He would have won a recount of those ballots under those laws. But the whole election in Florida should have been thrown out, given the strange discrepencies in the election. From the same article you quote:
According to the study, 5,277 voters made a clean punch for Gore and a clean punch for Reform Party nominee Pat Buchanan, candidates whose political philosophies are poles apart. An additional 1,650 voters made clean punches for Bush and Buchanan. If many of the Buchanan votes were in error brought on by a badly designed ballot, a CNN analysis found that Gore could have netted thousands of additional votes as compared with Bush.
Eighteen other counties used another confusing ballot design known as the "caterpillar" or "broken" ballot, where six or seven presidential candidates are listed in one column and the names of the remaining minor party candidates appeared at the top of a second one. According to the study, more than 15,000 people who voted for either Gore or Bush also selected one candidate in the second column, apparently thinking the second column represented a new race.
Had many of these voters not marked a minor candidate in the second column, Gore would have netted thousands of additional votes as compared with Bush.
Anyone who's interested in fair elections would agree that the process in Florida was messed up. It's our duty as citizens to prevent it from happening again.
7 of the 9 were nominated by republicans. "Center-left"? I think not. Maybe "left" of you, but not to most. I'll guess that most americans support (in general terms) the Court's decisions over the last decade. Otherwise, wouldn't there be massive, daily protests in front of the courthouse? Relative to the country, I'd say the court has been fairly moderate. Too "right" for me personally, but probably pretty much representative of the median voter's position.
One of the biggest problems is not that the courts makes law, it's that congress writes such shitty and unclear law that it has to be interpreted over and over again.
1) Sci-Fi doesn't control it and they want to control everything; and
2) Sci-Fi doesn't control it and they want to control everything.
Often the real profit in a show is not the first run, but the syndication and VHS/DVD sales. Sci-Fi never had rights to these - as far as I know - so they canceled. Networks don't care about the fan-base. They don't have to. The networks are basically a huge cartel and don't have to worry about the fan-base. If you switch the channel, you are most likely going to land on another Fox owned channel. The network loses nothing by you 'voting with your feet'.
...I have no choice but to run it. I live on the East Coast, but I work for a company on the West Coast. They call me all day long and, until 8pm, I'm never free to boot into FreeBSD (my OS of choice). I have to be ready to pop open Excel at any moment to address some client question or comment. OpenOffice still doesn't do Excel well enough, and that's what everyone in the business world uses. If I need FreeBSD for any reason, I just ssh over to my server and do what needs to me done.
By the time 8pm roles around, I am in the mood to play games and, since the NWN Linux client isn't out yet, I just stay in Windows.
"Likely, it will be done through the private sector. The space tourist thing could get them lots of money. (for some dumb reason NASA refuses to get involved with this)."
At $10,000 a pound, I'm somewhat skeptical that the private sector is going to be able generate enough revenue from current 'space tourist technology' (aka, Soviet equipment) to justify a huge investment into new propulsion, etc..., to bring the price down. These types of revolutionary ideas cost revolutionary prices and, with an investment climate as it is now, there is no way investors are going to front the cash for a very speculative venture such as new propulsion tech.
NASA has sort of blown it. They turned something that was a Buck Rogers fantasy into a mere government bureacracy with all the sexiness and cache of the United States Postal Service.
I agree that NASA is messed up - that it's broken and seriously needs some fixing. However, there is a great deal of knowledge in that organization. If you get rid of NASA, you need to replace it with something. You have to remember, government funding has made modern telecommunications, travel, and lifestyles possible. Where would we be if there was no initial investment in the railroads or in satellite technology or radar or airports. If there is one place that the government does have a place, it's infrastructure. Yes, they may blow a bunch of money, but even so, much of the time these investments pay off over time. Think of the US highway system. I once read that the Fed has spent 6 trillion on roads over the last 100 years (don't know if it's accurate). That's one hell of a lot of money but if you look at it in terms of the amount of money it has generated, hell, most of the goods sold in the US are shipped by truck!
Anyway, I just think we need to have some sort of serious government investment in the relevant space technology (need better term). It doesn't need to be NASA (and hopefully not only the military), but I think we need something NASA-like (of course, without the bureacracy).
I guess, if you make the assumptions that population will grow at a continued rate, there aren't any major wars, some desease doesn't wipe out much of the Earth's poor population (no AIDS?), and that materials/food production technology doesn't advance any further than it has - then I guess you could come to this conclusion. I'm a bit skeptical, though, as I know their analysis probably made some of these assumptions.
That doesn't mean, however, that we should keep up our current wasteful practices. I think more does need to be done to slow our usage of raw materials. Hell, if NASA can't even get a funding boost, how the hell are we going to be able to develope the tech to get us to other planets?
Maybe the WWF should label the 'natural resource crisis' as some sort of terrorism so that Bush et al. will being pooring money into the 'Ecological Defense Fund for the Preservation of the American Way of Life through the Rape of Other Planets and Near Earth Objects'.
Thanks, didn't think of that. Guess I should have, but I usually have everything turned off as far as automatic updating from my Windows box is concerned.
This really make me mad, though. I don't understand what gives Microsoft the right to install anything on a person's computer without WRITTEN consent before hand! If they are allowed to get away with this stuff, the next thing you know, they'll sell-out your personal info and every time your computer connects, they'll download a bunch of 'targeted ads' to your desktop! All in the name of f*cking convenience and security. Great, that's what I want, a bunch of ads on my desktop, a little Clippy telling me when I'm reading/viewing illegal or 'inappropriate' material, and the 'security' and 'stability' that goes along with M$ software. Damn this pisses me off.
I agree with you completely - why you got a troll, I have no idea. Some of the moderators don't take their resposibility seriously and it drive me crazy.
That said, how can I prevent M$ for contacting my system? I am on a broadband connection and I block all ports to my server (FreeBSD) except port 80. Will this stop them?
...even if they are using a what some on this site would consider 'suboptimal' technology, the government's incorporation of ANY technology is better than none at all. Hell, the Senate doesn't allow laptops on the Senate floor! Hopefully, as the 'mainstream' government begins to use more open-standards technology and technology in general, they will be more willing to defend it against M$ and any other company that tries to 'embrace and extend' it.
Ha - I left an econ PhD program because I hated studying the boundary conditions of the 'no-worse-than' set and the 'no-better-than' set and the production frontier. No, actually, I left becuase I didn't like the way economists deal with 'simple' economic concepts. Don't get me wrong - I love math and especially econometrics/stats - but there are some place I believe math doesn't belong - one of then being the explaination of the preferences of individuals. If you go to grad school in economics, be prepared to make dozens of 'exceptions' to you theories (if outlined mathematically) because people - IMO - don't make mathematically calculated decisions. Of course, I could just be a bitter ex-econ student, who just spent the last six years of his life studying econ only to find he hates it.
Anyway, as for physics, that sounds just about right to me. I want to be cooped up in a lab measuring and calculating and measuring and calulating...
To a point, I agree. I spent my first two years at a community college, which was a good choice for me since I didn't feel that I was grown-up enough to study at a 'real' school. The classes at the community college were good, but they really did lack something - student-professor interaction and cutting-edge knowledge. And I went to CC in Oregon, which has very high regard for CCs and, IMO, I received a very good CC education.
However, my education at CC still couldn't prepare me for the academic rigor of a small private college. Man, was it a wake up call. It was so much more difficult in terms of the amount of material and the difficulty of the material covered. Still, the professors were extremely easy to talk to - we even had drinks together (after I turned 21 that is). For me, the experience at a private college was far superior to the one I got from CC.
But I'm not sure that is what the poster is looking for. Private school is way too time consuming for someone wha has to work and has kids. Not to mention the expense. But he may want to see if any of the private schools offer cheap, summer courses or 'extension' services. I know - from experience - that these are often available, even at the best schools.
Yea, I've thought about going into CS, but for some reason it just doesn't sound like something I want to do forever. I would like to go back to school, but going to undergrad at 26 would be annoying. I don't have much choice though - I've got to finish school soon or my wire's going to kill me.
I recently opted out of a PhD program in economics and am contemplating going back to school for physics or math. The problem is, I don't have much of a background in physics and my math was primarily focused on stats and linear algebra - both of which are used extensively in economics. What would slashdotters suggest. There have to be a few physics majors out there. Maybe some PhDs?
I suppose I'll have to go bask to undergrad but...
I used to visit was KGW.com every day to get info on Portland, OR. They are owned by Belo - or at least their site is - and I always thought they had one of the best local news sites around. Recently they started to require registration and - had it been similar to NYTimes - I would have done it. But it was SO intrusive (age, sex, marital status, income, preferences, etc) that there was no way in hell I was going to do it. Their privacy policy was also a little shady. I wrote them an email to this regard. They wrote back saying they really didn't care (sorry, recently deleted the email or I would post it) but that they were trying to offer 'personalized' service to the customer. I tell ya, I'm just going to go back to buying my new at the news stand, where I can get a little anonymity! Except for Slashdot, of course.
If China gets anywhere close to putting a base on the moon - like they recently were talking about - I can guarantee that the US would pore billions into a program to take it for 'humanities sake'. Not that I think that is bad, as an American I would rather see us there that China.
It would be nice to see a new society develop there. One that begins as an international group of pioneers and, over generations, develops into a nation of its own.
The idea of the moon being a colony of a single nation just doesn't appeal to me. It'll probably be that way in the beginning though - because of the cash needed to pull something like that off. Unless a very large corporation does it - God, can you imagine Bill G as ruler of the moon!
Very good point. The way the economy works now, the only way it keeps going (or almost going, as is the current case), is to use natural resources - including labor - at cheaper rates from other countries.
All it needs is stadium seating and windows in the front. Then everyone would be able to see.
For me, the next real breakthrough will be a soundproof room where children can be taken when the begin to cry. Nothing worse than sitting next to a toddler whose as freaked out as I am when flying. Doesn't do anything for my nerves.
...is that I have to nearly sell myself into slavery to get a static IP! When I was in Portland, I had to go with a different ISP than my DSL provider (Qwest) in order to avoid a $150/month business rate in order to get a single static IP (of course they didn't give out single IPs - only groups of five or something).
When I moved to Southern Cal. I had to do the same thing when dealing with SBC (even though I don't have to pay an extra $10-$15 per month). Now that I'm moving to Rhode Island, I'm having to deal with the same thing again but this time I hear that Verizon's service is poor and I should go with cable. They have so many restrictions, and I don't even think I can get a static IP (web site ver unclear)! Guess I'll have to pay business rates. What's with these companies?!? Does it really cost $100+ per month to provide a static IP? The small ISPs seem to be able to do it. What's up? Please, someone explain!
Re:What does this mean for the industry as a whole
on
Salon in Dire Straits
·
· Score: 0, Troll
While I'm glad to Salon go (despite some really well written pieces, whoever ran it was simply TOO focused on being Anti-Republican, even to the point of publishing drivel if need be. I, and I'd imagine lots of others, would have subscribed if it hadn't been for that)...
And I would subscribe to the Christian Coalition newsletter if they weren't so damn conservative.
Come on. They were a quality news site for liberals. If they gave in and moved to the center, they would be just another NY Times. It's hard to find quality news these days - either left- or right-leaning. I'll be sorry to see them go.
For those who are interested, I just ran across this page that outlines rules churches are suppose to follow regarding political activity. I thought it was interesting.
Regarding how hard it is for Non-Christian religions to get 501(c)(3) status: precisely as hard as it is for any other church.
Define 'church' for me.
And with regard to the periodic whining about tax exemptions for religious institutions: either advocate abolishing non-profit organization exemptions entirely (e.g., the U.S Olympic Committee, the Red Cross, the ACLU, ad nauseum) or shut the heck up.
Slashdot Mirror
politician != bureaucrat
one man's pork is another man's bread and butter.
Anyone who's interested in fair elections would agree that the process in Florida was messed up. It's our duty as citizens to prevent it from happening again.
7 of the 9 were nominated by republicans. "Center-left"? I think not. Maybe "left" of you, but not to most. I'll guess that most americans support (in general terms) the Court's decisions over the last decade. Otherwise, wouldn't there be massive, daily protests in front of the courthouse? Relative to the country, I'd say the court has been fairly moderate. Too "right" for me personally, but probably pretty much representative of the median voter's position.
She had breast cancer, maybe it's come back in some form?
One of the biggest problems is not that the courts makes law, it's that congress writes such shitty and unclear law that it has to be interpreted over and over again.
Yeah, those damn liberals on the court! All 2 of them that were nominated by democrats!
The show was canceled because of:
1) Sci-Fi doesn't control it and they want to control everything; and
2) Sci-Fi doesn't control it and they want to control everything.
Often the real profit in a show is not the first run, but the syndication and VHS/DVD sales. Sci-Fi never had rights to these - as far as I know - so they canceled. Networks don't care about the fan-base. They don't have to. The networks are basically a huge cartel and don't have to worry about the fan-base. If you switch the channel, you are most likely going to land on another Fox owned channel. The network loses nothing by you 'voting with your feet'.
...I have no choice but to run it. I live on the East Coast, but I work for a company on the West Coast. They call me all day long and, until 8pm, I'm never free to boot into FreeBSD (my OS of choice). I have to be ready to pop open Excel at any moment to address some client question or comment. OpenOffice still doesn't do Excel well enough, and that's what everyone in the business world uses. If I need FreeBSD for any reason, I just ssh over to my server and do what needs to me done.
By the time 8pm roles around, I am in the mood to play games and, since the NWN Linux client isn't out yet, I just stay in Windows.
"Likely, it will be done through the private sector. The space tourist thing could get them lots of money. (for some dumb reason NASA refuses to get involved with this)."
At $10,000 a pound, I'm somewhat skeptical that the private sector is going to be able generate enough revenue from current 'space tourist technology' (aka, Soviet equipment) to justify a huge investment into new propulsion, etc..., to bring the price down. These types of revolutionary ideas cost revolutionary prices and, with an investment climate as it is now, there is no way investors are going to front the cash for a very speculative venture such as new propulsion tech.
NASA has sort of blown it. They turned something that was a Buck Rogers fantasy into a mere government bureacracy with all the sexiness and cache of the United States Postal Service.
I agree that NASA is messed up - that it's broken and seriously needs some fixing. However, there is a great deal of knowledge in that organization. If you get rid of NASA, you need to replace it with something. You have to remember, government funding has made modern telecommunications, travel, and lifestyles possible. Where would we be if there was no initial investment in the railroads or in satellite technology or radar or airports. If there is one place that the government does have a place, it's infrastructure. Yes, they may blow a bunch of money, but even so, much of the time these investments pay off over time. Think of the US highway system. I once read that the Fed has spent 6 trillion on roads over the last 100 years (don't know if it's accurate). That's one hell of a lot of money but if you look at it in terms of the amount of money it has generated, hell, most of the goods sold in the US are shipped by truck!
Anyway, I just think we need to have some sort of serious government investment in the relevant space technology (need better term). It doesn't need to be NASA (and hopefully not only the military), but I think we need something NASA-like (of course, without the bureacracy).
I guess, if you make the assumptions that population will grow at a continued rate, there aren't any major wars, some desease doesn't wipe out much of the Earth's poor population (no AIDS?), and that materials/food production technology doesn't advance any further than it has - then I guess you could come to this conclusion. I'm a bit skeptical, though, as I know their analysis probably made some of these assumptions.
That doesn't mean, however, that we should keep up our current wasteful practices. I think more does need to be done to slow our usage of raw materials. Hell, if NASA can't even get a funding boost, how the hell are we going to be able to develope the tech to get us to other planets?
Maybe the WWF should label the 'natural resource crisis' as some sort of terrorism so that Bush et al. will being pooring money into the 'Ecological Defense Fund for the Preservation of the American Way of Life through the Rape of Other Planets and Near Earth Objects'.
My $0.02
Thanks, didn't think of that. Guess I should have, but I usually have everything turned off as far as automatic updating from my Windows box is concerned.
This really make me mad, though. I don't understand what gives Microsoft the right to install anything on a person's computer without WRITTEN consent before hand! If they are allowed to get away with this stuff, the next thing you know, they'll sell-out your personal info and every time your computer connects, they'll download a bunch of 'targeted ads' to your desktop! All in the name of f*cking convenience and security. Great, that's what I want, a bunch of ads on my desktop, a little Clippy telling me when I'm reading/viewing illegal or 'inappropriate' material, and the 'security' and 'stability' that goes along with M$ software. Damn this pisses me off.
I agree with you completely - why you got a troll, I have no idea. Some of the moderators don't take their resposibility seriously and it drive me crazy.
That said, how can I prevent M$ for contacting my system? I am on a broadband connection and I block all ports to my server (FreeBSD) except port 80. Will this stop them?
...even if they are using a what some on this site would consider 'suboptimal' technology, the government's incorporation of ANY technology is better than none at all. Hell, the Senate doesn't allow laptops on the Senate floor! Hopefully, as the 'mainstream' government begins to use more open-standards technology and technology in general, they will be more willing to defend it against M$ and any other company that tries to 'embrace and extend' it.
My $0.02
Ha - I left an econ PhD program because I hated studying the boundary conditions of the 'no-worse-than' set and the 'no-better-than' set and the production frontier. No, actually, I left becuase I didn't like the way economists deal with 'simple' economic concepts. Don't get me wrong - I love math and especially econometrics/stats - but there are some place I believe math doesn't belong - one of then being the explaination of the preferences of individuals. If you go to grad school in economics, be prepared to make dozens of 'exceptions' to you theories (if outlined mathematically) because people - IMO - don't make mathematically calculated decisions. Of course, I could just be a bitter ex-econ student, who just spent the last six years of his life studying econ only to find he hates it.
Anyway, as for physics, that sounds just about right to me. I want to be cooped up in a lab measuring and calculating and measuring and calulating...
Yea, we'll see in another 6 years.
Cheers --
To a point, I agree. I spent my first two years at a community college, which was a good choice for me since I didn't feel that I was grown-up enough to study at a 'real' school. The classes at the community college were good, but they really did lack something - student-professor interaction and cutting-edge knowledge. And I went to CC in Oregon, which has very high regard for CCs and, IMO, I received a very good CC education.
However, my education at CC still couldn't prepare me for the academic rigor of a small private college. Man, was it a wake up call. It was so much more difficult in terms of the amount of material and the difficulty of the material covered. Still, the professors were extremely easy to talk to - we even had drinks together (after I turned 21 that is). For me, the experience at a private college was far superior to the one I got from CC.
But I'm not sure that is what the poster is looking for. Private school is way too time consuming for someone wha has to work and has kids. Not to mention the expense. But he may want to see if any of the private schools offer cheap, summer courses or 'extension' services. I know - from experience - that these are often available, even at the best schools.
Yea, I've thought about going into CS, but for some reason it just doesn't sound like something I want to do forever. I would like to go back to school, but going to undergrad at 26 would be annoying. I don't have much choice though - I've got to finish school soon or my wire's going to kill me.
I'm in a similar situation.
I recently opted out of a PhD program in economics and am contemplating going back to school for physics or math. The problem is, I don't have much of a background in physics and my math was primarily focused on stats and linear algebra - both of which are used extensively in economics. What would slashdotters suggest. There have to be a few physics majors out there. Maybe some PhDs?
I suppose I'll have to go bask to undergrad but...
I used to visit was KGW.com every day to get info on Portland, OR. They are owned by Belo - or at least their site is - and I always thought they had one of the best local news sites around. Recently they started to require registration and - had it been similar to NYTimes - I would have done it. But it was SO intrusive (age, sex, marital status, income, preferences, etc) that there was no way in hell I was going to do it. Their privacy policy was also a little shady. I wrote them an email to this regard. They wrote back saying they really didn't care (sorry, recently deleted the email or I would post it) but that they were trying to offer 'personalized' service to the customer. I tell ya, I'm just going to go back to buying my new at the news stand, where I can get a little anonymity! Except for Slashdot, of course.
If China gets anywhere close to putting a base on the moon - like they recently were talking about - I can guarantee that the US would pore billions into a program to take it for 'humanities sake'. Not that I think that is bad, as an American I would rather see us there that China.
It would be nice to see a new society develop there. One that begins as an international group of pioneers and, over generations, develops into a nation of its own.
The idea of the moon being a colony of a single nation just doesn't appeal to me. It'll probably be that way in the beginning though - because of the cash needed to pull something like that off. Unless a very large corporation does it - God, can you imagine Bill G as ruler of the moon!
Very good point. The way the economy works now, the only way it keeps going (or almost going, as is the current case), is to use natural resources - including labor - at cheaper rates from other countries.
All it needs is stadium seating and windows in the front. Then everyone would be able to see.
For me, the next real breakthrough will be a soundproof room where children can be taken when the begin to cry. Nothing worse than sitting next to a toddler whose as freaked out as I am when flying. Doesn't do anything for my nerves.
...is that I have to nearly sell myself into slavery to get a static IP! When I was in Portland, I had to go with a different ISP than my DSL provider (Qwest) in order to avoid a $150/month business rate in order to get a single static IP (of course they didn't give out single IPs - only groups of five or something).
When I moved to Southern Cal. I had to do the same thing when dealing with SBC (even though I don't have to pay an extra $10-$15 per month). Now that I'm moving to Rhode Island, I'm having to deal with the same thing again but this time I hear that Verizon's service is poor and I should go with cable. They have so many restrictions, and I don't even think I can get a static IP (web site ver unclear)! Guess I'll have to pay business rates. What's with these companies?!? Does it really cost $100+ per month to provide a static IP? The small ISPs seem to be able to do it. What's up? Please, someone explain!
While I'm glad to Salon go (despite some really well written pieces, whoever ran it was simply TOO focused on being Anti-Republican, even to the point of publishing drivel if need be. I, and I'd imagine lots of others, would have subscribed if it hadn't been for that)...
And I would subscribe to the Christian Coalition newsletter if they weren't so damn conservative.
Come on. They were a quality news site for liberals. If they gave in and moved to the center, they would be just another NY Times. It's hard to find quality news these days - either left- or right-leaning. I'll be sorry to see them go.
For those who are interested, I just ran across this page that outlines rules churches are suppose to follow regarding political activity. I thought it was interesting.
Regarding how hard it is for Non-Christian religions to get 501(c)(3) status: precisely as hard as it is for any other church.
Define 'church' for me.
And with regard to the periodic whining about tax exemptions for religious institutions: either advocate abolishing non-profit organization exemptions entirely (e.g., the U.S Olympic Committee, the Red Cross, the ACLU, ad nauseum) or shut the heck up.
Sounds like you are against free speech too.