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User: csguy314

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Comments · 269

  1. Re:Not chronological on Hotmail Begins to Upgrade Free Accounts · · Score: 1

    Definitely not. I've had my account since high school (earlier than 98) and I've still got just 2 megs. And I'll still use my hotmail because I don't get spam, I've been sensible about (not) posting it ever since I got it. But GMail will become my main account from now on.

  2. Re:It Ain't that hard. on US Presidents on Presidential Power · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How about some anti-Kerry stories? It's not as though the Democrats are angels.
    Eisenhower may have started the Vietnam War, but Kennedy got the US much more involved. Kennedy also approved the Bay of Pigs, and several assassination attempts on Castro.
    Carter supported terrorism in Central America just as much as his predecessors and successors.
    Clinton illegally invaded Serbia (without Security Council consent). And Clinton was bombing Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War right through the 90's.
    But I guess you're right. I'll just vote for the one who's not a rich, white guy... oh wait...

  3. Re:disappointed in US government on Lost Nuclear Bomb Found Off Georgia Coast? · · Score: 1

    I live in a country with a 300 billion dollar annual PEACETIME military budget, and they can't locate an accidentally dropped nuclear bomb in 12 feet of water to recover it?

    Uhh, it's actually currently about $400 billion. Which makes it close to the combined military spending of the rest of the planet.

    "The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous." -1984 (movie, not the book...)

  4. Re:No, sorry. on Are Journalism and Politics Inextricably Joined? · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I mean, the amount of our political discoure that is decided by the radical right and left is ridiculous. Most of us are neither, yet look at the big issues: Abortion, gun control, prayer in schools. Jesus.

    Sorry, what country are you talking about?
    What political discourse in the US is controlled by the left? With the majority of media owned by companies like Westinghouse, GE, AOL-TW, Disney and Fox, (and having numerous GOP donors among them) the only real choice you have in US media is between the far right and the right of center (that is, in relation to the rest of the world).
    I'm not trying to be insulting, but in a country where "liberal" is used as an insult (and yet it's the name of the governing party in your neighbour to the north), your view of 'left' isn't really in line with the rest of the planet.
  5. Re:Freedom of Bias on Are Journalism and Politics Inextricably Joined? · · Score: 3, Interesting
    What a load of crap... The vast majority of American media (Wash. Post & Times included) is right wing and just not that informative. And this is completely by design. All that mass media intentionally tries to keep people poorly informed as to the reality of many situations and that's because the majority of the mass media is owned by massive corporations. The 'liberal' post is owned by a multi-billion dollar corporation and those corporations will (in fact are legally obligated to) do what is best for its share-holders.
    And when these mega-corps are involved with other corporations and lobbying politicians, how can the actually report objectively when they're taking part in the news-making.
    "I was chairman for two days, and then I had jets with my engines hit a building I insured, which was covered by a network I owned, and we are still growing 2001 earnings by 11 percent."

    That quote was from Jeffrey Immelt, who became Chairman of General Electric shortly before 9/11. GE owns NBC and also happens to manufacture weapons. It's also a major contractor in Iraq right now. Can you honestly believe that they would report on themselves and activities in which they're generating income with complete objectivity?

    http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Co rp orations/Owners.asp
  6. Re:True, however on Mock World Vote · · Score: 1

    Those respondents from Iraq total to 69 votes. With a population of some 25 million (most of which don't have proper access to electricity right now, let alone an internet connection) I doubt that it's representative.

  7. Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! on Assault Weapons Ban · · Score: 1

    I personally feel as though the incidence of murder would actually decrease if it were legal. Just a theory.

    Are you freaking kidding me? Where do you people come up with this nonsense? If you want to live in a place where there is less killing move to Canada. I'm not sure exactly what it is about American culture and media that makes so many people think violence is ok (or that the way to reduce murder is to promote it), but perhaps it has something to do with the idolization of your military (even when it slaughters 10s or 100s of thousands of innocent people in far off countries). And another contributing factor may be the pacification and ignorance that has permeated your media and education. I've visited and have friends/relatives in New York and DC and there are some scary places there.
    Yet I live in Toronto and I feel perfectly safe walking around anywhere downtown in the middle of the night. The Greater Toronto Area has some 5 million people and there are less than 100 murders each year (about half of them are gun murders).

  8. Re:Interesting... on Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2003-2004 · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you consider ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN to be right wing, then you must be . . .

    Not an American.
    ABC (Disney), NBC (GE), CBS (Westinghouse), CNN (AOL-TW) are all owned by mega-corporations, and 3 of the 4 are among the top 25 donors to the Republican campaign.
    American media, compared with most stuff outside the US, is very right wing.

  9. Re:Interesting... on Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2003-2004 · · Score: 1

    I suspect you could easily swap "right-wing" for "leftist" and be just as correct: the media is amorphous and populist; it'll promote certain stories to sell newspapers, even if those stories are not in the interest of the proprietor or shareholders.

    Not bloody likely; at least not in the US. The concentration of media ownership by giant corporations like Westinghouse, Fox, Disney and GE, pretty much guarantees that they won't allow leftist slant because it'd be bad for their shareholders. Heck, they're legally bound to do what's best for their shareholders, and they're NOT legally bound to tell the truth.
    This on top of several of these large corps being major donors to the GOP, and corps like GE also happen to be weapons manufacturers; the outlook is rather bleak.

    (That link is about a lawsuit where reporters sued a Fox station that fired them for not covering up a story. They originally won the suit, but the verdict was overturned since Fox was not legally required to report the truth.)

  10. Re:Revenge stories? on Revenge Really Does Taste Sweet · · Score: 1

    A British lord was waiting a while for a parking spot in his huge car. Just as it became available a young guy in a little sports car snuck in quickly.
    The lord was so incensed that he drove into the spot anyway and crushed the young man's car.
    He got out, asked the yound man how much his car cost and promptly wrote him a cheque and walked away, big smile on his face.

  11. Re:Glorified Doll House? on Sims 2 Goes Gold · · Score: 1

    and they felt that boys would have issues playing with dolls.

    They're *Action Figures* !!

  12. Re:The real problem is... on How 8 Pixels Cost Microsoft Millions · · Score: 1

    That disputed territory is not claimed by India and Pakistan. It's only claimed by India.
    Pakistan, officially, does not claim ownership at all. The people in the region (predominantly Muslim) have wanted to separate from India and join Pakistan, and there has been violent support of this cause.
    What Pakistan does support is the hope of a referendum in Kashmir. India agreed to this (under auspices of the UN), but knowing that it would definitely lose the region if such a referendum happened, they have never held it and just stand by their ownership of this strategic region.

  13. Is that like... on Gravitation Anomaly Measured · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    ... involving a the Pioneer spacecraft.

    Is that something like a the cheat?

  14. Re:Angry people on Mozilla Releases Mozilla Sunbird 0.2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thunder ... Fire ... Sun .. all hot, loud, destructive things.

    Well what can you expect when the entire project is apparently named after a giant, fire breathing lizard?
    Maybe the next project will be named GunFox?

  15. Re:FreeCulture.org is working to improve copyright on Using Copyright To Suppress Political Speech · · Score: 1

    Colleges and universities have a huge amount of power to influence this debate

    Perhaps you mean individuals or groups in colleges or universities. The actual institutions are generally heavily funded by private corporations looking for research and patents. And so these institutes of higher learning are normally more than happy to comply with big business.
    Perhaps I'm nitpicking, but the difference between an institute, and an individual at that institute can be stark.

  16. Re:So, in other words on An Objective Review of UnixWare 7.1.4 · · Score: 1

    Isn't it more likely that SCO has just lost touch with the market,

    No no no. Not the market... it's reality, they've lost touch with reality.

  17. Re:simple on Hackers As Factory Workers? · · Score: 1

    You're pretty bang on there, and it's been happening for a while now. It all has to do with the commodification of software.
    This is the same reason software development has been outsourced to cheap labour economies. Software no longer has intrinsic value, it's no longer something you make as an expression of style or interest. Software is now a manufactured product, just like hats, shirts or shoes, so large corporations figure it makes sense to produce it just like these other commodities.
    There is no more "good" software, a shirt is a shirt, a program that performs a task is just like any other program that performs that task. It's purely a matter of which one can be produced cheaper and faster.

  18. Re:Wall street getting upset because the little on Why Wall Street Wants Google to Fail · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well seeing as how something like 20% of stocks are owned by the top 1% of the population, and 90% are owned by the top 20% of the population, you can see how those at the top might want to keep that club pretty exclusive. And that doesn't happen by people like those at Google allowing the public first shot at the IPO. Still, average people, or people in the bottom 80%, aren't going to have a whole lot of money to dump into buying up lots of Google stock from the IPO.

  19. Re:Typing IS a necessary computer skill on Is Typing a Necessary Skill? · · Score: 1

    Many, many people I know utterly disdain people who type like that, and no one I know actually encourages it.

    Where are these people and how can I convince my friends to learn from them? I'm the geekiest person among my friends and I can barely understand any of what they type when we IM, either because of atrocious grammar or terrible shorthand, lk rmvl f ll vwls. Argh!

  20. Re:Now that would be an interesting change! on We the Media · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What sense does it make to consider an audience with more education and experience than the reporter? Why on earth would those people read the article?

    Perhaps they read it to find out what's "new". That's generally what the news is supposed to talk about right? If I happen to know a lot more about a particular subject than someone else, but I've just been out of touch for the past few [hours|days|weeks] then I may not have heard something that others have.
    Disseminating the contextual relationship this new information has with what I, or an expert, already happens to know may be useful for the general public, especially if it's dumbed down. But as long as the new information is presented in a useful manner, then any expert can benefit from it as well.

  21. Re:and a horse is a horse, of course, of course... on We the Media · · Score: 1

    Not to sound too cynical or conspiracy minded, but why are either of you trusting one type of media or another. No matter how unbiased any media source claims to be, it will always be expressing a view point. This is particularly true of large corporate media, but even with virtually any type of media outlet. So why should you trust them? I watch/listen to/read the news, but I don't necessarily believe everything I read, especially when dealing with anything of substance. Unless I can independently verify stated claims through other sources, I always take everything with something ranging from a grain of salt, to a pound of salt.
    Don't just trust people... listen, digest, and think for yourself!

  22. Re:Can you imagine on Guerrilla Drive-Ins · · Score: 3, Funny

    haunted by the thought that someone, somewhere out there, might be enjoying themselves.

    Oh, they're
    working
    hard
    to
    prevent
    that
    from
    happening .

  23. Re:America is turning into a scary place! on How To Lose An Election · · Score: 1

    Actually, he was appointed chancellor in 1933. In 1934, after Hindenburg died, he united his office with the president's to make himself fuhrer; but he already had control of the country.

  24. Required Reading for US Voters on How To Lose An Election · · Score: 1, Informative

    Everyone should read the stuff about the 2000 election the "liberal media" left out. Like the fraud committed by DBT (acquired by Choicepoint) in the voter lists. Particularly intersting is the stuff by Greg Palast, author of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy". His book even has pictures of Clayton Roberts, a FLA GOP election official, running away when asked about the voter list deal.
    Electronic voting could also be handled by DBT/Choicepoint. Perhaps the US elections could be held under the review of UN officials to make sure they're free and fair...

    Links:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/newsni ght/117411 5.stm
    http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/electi on.html
    http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010205&c= 1& s=palast
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChoicePoint #Florida_V oter_File_Contract
    http://www.choicepoint.com/new s/2000election.html

  25. Re:America is turning into a scary place! on How To Lose An Election · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Uhhh, do you perhaps mean 1984?
    Though, granted, the 1930s were a scary time in history.