The problem isn't that they were using machines, the problem is that the software apparently sucked, and there weren't enough auditing procedures in place to satisfy watchdog groups (though lets face it, like you, short of pen and paper, some watchdog groups won't be satisfied with anything, no matter how well made). Machine does not equal bad here. Poorly designed machine equals bad. You're essentially taking a luddite position.
"And the 'best' should mean the best for the people and the voting process, not the best for the news media and Fox News."
What the hell does Fox News have to do with it? What did they have to do with states buying voting machines that suck?
Border guards testify that they saw child pornography on the defendant's laptop when the PC was on
wow, so cops testify that it's true? that's good enough for me!
So you're assuming cops are automatically liars? We all know cops are human too, and they haven't been perfect, but really, you automatically assume they're all corrupt?
"First of all, let's stop pretending that this has anything at all to do with "child pornography"."
So lets get this straight... are you saying the border agents lied, and this is all a conspiracy?
"Not so. Physical compliance is one thing. Compelling someone to speak is something entirely different."
Ah, but we're in new and evolving legal territory here, and that's why this could still be overturned. While the key to unlock the HD is memorized knowledge, and thus testimony, it's also a tool, just like a hardware key would be to open a physical lock. It is, in fact, a virtual key for a virtual lock, but the result is the same... a real safe, so to speak, containing real evidence. And there's a lot of precedent that computer and telecommunications equipment and code don't have the same kinds of Constitutional protections as other physical mediums. So things really could go either way on appeal.
It's the Catholic Church and other organizations that dress up young girls in such hot outfits who are sick.
A plain white shirt and a plaid skirt going below the knees is hot? For who? Saudis?
So how was your visit with the secret service?
There won't be one. Now that our beloved Internet gives assholes like him the ability to, well, spread their asshole essence, there simply aren't enough agents to check out every faux-brave attempt to poke the Secret Service in the eye. Even if someone here reported him, since it's a brief statement, they'd probably ignore it. They simply have too many other possible loonies to deal with. So the asshole up there gets think he's being courageous without consequence.
"Windows 98 was slower than Windows 95, running on the same hardware
Windows XP was slower than Windows 98, running on the same hardware
Windows Vista is slower than Windows XP, running on the same hardware."
On a 486 with decent memory, it was hard to tell the difference in performance between 95 and 98. There's no mistaking the difference between XP and Vista on the same hardware, though. 1 gig of memory is fast for XP. On the same amount, Vista runs like a dog. Well, actually, Vista runs like a dog with any amount of memory.
As far as 98 to XP, Microsoft has an out there... 98 ran on the old DOS-based core, while XP has the much-more-capable but resource intensive NT core. So you're really comparing apples and oranges there. Vista has an NT based kernel, just like XP, so no excuse there.
"The misinformation you are spreading is killing people. Please, cut it out"
You're defending the virtues of heroin use, and I'm killing people? Did you write that with a straight face?
This is like when they put up park benches that are intentionally made uncomfortable to sleep on. I understand why, but something is just wrong with society when that happens.
Uh, maybe because it's a park, and not a hotel?
That sucks, but this is how progress works. You can't know if something will pan out in advance, because there are too many variables.
And if it had been a massive success, $5M would have been pocket change compared to the convenience and cost effectiveness of full automation.
Setting aside the cost-benefit question for a second, the reason these toilets were "unsuccessful" has nothing to do with the toilets. From what I've read, they worked as advertised. The problem isn't technological, it's human, specifically the shady characters that monopolized the place. If "progress" wasn't achieved here, look to the lowlifes that ruined it for everyone else, not the product itself.
Just gets better and better.
Still, you get the government you deserve.
Yeah, because it's so much better if you let the smack addicts do it anywhere.
I"ve got my qualms with the so-called "war on drugs" too, but I get tired of people blaming things like junkies ruining public toilets on the government, when the fault lies with junkies ruining public toilets. Nobody made that asshole stick a needle in his arm. And unless the guy was born yesterday, I'm pretty sure he knew what he was getting into when he chose to stick that needle in his arm. Everyone pretty much knows what happens to you when you start shooting heroin. So can we have a moritorium on the poor-drug-victim bullshit, please? It's the rest of us that can't do things like, oh, use a public toilet that are the victims, not the junkie. He did this to himself. And if the "war on drugs" goes away tomorrow, and we open thousands of utopian "treatment centers", junkies are still going to do things like ruin public parks... because that's what junkies do.
Oh hell no. I'd go find an alley to piss in first. No way I'd use that thing. And what the hell do you do if you have to take a No. 2?
Wait, this is Amsterdam. Probably use an alley.
"The public toilets getting abused is a sign of a much deeper problem. It's the puritanical mindset of Americans that pushes these normal behaviors into the shadows and away from the help that the victims so desperately need."
That's a crock of BS. It's puritanical to expect people not to do really, really stupid things? Because heroin isn't exactly an unknown quantity. We've known that it's 100 percent addictive for, oh, centuries now. If you're a smack addict, you're not a victim. You did it to yourself. You know what's going to happen when you put that needle in your arm. You know because everyone else that's done it has ended up the same way.
Prostitution is a little different, because sometimes prostitutes are victims. But many aren't. Many do it willingly and like it. Don't fool yourself on that.
People like to hold up Las Vegas and Amsterdam as examples of tolerance, examples of how we can integrate drug users and prostitution into "normal" society (well, not drugs for Vegas, but hooking is legal there). And yet, after decades of "tolerance" they're busy dismantling the Red Light district in Amsterdam, chasing out the porn places with normal shops. They're tired of dirty needles and trash in their parks, and they're arresting and re-locating junkies. And in Vegas, they're kicking the hookers out of places formerly friendly to them. There are social costs involved with junkies and hookers that go beyond police protection, and even in the Netherlands, they've woken up to that fact.
"Obama is no more serious about NASA's lofty aspirations that Bush or Clinton. It's just political pandering for Florida. And I am tired of hearing promises from politicians that they know damn well they can never deliver on."
Usually, I'd agree with that, however, I think you're ignoring the "new cold war" aspect here. China is developing an aggressive space program, and if they say they're going to the moon, they mean it.
Frankly, I think McCain is a little more inclined to beef up NASA precisely because of that aspect, and Obama will say damn near anything to win Florida. But it's also possible that he's reconsidered his positions on space because if he becomes President, he knows people aren't going to let him slide on the space race.
This brings to mind an interesting question; guys like RMS, and even our own IdontBelieveInImaginaryProperty here at slashdot like to rail about how copyright is basically a scam, a crime against the public because it restricts "sharing".
Photos are copyrighted too. If this tech were for tracking copyrighted MP3's, there'd be howls of indignation here. It'll be interesting to see the reaction on the copyright side of the argument. If we don't see the standard "this is anti-freedom" arguments, it'll be interesting to ask if photos are somehow more worthy of copyright protection than movies, games, or songs.
The legislation has already been delayed once due to public pressure. Any more broad but inaccurate sour grapes from the American peanut gallery?
Tell you what... if this doesn't pass (looks like January at the earliest), I'll happily eat my words in public. But my money still says it passes.
Despite the conspiracy theories you're likely to hear about this, the reason why the DMCA sailed through Congress is the same reason it'll sail through Canada's legislative process... media companies are responsible for a nice chunk of GNP (and whatever they call it in Canada), and neither side, liberal or conservative, is willing give up that wealth. And both sides believe that things like high technology for consumers and piracy is a danger to their broadcasters and publishers.
The reason opponents are going to lose on this is that all major parties will be on board with the copyright holders. And average voters don't give a rat's ass about copyright reform crusades.
"I'd agree with you, except that right after the blog line McCain said he "would have felt very much at home in the medium", obviously taking a cheap shot at bloggers as people who "dominate the conversation about anything and everything as if they knew the best approach and all others had nothing to offer."
And? What did he say that was wrong? Are you going to deny that the blogosphere is filled with lots of hot air? There's a reason why most blogs go unread. Most people are normal, average folks with no great insight on anything, nor the talent to write it with any level of interest.
Put simply, not everyone grows up to be an astronaut. Most of us are just average schmucks without anything really interesting to say, myself included in that. The Internet just gives us the freedom to say it anyway. John Lennon was wrong. We don't all shine on, at least not brightly. Most of us are, at best, average, and that's just fine. In fact, that's reality. That's the normal state of things.
While I truly love the Internet and appreciate it, it has given us experts with no expertise, pundits with no insight, and an avenue for people who think they know it all to try and prove it. McCain is probably right that the young and arrogant are right at home, here.
"and took the opportunity to mock individual expression"
Oh good Lord, he did no such thing.
Read your own quote. He was mocking his own arrogance when he was young, and by extension, was cautioning the crowd against the same thing. He was admitting that like many young people, he thought he knew everything when he was a young man. That's mocking free expression?
"His contempt for citizens expressing their views is, presumably, why he introduced legislation that would basically have shut down comments on blogs and on sites like Slashdot."
How about a link from a site that doesn't have your own personal political axe to grind? ThinkProgress? Why not throw in Truthout.org while you're at it?
Here's a link on the actual bill (and not just TP's embellishments) from a reputable news source:
Senator: Illegal images must be reported.
What you failed to mention in your post that this law specifically targeted kiddie porn pictures, and posts by registered sex offenders. The law was meant to punish websites that didn't report them to the proper authorities. Whether or not this is workable, it wasn't the fascist attempt to stifle speech you describe. Reporting a pedophile posting pics of children engaged in sex is "contempt for individual expression"? Are you serious?
You make it sound like he was trying to pass a law regulating speech on blogs. He was doing no such thing, and I think you know that. Unless you and the other editors start allowing links to kiddie porn, this wouldn't have affected Slashdot at all. "Shut down comments on blogs"? Bullshit, sir. Regardless of the merits, or lack of, of the bill in question, you went into hysterical drama queen mode on this one.
Yay for contradictions?
There are ways to keep porn out of the hands of children without regulating the Internet itself. That isn't a contradiction. Using your logic, I could also say "Protect people from libel and have a free press. Yay contradiction".
No freedom we have is completely unencumbered. There are always limitations, like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. No judge is going to let you slide on that one with a free speech argument.
Uhhh, please explain. Slashdot is generally pretty right-libertarian leaning. Hardly 80% strongly liberal.
I don't agree with that at all. I'd say its more to the left-libertarian side, and there's a big difference. I think the audience has moved somewhat to the right, at least on some issues, but I'd wager the majority of people here are still mostly on the left. Look at attitudes towards religion, conventional morality, drug use, and right wing political figures. And then tell me Slashdot is "right-libertarian". Not yet, it isn't.