The "vets" in the story by their own admission had no personal knowledge of the events in question
and the men who put Kerry in for his Silver Star were not personal witnesses to his supposed act of valor - does that make their original award proposal less valid? Do you think they were going on what they were told? Do you think the men in the other Swift boats involved in the same action, regardless of their proximity to Kerry's supposed heroism, might have some experience and knowledge of the character of the man and whether he would be deserving of such an award? Who'd be the better judge - those that worked daily with Kerry or the higher ranking officers that had never met the man and simply signed a document placed in front of them, believing that their underlings had vetted the application?
Some of the "vets" were Bush staffers
Ah yes - Ken Cordier - though he spent six years as a guest in the ever lovely Hanoi Hilton, God forbid he publicly dare speak his opinion about Kerry - because Ken had the audacity ot serve with a group of other veterans in attempting to advise the Bush campaign about veteran issues. That rascally devil - what would he know anyway, having all that paid vacation time courtesty of the North Vietnamese.
The ads were put together by DCI employees
Yep - imagine hiring a public relations person to put together an advertising campaign. The veterans should have bought a cheap 8mm camera and taped and deployed the whole campaign themselves.
The ads were funded by the Republicans, not by the vets
Of course they were funded by Repulicans! Do you think the Domocrats would pay for such a thing? There's a difference between being funded by Republicans and being funded by the Republican Party - but the articles do their best to minimize the distinction.
The affidavits they used were modified from what some of the vets had said
But they were not modified after they were signed. The affidavits were the signed statements of the veterans in question. There is no legal requirement that one write the statement that one signs - only that one make an attempt to understand and agree before signing. The one member, George Elliot, has much more ink thrown around about the fact that he felt bad about signing the first affidavit, but it's always casually mentioned in passing, at best, that he signed a second one reaffirming his first. It's mentioned that he's refused to talk to reporters - odd that, as we know how the press strives to maintain itself as completely neutral in politics (snicker).
They were, in short, highly sophisticated trolls.
Trolls, eh? Those men who appeared in the Swift Boat ads did so of their own free will. They served in various roles, many of them documented and widely witnessed as herioic, as POWs, as fighter pilots, and, get this, as Swift Boat personnel, during the same period and in the same places and in the same war as John Kerry - and they wanted their voices heard too - yet they continue to be lambasted for having the audacity to challenge Mr. Kerry's effort to make himself seem like a war hero for the express purpose of being elected president.
Direct Connect is an astroturfing company; that's what their people are good at. They make things (like the Microsoft letters, or the Swiftboat ads, etc.) that are specifically designed to look like they are coming "from the people" when they in fact are not.
The Swiftboat ads involved people who actually served during the time that John Kerry did and desired to state their opinion of the illegitimacy of his military decorations and military service in general - exactly who do you think such statements should be coming from?
For me, the issue here is simple: these people are good at only one thing, trying to manipulate our elected officials into thinking that they are doing our will when in fact they are not.
You state in your posting above that there seems to be a sad assumption underlying this story (and reflected in many of the news reports about it) -- that the only way to gain influence with the Republicans at present is through corruption.
Apparantly you equate the legal practice of lobbying with the illegal one of corruption, such as kickbacks, hiring favors, passing legislation for campaign contributions, etc. Fine, I actually don't disagree with you - I think the whole practice is shameful - but we're talking about politicians here and our elected legislators do disagree with both of us - and the hiring of lobbyists and the lobbying of politicians is not considered corruption in our system of government - it's considered as the way things get done. I don't like it one damn bit either - but I don't accuse anyone who hires a lobbyist as subcontracting out their evil schema.
there seems to be a sad assumption underlying this story (and reflected in many of the news reports about it) -- that the only way to gain influence with the Republicans at present is through corruption.
You certainly did your level best in your "summary" to make it seem so.
During the interview process, employers are looking for some reason, any reason, not to hire you.
You have beautifully described the path to mediocrity. Inherent to striving to do great things is occassional failure. If you only hire people who have never failed then are hiring people who have never taken a risk. Such people make wonderful bean counters... hence the ever growing desire in the US to account for every bean, never mind the steadily declining quality of production - we at least didn't take chances! And we wonder how the icons of American business have lost so much of their market share.
In my experience with the LOC, nothing is free. 20 cents for a copy. $100/hr for a transfer of video. Cannot actually check out books. Unless you work for a congressman then you get better access.
I cannot imagine why the Library of Congress would offer better access to Congressmen than others.
I've gotten dozens of books over the years that were most easily located in the Library of Congress. Ask your librarian how.
it' s pretty prohibitively expensive to build a tunnel of that caliber: Thousands of miles long, under the ocean, and built to sustain a vacuum. But that's a problem for the engineers.
To paraphrase one of the giants, "Give me enough money, and a bank account to put it in, and I can move the Earth."
Unfortunately, the pointer is not the only deciding factor in buying laptops, so I've ended up with a trackpad in my current machine.
It's the deciding factor for some of us - not a touchpad fan - I don't want it anywhere on my system. Such a difficult attitude on my part prevents me from buying many otherwise great systems, as they don't offer 'em without the touchpad.
The question is, is Debian able to do anything groundbreaking on its own anymore? If someone were to try to move to a new init system in Debian, how long would it take to actually get done?
It will hopefully take as long as is needed for it to be proved that it provides a better answer, not simply a cuter answer.
i just use google when i need something, and then find it in dselect.
I think, as a continuous debian user (not developer, but I read through the occassional debian "discussions") since the very beginning, FWTFW, that the recent crowing about a better "graphical installer" as being so damned important is reflective of the frustration many longtime users and developers feel with the current debian anarpolitical process. The fact that the majority of a gaggle thinks blinking lights are the important part of a system does not make it so. Form must follow function, or we end up with Windows quality, where an evolutionary process of continuous improvement is interrupted by those that love the blinking lights, because they are the ones buying the product - in the free software world, for many years the "buyer" of the product was the developers themselves - anyone else was free to use it if they found it useful, not blinking light pretty, or not as they chose - trying to attract the unwashed masses is antithetical to success. In an evolutionary process that which works is that which succeeds. "Success" is where the defintion needs to be set - if it's defined as that which gets the most Windows weenies to switch, then you're going to get a different group of people drawn to the process than if it's defined as that which absolutely insists on quality and stability and fit and function and continuous improvement. The latter is an evolutionary process that results in systems good enough to go to the stars.
The difference with FreeBSD is that it is a meritocracy.
It makes me wonder - what would be a proper capitalistic, albiet without actual money, approach to Debian? That is an approach where what gets decided on, perhaps what cirlces one travels in (what mailing lists one particpates in), is determined by one's "wealth" and willingness to spend that wealth where one wishes. I could see some sort of karma system being put to good effect.
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How about a guy who lost 3 limbs in the same war?
Max Cleland did not lose his limbs in a combat action. Go read what he was doing when the grenade exploded.
The "vets" in the story by their own admission had no personal knowledge of the events in question
and the men who put Kerry in for his Silver Star were not personal witnesses to his supposed act of valor - does that make their original award proposal less valid? Do you think they were going on what they were told? Do you think the men in the other Swift boats involved in the same action, regardless of their proximity to Kerry's supposed heroism, might have some experience and knowledge of the character of the man and whether he would be deserving of such an award? Who'd be the better judge - those that worked daily with Kerry or the higher ranking officers that had never met the man and simply signed a document placed in front of them, believing that their underlings had vetted the application?
Some of the "vets" were Bush staffers
Ah yes - Ken Cordier - though he spent six years as a guest in the ever lovely Hanoi Hilton, God forbid he publicly dare speak his opinion about Kerry - because Ken had the audacity ot serve with a group of other veterans in attempting to advise the Bush campaign about veteran issues. That rascally devil - what would he know anyway, having all that paid vacation time courtesty of the North Vietnamese.
The ads were put together by DCI employees
Yep - imagine hiring a public relations person to put together an advertising campaign. The veterans should have bought a cheap 8mm camera and taped and deployed the whole campaign themselves.
The ads were funded by the Republicans, not by the vets
Of course they were funded by Repulicans! Do you think the Domocrats would pay for such a thing? There's a difference between being funded by Republicans and being funded by the Republican Party - but the articles do their best to minimize the distinction.
The affidavits they used were modified from what some of the vets had said
But they were not modified after they were signed. The affidavits were the signed statements of the veterans in question. There is no legal requirement that one write the statement that one signs - only that one make an attempt to understand and agree before signing. The one member, George Elliot, has much more ink thrown around about the fact that he felt bad about signing the first affidavit, but it's always casually mentioned in passing, at best, that he signed a second one reaffirming his first. It's mentioned that he's refused to talk to reporters - odd that, as we know how the press strives to maintain itself as completely neutral in politics (snicker).
They were, in short, highly sophisticated trolls.
Trolls, eh? Those men who appeared in the Swift Boat ads did so of their own free will. They served in various roles, many of them documented and widely witnessed as herioic, as POWs, as fighter pilots, and, get this, as Swift Boat personnel, during the same period and in the same places and in the same war as John Kerry - and they wanted their voices heard too - yet they continue to be lambasted for having the audacity to challenge Mr. Kerry's effort to make himself seem like a war hero for the express purpose of being elected president.
Direct Connect is an astroturfing company; that's what their people are good at. They make things (like the Microsoft letters, or the Swiftboat ads, etc.) that are specifically designed to look like they are coming "from the people" when they in fact are not.
The Swiftboat ads involved people who actually served during the time that John Kerry did and desired to state their opinion of the illegitimacy of his military decorations and military service in general - exactly who do you think such statements should be coming from?
For me, the issue here is simple: these people are good at only one thing, trying to manipulate our elected officials into thinking that they are doing our will when in fact they are not.
You state in your posting above that there seems to be a sad assumption underlying this story (and reflected in many of the news reports about it) -- that the only way to gain influence with the Republicans at present is through corruption.
Apparantly you equate the legal practice of lobbying with the illegal one of corruption, such as kickbacks, hiring favors, passing legislation for campaign contributions, etc. Fine, I actually don't disagree with you - I think the whole practice is shameful - but we're talking about politicians here and our elected legislators do disagree with both of us - and the hiring of lobbyists and the lobbying of politicians is not considered corruption in our system of government - it's considered as the way things get done. I don't like it one damn bit either - but I don't accuse anyone who hires a lobbyist as subcontracting out their evil schema.
there seems to be a sad assumption underlying this story (and reflected in many of the news reports about it) -- that the only way to gain influence with the Republicans at present is through corruption.
You certainly did your level best in your "summary" to make it seem so.
never travels to China. He might be arrested for promoting gambling ^h^h^h^h^h^h freedom.
During the interview process, employers are looking for some reason, any reason, not to hire you.
... hence the ever growing desire in the US to account for every bean, never mind the steadily declining quality of production - we at least didn't take chances! And we wonder how the icons of American business have lost so much of their market share.
You have beautifully described the path to mediocrity. Inherent to striving to do great things is occassional failure. If you only hire people who have never failed then are hiring people who have never taken a risk. Such people make wonderful bean counters
What's wrong about discriminating against people with a history of making bad choices?
Because for people living between a rock and a hard place all choices look as if they were bad to those who have never been there.
You mean like... the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
I guess those will be renamed the Web Content Accessability LAWS.
Because Target may be the only brick-and-mortar store of its kind in town.
But they're not the only store on the internet.
That should be the company's business decision to go after that business or to disregard it - it should not be required by law.
Nobody forced Mr. Dicks to sell services to American citizens.
Nobody forced Americans to proactively make use of Mr. Dicks' services.
Possibly the most important thing about moving to C# is that the level of entry is a lot lower
...
Remind me why this is a good thing?
Let's just hope that IE 7 will like CSS more than IE 6!
...
They could make a huge leap forward on this front by making one small change:
rebranding Firefox?
*all* browsers implemented it per the W3C standard.
In my experience with the LOC, nothing is free. 20 cents for a copy. $100/hr for a transfer of video. Cannot actually check out books. Unless you work for a congressman then you get better access.
I cannot imagine why the Library of Congress would offer better access to Congressmen than others.
I've gotten dozens of books over the years that were most easily located in the Library of Congress. Ask your librarian how.
Danese Cooper was no longer a SUN employee as of March 2005. Her words (from after that) are therefore not representative of SUN.
If she spoke about a decision she is knowledgeable of that was made prior to her departure then her words are indeed applicable.
If Sun releases their VM under CDDL, it will still be free software.
Some pigs are more equal than others.
it' s pretty prohibitively expensive to build a tunnel of that caliber: Thousands of miles long, under the ocean, and built to sustain a vacuum. But that's a problem for the engineers.
To paraphrase one of the giants, "Give me enough money, and a bank account to put it in, and I can move the Earth."
Money is expensive, so expensive.
If you're a power typer with a trackpad, you've desactivated that bloody hellish feature.
I cna't even stand the feel of the damn thing.
Unfortunately, the pointer is not the only deciding factor in buying laptops, so I've ended up with a trackpad in my current machine.
It's the deciding factor for some of us - not a touchpad fan - I don't want it anywhere on my system. Such a difficult attitude on my part prevents me from buying many otherwise great systems, as they don't offer 'em without the touchpad.
The question is, is Debian able to do anything groundbreaking on its own anymore? If someone were to try to move to a new init system in Debian, how long would it take to actually get done?
It will hopefully take as long as is needed for it to be proved that it provides a better answer, not simply a cuter answer.
i just use google when i need something, and then find it in dselect.
I think, as a continuous debian user (not developer, but I read through the occassional debian "discussions") since the very beginning, FWTFW, that the recent crowing about a better "graphical installer" as being so damned important is reflective of the frustration many longtime users and developers feel with the current debian anarpolitical process. The fact that the majority of a gaggle thinks blinking lights are the important part of a system does not make it so. Form must follow function, or we end up with Windows quality, where an evolutionary process of continuous improvement is interrupted by those that love the blinking lights, because they are the ones buying the product - in the free software world, for many years the "buyer" of the product was the developers themselves - anyone else was free to use it if they found it useful, not blinking light pretty, or not as they chose - trying to attract the unwashed masses is antithetical to success. In an evolutionary process that which works is that which succeeds. "Success" is where the defintion needs to be set - if it's defined as that which gets the most Windows weenies to switch, then you're going to get a different group of people drawn to the process than if it's defined as that which absolutely insists on quality and stability and fit and function and continuous improvement. The latter is an evolutionary process that results in systems good enough to go to the stars.
The difference with FreeBSD is that it is a meritocracy.
It makes me wonder - what would be a proper capitalistic, albiet without actual money, approach to Debian? That is an approach where what gets decided on, perhaps what cirlces one travels in (what mailing lists one particpates in), is determined by one's "wealth" and willingness to spend that wealth where one wishes. I could see some sort of karma system being put to good effect.