Err... Notes (and Domino - the server) runs on pretty much everything.
Windows, Mac OS, UNIX, Linux, yaa yaa yaa
Actually, these days, the Notes client runs only on Windows and the Mac. You are correct that it used to run on Unix workstations, and also OS/2 -- but, not supported any more. However, IBM has a new series of collaborative software called IBM Lotus Workplace, which does support Linux workstations.
The Domino server runs pretty much everywhere: Windows, Linux on x86, AIX, Solaris, the IBM iSeries, the IBM z/OS mainframe, and (remarkably) on Linux running on the IBM zSeries mainframe.
apparently only SCO will be allowed to author content on proSCO.net. There will be no feedback areas, no forums, no bulletin boards, no threaded discussions, no nothing.
Yep, that's really going to compete with groklaw.net, which is a true community effort.
Mod me as troll, but I thought if you pay for something you have the right for it not be stolen out from under you by a load of other people.
Of course that is correct.
The issue is whether in fact anything was stolen.
SCO's case on this appears to be quite weak, by all objective analysis.
One would imagine that they thought they could bluff other companies, or at least get them to settle for less than their defense would cost. So far no one has played that game.
One could also speculate that a fraction of a percent of Microsoft's cash-on-hand was used to finance this whole kerfuffle, even though they never expected to win. The objective was to slow down Linux for a year or two. That, they seem to have accomplished in a limited way.
Excellent! This is a great way to express your profound disagreement with Sinclair for broadcasting this piece. I applaud your efforts in support of your beliefs.
I say this even though I personally have no issue with the broadcast.
I will point out two things:
(1) There's a huge contrast between what you are doing and what the Kerry campaign is doing. The Kerry campaign trying to stop the broadcast through legal and procedural actions. How does this enhance free speech? (he asked rhetorically)
(2) I would suggest you see the broadcast before protesting. Maybe it isn't what you think it is -- who knows?
It seems to happen at least once a week. Somebody (usually an artist of some kind, or a fringe politician) is denied access to a private venue (a show, a publication, an event) or has their income affected (a grant is taken away, a consumer boycott is organized).
What do they scream? "FREE SPEECH VIOLATION!!!!"
Followed by brilliant, subtle sarcasm like -- "I thought we lived in a DEMOCRACY!!!"
As Captain Tenneal says: "Well, you're wrong!"
Free speech means you have the right to say whatever you want to (with some very limited restrictions). It does NOT mean you can force OTHERS to help you do this with their OWN RESOURCES.
The ThinkPad comes with a key mapping utility... you can assign a key as the Windows key. I have the right Alt key assigned, works fine as I normally use the left Alt key when I really want an Alt key.
IBM laptops do not have "DRM". They have a security chip. Quite a different thing -- though the conspiracy theory being painted here is "DRM is the next step".
When you get the laptop, the security chip is not enabled by default. The customer chooses to enable it (or not). So you're safe from whatever harm you think it might cause!
See here for more detail.
Obviously, if you use Notes as your e-mail client, and someone sends you an e-mail that has an attachment which cracks Windows, and you open and run that attachment, your Windows system is infected. That has nothing to do with Notes per se, it would happen with any e-mail client.
What I was saying was that Notes itself has APIs and security -- and that there's never been a worm/virus that successfully exploited those APIs (unlike Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, which have been exploited in the past).
While we're on the subject, FYI, Lotus has a new collaborative infrastructure brand-named Workplace, which will work with a Linux client. This is completely separate from Lotus Notes.
Has anyone here used or admined IBM's lotus notes? I feel real good about trusting IBM with my encrypted HD.
Are you aware that:
Lotus Notes had the first commercial implementation of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), and it's still by far the largest commercial deployment of a PKI.
Lotus Notes has never had a security incident where a virus or worm successfully attacked it via Notes native interfaces or e-mail. (There have been some security patches required in the Internet-compatible interfaces.)
The answer to this question is easy -- but it will not be accepted by most -- there are none so blind as those who will not see.
The answer is: we get the candidates, and leaders, we deserve.
The reason you get answers like this is that these are the answers that voters reward with votes. Answers that are not generic "feel-good" answers that anyone can agree with, but are specific answers that draw a contrasting point that many may disagree with, don't garner any new votes, and may lose some votes from those who disagree.
The reason people vote for candidates who answer like this is that people, in general, do not think critically and objectively.
The reason people don't think critically and objectively is, primarily, because they aren't asked to, they aren't rewarded for, and they aren't trained for it.
This is a simple reality of our country and our world today.
I'm not going to throw out the First Amendment just because someone got hoodwinked.
The First Amendment does not allow someone to forge documents and pass them off as true.
How about if I forge documents showing you are stealing from your neighbors, you are cheating on your significant other, and you are giving alcohol to the neighborhood kids? Then I convince the local TV station to run a story on you as a neighborhood menace? Are you just going to let it go because you "don't want to throw out the First Amendment" ??
The Whitehouse had the chance to deny the Documents - they didn't. That is PROOF by many standards.
Yeah, like the Spanish Inquisition. "You didn't deny strongly enough that you are an infidel! You will now be tortured!"
Sorry for lapsing into sarcasm, but this is just so amazingly indicative of how far people will leave objective thinking when they are motivated by Bush-hating.
The White House is under court order to disclose all documents relating to Bush's National Guard service. Of course they released these documents as soon as they got them from CBS News. It wasn't their job to check them for accuracy, just to release them.
The Bigger truth that Bush checked out on his military duty is lost in the minutia. Bush hasn't come clean on his military record - and is documented as covering up records. That's Bush - not some irrelevent newsman - Buhs - the one in the Whitehouse - lying about his records - so relax.
"Is documented as covering up records" ?? I don't think so, unless you count partisan rants like "There's no records showing he did anything in certain months!" This is just another debating technique. "I know records exist which you haven't produced! Therefore, you're a liar and a cover-up artist!"
The truth is that George W. Bush put in thousands and thousands of hours of documented service in the National Guard, got documented permission to cut back on his Guard duty in the last few months of his six-year commitment, and finally got permission to leave just a couple of months early to attend Harvard Business School. He put in his hours and earned his honorable discharge. His unit could have been called to Vietnam, but wasn't.
All of this has been hashed and re-hashed in prior campaigns, both in Texas and nationally. None of the dirt has ever stuck. The fact that the Kerry campaign has decided to unearth this chestnut is indicative of their panic and disarray.
The conservative bloggers are part of the pro-establishment media.
Not only do I not agree with that -- I can't even objectively imagine how anyone else could believe that.
Do you think the "conservative bloggers" are centrally controlled by a secret media cabal or something?
I just have no idea where that thought could possibly come from.
Plus, they had no evidence about what they were reporting.
The whole blogger thing was exactly about evidence -- the PDFs of scans of the documents in question.
Moreover, the thing the bloggers were alleging (that the memos were forged) haven't turned out to be true.
On the scale from "absolutely certain to be genuine" to "absolutely certain to be forged", these documents are at least 80% of the way to the "forged" end of the scale (and I'm being generous). Even CBS News now admits that it cannot vouch for their authenticity. Almost all other media, including such establishment outfits as the Washington Post and USA Today, are basically saying they are most likely forged. How can you make your statement in light of that?
According to the Drudge Report, the NY Sun is quoting Bill Burkett's lawyer as saying that they are planning to sue CBS News for defamation of character and libel.
I can't see anything that CBS has done wrong from a purely journalistic point of view.
I guess that's true in some technical sense, but this is like saying "Watergate was OK because the system worked". Without Bernstein and Woodward shining a light on it, there probably would never have been the Nixon impeachment and resignation. Without the bloggers igniting the firestorm of doubt of these documents, CBS would never have backed off their story.
Wooodward and Bernstein launched a generation-plus of a brand new style of investigative journalism, moving from the old cronyism to the new hostile relationship between the press and the government.
"Memogate", like Watergate, is much more than just another mistake-correction cycle by a news organization. It is another sea change in the nature of journalism. Never again will a news organization stonewall against the "pajama brigade" of the Internet as CBS did. The stakes are too high. If CBS News does not sink completely, it has taken a major blow, which will take years to recover from.
You do not understand the controlling dynamic here. It is all about who has power.
Kofi Annan believes that no wars should be fought by the United States without explicit UN approval and control, and therefore the US action in Iraq is "illegal". He said exactly that a few days ago, in a statement timed to cause maximum damage and embarassment to George Bush, shortly before he speaks at the UN, and in the midst of the election.
Of course he's going to assert that elections should not be held. If they are held, and successfully show that the Iraqi people support democracy, and can have a fair election, his premise that the USA's action was illegal becomes less supportable. So he will do everything he can to undermine the elections.
Kofi Annan would be happiest if the USA did a Vietnam-style humiliating withdrawal, and Iraq was plunged back into a cruel, totalitarian regime. Because that would prove that he, and his buddies in France, Germany, and Russia (although they are recanting now that they've had their 9/11), were right all along when they opposed the US action in Iraq.
You are absolutely correct that a majority of people support keeping abortion legal.
That is why you never saw Reagan, Bush, or W. actively push to overturn Roe v. Wade.
They have a pragmatic POV on this.
Now, I know I'm going to get flamed for this by the majority here who feels Bush is evil incarnate, and that his every move is a right-wing plot. I've already been modded Troll for expressing my point of view on topic.
Try to exercise restraint people and don't be so dogmatic.
Only a partisan will say "these documents are fake" or "these documents are real".
It's now clear that these documents COULD have been produced by some equipment (IBM Selectric Composer) that was available at the time.
Were they?
I think the odds that these documents are real are pretty low. I think it's quite unlikely that whoever typed these took the trouble to type them on a $20K machine designed to produce camera-ready copy for publishing, and which required the typist to have training on this machine, and to type each line twice.
But I won't say it's impossible -- stranger things have happened.
I think it's quite likely that CBS News' story is crumbling around their ears. Their main source, Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges (former superior to the supposed author of the documents), now says CBS misled him in their original story, and he believes the documents are fake.
A really good way to resolve this issue would be to examine the original documents. However, it's pretty clear CBS News does not even have originals. So, this story will probably wither and die. CBS News will stick to their guns but the cloud around this story will never go away.
Maybe the Democrats are also against appointing activist judges, with views that are way out of the mainstream!:)
a:) back to you -- and I also think there's a serious point here, which leads us to the core issue.
The serious point is that both the D's and R's think the other side is trying to appoint judges that are "out of the mainstream" -- the mainstream being, of course, their party's point of view. And both the D's and R's are trying to block the other sides' appointments. Right now, it's the D's blocking the R's because the R's have a slim majority in the Senate.
This power struggle will probably continue for the near future as it's probably 70-30 that Bush will win and 80-20 that the R's will maintain their Senate majority.
Look forward to much more fun and games here. There's too much at stake given lifetime appointments and the power these judges hold to believe otherwise.
Well at least you've got the core argument right. The REAL thing at stake here isn't some technical argument about Senate rules and the Constitution. Rather, it's about who gets to appoint judges.
I personally think that both sides are a bit frightening. I'm personally against making abortion illegal (which is different than being "pro-choice", I'd point out), and to the extent that judges could re-declare laws prohibiting abortion as constitutional, that would be a Bad Thing from my point of view.
On the other hand, to the extent that judges have created and perpetuated the current judicial system that (in my opinon) hampers businesses and professional people greatly by allowing ridiculous lawsuits with huge judgments and by finding more and more "rights" in the Constitution that don't exist there, that's a Bad Thing too.
So I must do a balancing act. Frankly I trust the Republicans more to nominate judges who'll do most things correctly (in my view) -- and I think it's actually quite unlikely that Roe v Wade would actually be overturned.
I recognize that others have different POVs but I just wanted to share mine.
Kudos on figuring out what this argument is REALLY about.
Not elected? Get real. Two points that will kill your assertion:
1) It was actually the Gore campaign that brought in the lawyers. They threw it into the courts. The Republicans simply took it to the next level (the Supremes) and won there. That happens to be the highest court in the land, and in the game of lawyers and courts, that wins, in case you hadn't noticed. The Democrats picked the playing field, they just lost.
2) Had there actually been a recount, Bush would actually have won anyway. See the reports here and here.
OK, I should have said "You can't just grab one side of that argument and assert it's true without an argument, UNLESS you want to lose!"
b. Changing the rules in the middle with no right or new justifcation for doing so is by definition not within the rules.
As a matter of fact, that's not true. The current Senate gets to set its own rules. Rules set by previous Senates do not handcuff the current Senate -- they are free to change the rules by majority vote. This has happened, often, in the past. For instance, the filibuster rule was changed so that the filibustering party does not have to actually stand and speak any more. It's now a simple procedural matter. All the dramatic filibusters you've seen on TV and movies with the brave senator standing and reading from a recipe book don't actually happen.
It's the "tradition" of the filibuster that is holding up rule changes. It would be a really big deal for the Senate to get rid of the filibuster that it's had forever, and to act like the House, which has no such rule. That's why it's called "going nuclear".
3. You seem to have missed the point I was addressing--the underlying hypocrisy that makes this necessary.
No I kind of ignored it because it was ridiculous, instead I simply stated what the ACTUAL debate was, which is nothing like what you asserted.
(sigh) OK I'll debate your point. Here it is:
I thought the Republicans were against so-called "activist judges", that have views that are "way out of the mainstream"! Surely if they're pushing for "mainstream" judges, they wouldn't need this sort of extrajudicial power?
And the retort:
It's actually the Democrats who have taken the unprecedented step of fairly routinely using the filibuster to block judicial appointments coming to the floor for a vote, thus effectively imposing a 60-vote requirement to confirm an appointment. The Republicans are simply asking for things to be returned to the way the Constitution intended: confirmation by simple majority. Nothing "extrajudicial" about it.
So, I should think very carefully about the last four years, and remember what the United States was like before the current administration?
Well, let's see.
For a while, it was pretty much the same. Some congressman was rumored to have killed his lover. Michael Jackson was in the news too I think.
Then, Sept. 11 happened.
Then, we figured out it was Bin Laden's people from Afghanistan.
Then, everybody like you said we'd be quagmired if we attacked Afghanistan. We attacked Afghanistan and overran it in like 10 days. Bin Laden fled to the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Then, Iraq kept rattling its swords. Everyone like you said Bush should go to the UN and get a resolution. So he did. Everyone like you said Bush should give the inspectors more time. So he did. Finally, the time was up and we invaded with the Brits and dozen or so other countries. Everyone like you said we'd get bogged down, and that we should have gotten France, Germany, and Russia's permission. We blitzed through Iraq like a hot knife through butter.
Then, it turned out that all of Saddam's people had been messing with Saddam, telling him they had all these weapons programs. Hey, maybe they didn't want them and their entire families to be tortured to death. Could be.
It also turned out that the people who wanted Saddam to continue in power, combined with those who wanted an Iranian-style totalitarian Islamic rule, decided to fight a guerilla-style set of skirmishes, assuming that the USA and the new Iraq government would back down. Well they didn't and they won't (unless of course Bush is voted out).
Finally, these same Islamic radicals killed several hundred children in Russia. The Russians now see things our way and are going to kick some pre-emption butt.
Oh yeah, the economy's picking up steam, Al Quaeda people are being arrested left and right, we rolled up the Pakistani nuke connection, we captured Saddam and the Iraq people are going to try him, Libya dropped its WMD programs and surrendered, there've been no more terrorist attacks in the USA, and no one that you know has actually been affected by any Patriot Act provisions. You also have more money in your pocket than you did at the start of this administration due to tax cuts.
No, we are talking about a dispute over whether the Constitution allows the Senate to effectively impose a super-majority requirement for confirming judicial appointments, when the Constitution states it should be a simple majority.
By conjuring up the bogey-men destroying not only civil liberties, but (I love this part) "traditional freedoms" and "constitutional rights", you lose ALL CREDENCE. In fact it's laughable.
The only "traditional freedom" you're losing is the tradition that Democrats control judicial appointments. Well, dude, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Try getting more Senators and Presidents elected next time. Maybe that'll help.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, these days, the Notes client runs only on Windows and the Mac. You are correct that it used to run on Unix workstations, and also OS/2 -- but, not supported any more. However, IBM has a new series of collaborative software called IBM Lotus Workplace, which does support Linux workstations.
The Domino server runs pretty much everywhere: Windows, Linux on x86, AIX, Solaris, the IBM iSeries, the IBM z/OS mainframe, and (remarkably) on Linux running on the IBM zSeries mainframe.
apparently only SCO will be allowed to author content on proSCO.net. There will be no feedback areas, no forums, no bulletin boards, no threaded discussions, no nothing.
Yep, that's really going to compete with groklaw.net, which is a true community effort.
reminds me of Homestar Runner.
"ProSCO.net! It's DOT COM!"
Something else funny:
Do a whois on prosco.net. They've only registered it for one year. I guess they're not real confident they'll be still working this a year from now!
Mod me as troll, but I thought if you pay for something you have the right for it not be stolen out from under you by a load of other people.
Of course that is correct.
The issue is whether in fact anything was stolen.
SCO's case on this appears to be quite weak, by all objective analysis.
One would imagine that they thought they could bluff other companies, or at least get them to settle for less than their defense would cost. So far no one has played that game.
One could also speculate that a fraction of a percent of Microsoft's cash-on-hand was used to finance this whole kerfuffle, even though they never expected to win. The objective was to slow down Linux for a year or two. That, they seem to have accomplished in a limited way.
But that would just be speculation.
Excellent! This is a great way to express your profound disagreement with Sinclair for broadcasting this piece. I applaud your efforts in support of your beliefs.
I say this even though I personally have no issue with the broadcast.
I will point out two things:
(1) There's a huge contrast between what you are doing and what the Kerry campaign is doing. The Kerry campaign trying to stop the broadcast through legal and procedural actions. How does this enhance free speech? (he asked rhetorically)
(2) I would suggest you see the broadcast before protesting. Maybe it isn't what you think it is -- who knows?
It seems to happen at least once a week. Somebody (usually an artist of some kind, or a fringe politician) is denied access to a private venue (a show, a publication, an event) or has their income affected (a grant is taken away, a consumer boycott is organized).
What do they scream? "FREE SPEECH VIOLATION!!!!"
Followed by brilliant, subtle sarcasm like -- "I thought we lived in a DEMOCRACY!!!"
As Captain Tenneal says: "Well, you're wrong!"
Free speech means you have the right to say whatever you want to (with some very limited restrictions). It does NOT mean you can force OTHERS to help you do this with their OWN RESOURCES.
So... quitcherwhinin', OK?
The ThinkPad comes with a key mapping utility... you can assign a key as the Windows key. I have the right Alt key assigned, works fine as I normally use the left Alt key when I really want an Alt key.
IBM laptops do not have "DRM". They have a security chip. Quite a different thing -- though the conspiracy theory being painted here is "DRM is the next step". When you get the laptop, the security chip is not enabled by default. The customer chooses to enable it (or not). So you're safe from whatever harm you think it might cause! See here for more detail.
Yes, Notes runs on Windows.
Obviously, if you use Notes as your e-mail client, and someone sends you an e-mail that has an attachment which cracks Windows, and you open and run that attachment, your Windows system is infected. That has nothing to do with Notes per se, it would happen with any e-mail client.
What I was saying was that Notes itself has APIs and security -- and that there's never been a worm/virus that successfully exploited those APIs (unlike Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, which have been exploited in the past).
While we're on the subject, FYI, Lotus has a new collaborative infrastructure brand-named Workplace, which will work with a Linux client. This is completely separate from Lotus Notes.
Are you aware that:
You have my sympathy, I have friends who've been through the same bureaucratic hassle. Best of luck in the future and welcome to the USA!
The answer to this question is easy -- but it will not be accepted by most -- there are none so blind as those who will not see.
The answer is: we get the candidates, and leaders, we deserve.
The reason you get answers like this is that these are the answers that voters reward with votes. Answers that are not generic "feel-good" answers that anyone can agree with, but are specific answers that draw a contrasting point that many may disagree with, don't garner any new votes, and may lose some votes from those who disagree.
The reason people vote for candidates who answer like this is that people, in general, do not think critically and objectively.
The reason people don't think critically and objectively is, primarily, because they aren't asked to, they aren't rewarded for, and they aren't trained for it.
This is a simple reality of our country and our world today.
The First Amendment does not allow someone to forge documents and pass them off as true.
How about if I forge documents showing you are stealing from your neighbors, you are cheating on your significant other, and you are giving alcohol to the neighborhood kids? Then I convince the local TV station to run a story on you as a neighborhood menace? Are you just going to let it go because you "don't want to throw out the First Amendment" ??
The Whitehouse had the chance to deny the Documents - they didn't. That is PROOF by many standards.Yeah, like the Spanish Inquisition. "You didn't deny strongly enough that you are an infidel! You will now be tortured!"
Sorry for lapsing into sarcasm, but this is just so amazingly indicative of how far people will leave objective thinking when they are motivated by Bush-hating.
The White House is under court order to disclose all documents relating to Bush's National Guard service. Of course they released these documents as soon as they got them from CBS News. It wasn't their job to check them for accuracy, just to release them.
The Bigger truth that Bush checked out on his military duty is lost in the minutia. Bush hasn't come clean on his military record - and is documented as covering up records. That's Bush - not some irrelevent newsman - Buhs - the one in the Whitehouse - lying about his records - so relax."Is documented as covering up records" ?? I don't think so, unless you count partisan rants like "There's no records showing he did anything in certain months!" This is just another debating technique. "I know records exist which you haven't produced! Therefore, you're a liar and a cover-up artist!"
The truth is that George W. Bush put in thousands and thousands of hours of documented service in the National Guard, got documented permission to cut back on his Guard duty in the last few months of his six-year commitment, and finally got permission to leave just a couple of months early to attend Harvard Business School. He put in his hours and earned his honorable discharge. His unit could have been called to Vietnam, but wasn't.
All of this has been hashed and re-hashed in prior campaigns, both in Texas and nationally. None of the dirt has ever stuck. The fact that the Kerry campaign has decided to unearth this chestnut is indicative of their panic and disarray.
Not only do I not agree with that -- I can't even objectively imagine how anyone else could believe that.
Do you think the "conservative bloggers" are centrally controlled by a secret media cabal or something?
I just have no idea where that thought could possibly come from.
Plus, they had no evidence about what they were reporting.The whole blogger thing was exactly about evidence -- the PDFs of scans of the documents in question.
Moreover, the thing the bloggers were alleging (that the memos were forged) haven't turned out to be true.On the scale from "absolutely certain to be genuine" to "absolutely certain to be forged", these documents are at least 80% of the way to the "forged" end of the scale (and I'm being generous). Even CBS News now admits that it cannot vouch for their authenticity. Almost all other media, including such establishment outfits as the Washington Post and USA Today, are basically saying they are most likely forged. How can you make your statement in light of that?
Could this get any more bizarre?
According to the Drudge Report, the NY Sun is quoting Bill Burkett's lawyer as saying that they are planning to sue CBS News for defamation of character and libel.
I guess that's true in some technical sense, but this is like saying "Watergate was OK because the system worked". Without Bernstein and Woodward shining a light on it, there probably would never have been the Nixon impeachment and resignation. Without the bloggers igniting the firestorm of doubt of these documents, CBS would never have backed off their story.
Wooodward and Bernstein launched a generation-plus of a brand new style of investigative journalism, moving from the old cronyism to the new hostile relationship between the press and the government.
"Memogate", like Watergate, is much more than just another mistake-correction cycle by a news organization. It is another sea change in the nature of journalism. Never again will a news organization stonewall against the "pajama brigade" of the Internet as CBS did. The stakes are too high. If CBS News does not sink completely, it has taken a major blow, which will take years to recover from.
You do not understand the controlling dynamic here. It is all about who has power.
Kofi Annan believes that no wars should be fought by the United States without explicit UN approval and control, and therefore the US action in Iraq is "illegal". He said exactly that a few days ago, in a statement timed to cause maximum damage and embarassment to George Bush, shortly before he speaks at the UN, and in the midst of the election.
Of course he's going to assert that elections should not be held. If they are held, and successfully show that the Iraqi people support democracy, and can have a fair election, his premise that the USA's action was illegal becomes less supportable. So he will do everything he can to undermine the elections.
Kofi Annan would be happiest if the USA did a Vietnam-style humiliating withdrawal, and Iraq was plunged back into a cruel, totalitarian regime. Because that would prove that he, and his buddies in France, Germany, and Russia (although they are recanting now that they've had their 9/11), were right all along when they opposed the US action in Iraq.
You are absolutely correct that a majority of people support keeping abortion legal.
That is why you never saw Reagan, Bush, or W. actively push to overturn Roe v. Wade.
They have a pragmatic POV on this.
Now, I know I'm going to get flamed for this by the majority here who feels Bush is evil incarnate, and that his every move is a right-wing plot. I've already been modded Troll for expressing my point of view on topic.
Try to exercise restraint people and don't be so dogmatic.
Only a partisan will say "these documents are fake" or "these documents are real".
It's now clear that these documents COULD have been produced by some equipment (IBM Selectric Composer) that was available at the time.
Were they?
I think the odds that these documents are real are pretty low. I think it's quite unlikely that whoever typed these took the trouble to type them on a $20K machine designed to produce camera-ready copy for publishing, and which required the typist to have training on this machine, and to type each line twice.
But I won't say it's impossible -- stranger things have happened.
I think it's quite likely that CBS News' story is crumbling around their ears. Their main source, Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges (former superior to the supposed author of the documents), now says CBS misled him in their original story, and he believes the documents are fake.
A really good way to resolve this issue would be to examine the original documents. However, it's pretty clear CBS News does not even have originals. So, this story will probably wither and die. CBS News will stick to their guns but the cloud around this story will never go away.
Maybe the Democrats are also against appointing activist judges, with views that are way out of the mainstream! :)
:) back to you -- and I also think there's a serious point here, which leads us to the core issue.
a
The serious point is that both the D's and R's think the other side is trying to appoint judges that are "out of the mainstream" -- the mainstream being, of course, their party's point of view. And both the D's and R's are trying to block the other sides' appointments. Right now, it's the D's blocking the R's because the R's have a slim majority in the Senate.
This power struggle will probably continue for the near future as it's probably 70-30 that Bush will win and 80-20 that the R's will maintain their Senate majority.
Look forward to much more fun and games here. There's too much at stake given lifetime appointments and the power these judges hold to believe otherwise.
Well at least you've got the core argument right. The REAL thing at stake here isn't some technical argument about Senate rules and the Constitution. Rather, it's about who gets to appoint judges.
I personally think that both sides are a bit frightening. I'm personally against making abortion illegal (which is different than being "pro-choice", I'd point out), and to the extent that judges could re-declare laws prohibiting abortion as constitutional, that would be a Bad Thing from my point of view.
On the other hand, to the extent that judges have created and perpetuated the current judicial system that (in my opinon) hampers businesses and professional people greatly by allowing ridiculous lawsuits with huge judgments and by finding more and more "rights" in the Constitution that don't exist there, that's a Bad Thing too.
So I must do a balancing act. Frankly I trust the Republicans more to nominate judges who'll do most things correctly (in my view) -- and I think it's actually quite unlikely that Roe v Wade would actually be overturned.
I recognize that others have different POVs but I just wanted to share mine.
Kudos on figuring out what this argument is REALLY about.
Not elected? Get real. Two points that will kill your assertion:
1) It was actually the Gore campaign that brought in the lawyers. They threw it into the courts. The Republicans simply took it to the next level (the Supremes) and won there. That happens to be the highest court in the land, and in the game of lawyers and courts, that wins, in case you hadn't noticed. The Democrats picked the playing field, they just lost.
2) Had there actually been a recount, Bush would actually have won anyway. See the reports here and here.
1. I can do whatever I like.
OK, I should have said "You can't just grab one side of that argument and assert it's true without an argument, UNLESS you want to lose!"
b. Changing the rules in the middle with no right or new justifcation for doing so is by definition not within the rules.
As a matter of fact, that's not true. The current Senate gets to set its own rules. Rules set by previous Senates do not handcuff the current Senate -- they are free to change the rules by majority vote. This has happened, often, in the past. For instance, the filibuster rule was changed so that the filibustering party does not have to actually stand and speak any more. It's now a simple procedural matter. All the dramatic filibusters you've seen on TV and movies with the brave senator standing and reading from a recipe book don't actually happen.
It's the "tradition" of the filibuster that is holding up rule changes. It would be a really big deal for the Senate to get rid of the filibuster that it's had forever, and to act like the House, which has no such rule. That's why it's called "going nuclear".
3. You seem to have missed the point I was addressing--the underlying hypocrisy that makes this necessary.
No I kind of ignored it because it was ridiculous, instead I simply stated what the ACTUAL debate was, which is nothing like what you asserted.
(sigh) OK I'll debate your point. Here it is:
I thought the Republicans were against so-called "activist judges", that have views that are "way out of the mainstream"! Surely if they're pushing for "mainstream" judges, they wouldn't need this sort of extrajudicial power?
And the retort:
It's actually the Democrats who have taken the unprecedented step of fairly routinely using the filibuster to block judicial appointments coming to the floor for a vote, thus effectively imposing a 60-vote requirement to confirm an appointment. The Republicans are simply asking for things to be returned to the way the Constitution intended: confirmation by simple majority. Nothing "extrajudicial" about it.
So, I should think very carefully about the last four years, and remember what the United States was like before the current administration?
Well, let's see.
For a while, it was pretty much the same. Some congressman was rumored to have killed his lover. Michael Jackson was in the news too I think.
Then, Sept. 11 happened.
Then, we figured out it was Bin Laden's people from Afghanistan.
Then, everybody like you said we'd be quagmired if we attacked Afghanistan. We attacked Afghanistan and overran it in like 10 days. Bin Laden fled to the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Then, Iraq kept rattling its swords. Everyone like you said Bush should go to the UN and get a resolution. So he did. Everyone like you said Bush should give the inspectors more time. So he did. Finally, the time was up and we invaded with the Brits and dozen or so other countries. Everyone like you said we'd get bogged down, and that we should have gotten France, Germany, and Russia's permission. We blitzed through Iraq like a hot knife through butter.
Then, it turned out that all of Saddam's people had been messing with Saddam, telling him they had all these weapons programs. Hey, maybe they didn't want them and their entire families to be tortured to death. Could be.
It also turned out that the people who wanted Saddam to continue in power, combined with those who wanted an Iranian-style totalitarian Islamic rule, decided to fight a guerilla-style set of skirmishes, assuming that the USA and the new Iraq government would back down. Well they didn't and they won't (unless of course Bush is voted out).
Finally, these same Islamic radicals killed several hundred children in Russia. The Russians now see things our way and are going to kick some pre-emption butt.
Oh yeah, the economy's picking up steam, Al Quaeda people are being arrested left and right, we rolled up the Pakistani nuke connection, we captured Saddam and the Iraq people are going to try him, Libya dropped its WMD programs and surrendered, there've been no more terrorist attacks in the USA, and no one that you know has actually been affected by any Patriot Act provisions. You also have more money in your pocket than you did at the start of this administration due to tax cuts.
What have I missed?
No, we are talking about a dispute over whether the Constitution allows the Senate to effectively impose a super-majority requirement for confirming judicial appointments, when the Constitution states it should be a simple majority.
By conjuring up the bogey-men destroying not only civil liberties, but (I love this part) "traditional freedoms" and "constitutional rights", you lose ALL CREDENCE. In fact it's laughable.
The only "traditional freedom" you're losing is the tradition that Democrats control judicial appointments. Well, dude, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Try getting more Senators and Presidents elected next time. Maybe that'll help.