My reading comprehension is fine, thanks. However, the American public != the Slashdot community. As a rule, we're at least a bit more informed on things, no matter our actual political stances.
the biggest issue here is that school are allowing kids access to the freaking internet. I'm sure none of the kids there give a damn about any gay/lesbian website - they're too busy talking crap with their mates on facebook. Instead of learning stuff.
So you never once passed notes or screwed off in school? Color me impressed. And as far as Internet access go, why should we be "outraged"? If a teacher can't inspire his students or at least control his classroom, get a new teacher.
While this may be fine for you in this instance, one wonders where this sort of parenting by committee mentality ends, and what the end result will be.
Hopefully, the end result will be the kind of dialog that strengthens students' minds and critical thinking skills. And parents are still free to filter topics of information -- they can homeschool, or they can pay for a private education. Public school is free (as in beer), and it should remain as free (as in speech) as we can keep it.
Sure there are other sources for this material, but why does it have to be in a public school? Why are the public desires of parents being ignored? It's one thing to avoid a topic of discussion, and quite another to promote it, as seems to be the direction of this sort of litigation. I see no problem with a school limiting internet access to a strict subset of tools based solely upon the curriculum they teach.
If schools were to do that, it'd probably be okay. Probably. But even then, high schools teach a very wide-ranging curriculum -- everything from wood shop and driver's ed to AP History. How do you decide what to filter and what not to filter?
Here's a simple fairness test that you can apply: If a web filtering service blocks an LGBT site but allows you to view the Focus on the Family Web site, then it is essentially promoting a one-sided perspective. It's healthier to promote debate than to stifle it.
She is starting to learn about the progressive attack on normal social values at college, and the whole PC garbage.
Congratulations. You, sir, are a case in point. What are your ideas about "normal social values"? Are they that black folks should know their place, or do you limit your hatred of the other to just homosexuals?
The comment "Well written but wrong... D" is idiotic grade for a creative writing class assignment, because the teacher didn't like my daughter's "Global Warming" rebuttal.
Your daughter chose the subject, chose material that was almost certainly pseudo-scientific garbage, chose to write about it for a creative writing class and is pissed off that she got a poor grade? Boo fucking hoo. Maybe next time she should stick to peer-reviewed studies instead of assuming she's smarter than people who've spent their entire careers studying the effects of climate change.
There is no point in telling them anything other than what they believe.... Hey, that sounds JUST LIKE A RELIGION!
Except that scientists burden themselves with the process of proving their assertions. When was the last time you or anyone else empirically proved the existence of God?
So how are gay websites part of a student's education, if a teacher was found surfing any gay websites without cause they could be charged with a felony, misuse of government property. The resources the government supplies for the school are for educational purposes only, allowing the use of the resources for anything else is criminal. It would be no different then if students could take a gay class offered by the school paid for with government money.
Oh, bullshit. Are we going to charge students with a crime if they doodle on government-issued paper with government-issued pencils? As for "surfing any gay websites," who gets to draw that line? And what side of that line does the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation fall under?
The Internet is a tool, much like a hammer. You can use it for good or ill, as long as you can accept the consequences of your actions. Isn't that what we should be teaching children?
Maybe some people consider those that threaten our liberties to be our enemies...
In which case the American people themselves are guilty of "treason." Seriously, could the government have gotten away with things like warrantless wiretapping without the public's silence and implicit consent?
People love to demonize parents for not getting involved in the lives of the children but when those children are outside of their control for eight hours a day what are they to do?
They have a couple of options -- either (A) hold the schools to account for what they're doing and not doing; or (B) homeschool.
Public education should have standards on EDUCATION. What a locality wants to do beyond that should be off limits to the Feds. As long as they don't try to indoctrinate based religion/race it should be fine. The problem with education is that the system is keeping parents out and then blaming them for it.
No, the problem is that parents don't want to expose their children to any ideas contrary to the parents' beliefs. Problem is, the real world doesn't work that way, and neither do the public schools that are a reflection of the real world. It's all well and good to teach your child that homosexuality is sinful or whatever -- hey, it's your belief, and the U.S. thrives upon a wide variety of beliefs.
But what does it teach your child when you tell him that he's not allowed to even explore other beliefs and ways of looking at the world? In my view, it teaches him that you're not confident your beliefs will stand up to scrutiny, and it's going to encourage him to find out what you're trying to hide.
Have you ever taken toddlers out with you and gotten a bunch of dirty looks from all the people? It's like, you shot someone. People should like to hear children laughing and stuff and instead everyone expects them to sit in silence in public places. What kind of a screwed up society is that!
You know, I'm fine with loud children in stores, restaurants, and most other public places. But if you can't get your children to sit quietly in a movie theater for two hours or less, then take them the fuck home and buy the DVD.
Oh, bullshit. I'm not planning to do any of the above, and this Orwellian report that associates violent extremism and acts of terrorism with political beliefs chills me to the bone.
Really? It took this report to do that? Where the fuck have you been the last eight years? And why weren't Limbaugh, et al, complaining about the draconian measures when it was the Bush team in control? As much as I understand where you're coming from, I have absolutely no sympathy, because this is what the rest of the country had to put up with under the Bush administration.
You also missed the "AND" conjunction immediately before the section you quoted. That word, to me, means they're defining right-wing extremists as people who meet both groups of conditions. That's what AND means, isn't it?
Clippy: You appear to be spreading misinformation about your competitor's products. Would you like assistance?
If Google doesn't want to be excluded, provide freaking intelligent results or results that can be ensured to not have donkey goat porn, which apparently Google can't do or doesn't want to do effectively.
States are made of people, and people have views. If the U.S., for example, had a rational system of government, it would not have produced a Supreme Court "Bush vs. Gore" decision. The vote either would have been decided by a manual recount or else declared a tie and sent to the House of Representatives for a tiebreaker vote.
There's a reason why judges' decisions on cases of law are called "opinions."
Given some of the scary things coming out of the "O"ministration lately (such as the recent homeland security advisory painting people who support the right to own firearms and who object to the outrageous spending going on as "rightwing extremists" and "potential terrorists" I think I and others have a legitimate fear that we may be targeted for such spyware for political reasons.
Oh, bullshit. This report is talking about people like Eric Robert Rudolph, like Timothy McVeigh and like Eric Nichols. It defines the term "rightwing extremist" on the second page:
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and
adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups),
and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or
rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a
single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration. (Emphasis mine)
Unless you're planning or threatening to shoot people or blow up a federal building, I don't think you have to worry about this. Call me back when the Obama administration starts labeling everyone who disagrees with them on foreign policy as potential terrorists and raising the alert level anytime politically inconvenient news hit the mainstream media, the way our previous administration was so fond of doing.
That even the Pentagon is spending a lot of time playing catch-up rather than staying on top of things.
The sad thing is, it didn't have to come to this. General Chilton's sharp, but his real area of expertise is space, and his command is behind the curve on cyberspace. Two recent events demonstrate this nicely.
First, and most recently, he commented on the vulnerability of the electrical grids -- that hackers, including possibly agents of foreign governments, have been able to break into power systems that are connected to the Internet. Computer security experts outside the government -- including people on SlashDot -- brought this issue up in 2001 or 2002, if not earlier. And Washington is just now aware of the problem? Now, to be fair, they might have been aware of it for years, in which case they might have recently declassified it with the intention of getting more money from Congress to "fix" the problem.
Second, and somewhat older news, is the brouhaha that is Agent.btz -- a worm that was spread onto the Secure Internet Protocol Router Network, most likely by someone who used a USB storage device to transfer data from an infected computer connected to the NIPRNet. But for the attack to succeed, the SIPRNet computers either couldn't have had antivirus software installed or had antivirus definitions that were at least six months out of date.
Now, all this is speculation on my part -- I don't have access to any information, classified or otherwise, that could corroborate this... but given that we know how the virus spreads, it's a pretty easy conclusion to draw. But the course of events is pretty damning, given how heavily the U.S. military relies on its computer networks.
Do we need to step up security across our networks? Hells yes. But I'd rather see an Internet "militia," if you will, comprising experts from every part of the computer industry (including open source) who could collaborate with the military and with other government and non-government agencies to secure their networks from attack. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would work a lot better in my mind than trusting the security of our networks to either (A) a six-year-old checklist in the hands of an E-2 or (B) an overpaid contractor who's taking kickbacks from Microsoft, Cisco, et al, to promote one particular and proprietary solution.
In principle, the notion of securing defence networks is pretty much unobjectionable. And, if you are going to do so, doing it right the first time, rather than playing cleanup, is obviously superior.
Except that we're talking about the Pentagon. The execution will be sloppy, and it will only get worse for two or three years until it becomes such a mess that the secretary of defense personally has to step in, smack some bitches and get it cleaned up. Then it will be okay, at least for a year or two.
Think I'm kidding? Look at the whole debacle with Darleen Druyun a few years back, or the more recent mess surrounding the Air Force's contract for a new tanker. In fact, I can't think of a single DOD acquisition program that has come in on budget recently, at least not among the high-ticket items symptomatic of what Secretary Gates called "next war-itis." My impression -- as a servicemember 1,400 miles outside the Beltway -- is that the Pentagon doesn't give a shit about cost overruns because it knows Congress will gladly pony up more taxpayer money at the drop of a hat to keep the military-industrial complex running smoothly.
You see, there's a precedent for the bank bailouts we just bent over to pay for: the American public has been "bailing out" Lockheed Martin and Boeing for decades.
Likewise. That was one of the best books, if not the best, of the series. "Ashes of Victory" was pretty good, too, though I'm not sure how that book's bittersweet ending would translate to the big screen.
I'd like to see any of David Weber's space operas turned into a series.
I'd agree with this, by and large, but how would you incorporate Weber's 20-page digressions into the 500-year history of Manpower, Inc., etc.? I stopped reading "Storm from the Shadows" because Weber's en media res divergences into the Honorverse -- while fascinating -- was getting in the way of the story. They needed to be in a glossary or on a Wiki or something.
Maybe that's because they've moved out west: Nonprofit news Web site wins coveted investigative journalism award. Interestingly, the Voice of San Diego web site follows National Public Radio's basic format -- deliver a top-notch product and let people donate what they're willing to donate. Maybe the more traditional newspapers could construct a similar model... that is, if they don't mind ditching their decades-old mindsets of what a newspaper "should be" and get with the times.
tl;dr: Newspapers can either adapt or die. If they choose the latter, they deserve no pity from us.
Slashdot Mirror
My reading comprehension is fine, thanks. However, the American public != the Slashdot community. As a rule, we're at least a bit more informed on things, no matter our actual political stances.
So you never once passed notes or screwed off in school? Color me impressed. And as far as Internet access go, why should we be "outraged"? If a teacher can't inspire his students or at least control his classroom, get a new teacher.
Hopefully, the end result will be the kind of dialog that strengthens students' minds and critical thinking skills. And parents are still free to filter topics of information -- they can homeschool, or they can pay for a private education. Public school is free (as in beer), and it should remain as free (as in speech) as we can keep it.
If schools were to do that, it'd probably be okay. Probably. But even then, high schools teach a very wide-ranging curriculum -- everything from wood shop and driver's ed to AP History. How do you decide what to filter and what not to filter?
Here's a simple fairness test that you can apply: If a web filtering service blocks an LGBT site but allows you to view the Focus on the Family Web site, then it is essentially promoting a one-sided perspective. It's healthier to promote debate than to stifle it.
Congratulations. You, sir, are a case in point. What are your ideas about "normal social values"? Are they that black folks should know their place, or do you limit your hatred of the other to just homosexuals?
Your daughter chose the subject, chose material that was almost certainly pseudo-scientific garbage, chose to write about it for a creative writing class and is pissed off that she got a poor grade? Boo fucking hoo. Maybe next time she should stick to peer-reviewed studies instead of assuming she's smarter than people who've spent their entire careers studying the effects of climate change.
Except that scientists burden themselves with the process of proving their assertions. When was the last time you or anyone else empirically proved the existence of God?
Oh, bullshit. Are we going to charge students with a crime if they doodle on government-issued paper with government-issued pencils? As for "surfing any gay websites," who gets to draw that line? And what side of that line does the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation fall under?
The Internet is a tool, much like a hammer. You can use it for good or ill, as long as you can accept the consequences of your actions. Isn't that what we should be teaching children?
In which case the American people themselves are guilty of "treason." Seriously, could the government have gotten away with things like warrantless wiretapping without the public's silence and implicit consent?
Wait, is this an ad for open source software or for The Pirate Bay?
They have a couple of options -- either (A) hold the schools to account for what they're doing and not doing; or (B) homeschool.
No, the problem is that parents don't want to expose their children to any ideas contrary to the parents' beliefs. Problem is, the real world doesn't work that way, and neither do the public schools that are a reflection of the real world. It's all well and good to teach your child that homosexuality is sinful or whatever -- hey, it's your belief, and the U.S. thrives upon a wide variety of beliefs.
But what does it teach your child when you tell him that he's not allowed to even explore other beliefs and ways of looking at the world? In my view, it teaches him that you're not confident your beliefs will stand up to scrutiny, and it's going to encourage him to find out what you're trying to hide.
... effectively outlawing about a third of the population of Louisiana.
You know, I'm fine with loud children in stores, restaurants, and most other public places. But if you can't get your children to sit quietly in a movie theater for two hours or less, then take them the fuck home and buy the DVD.
Really? It took this report to do that? Where the fuck have you been the last eight years? And why weren't Limbaugh, et al, complaining about the draconian measures when it was the Bush team in control? As much as I understand where you're coming from, I have absolutely no sympathy, because this is what the rest of the country had to put up with under the Bush administration.
You also missed the "AND" conjunction immediately before the section you quoted. That word, to me, means they're defining right-wing extremists as people who meet both groups of conditions. That's what AND means, isn't it?
Clippy: You appear to be spreading misinformation about your competitor's products. Would you like assistance?
Umm ... you mean like SafeSearch?
What do my grades have to do with boobies?
States are made of people, and people have views. If the U.S., for example, had a rational system of government, it would not have produced a Supreme Court "Bush vs. Gore" decision. The vote either would have been decided by a manual recount or else declared a tie and sent to the House of Representatives for a tiebreaker vote.
There's a reason why judges' decisions on cases of law are called "opinions."
Oh, bullshit. This report is talking about people like Eric Robert Rudolph, like Timothy McVeigh and like Eric Nichols. It defines the term "rightwing extremist" on the second page:
Unless you're planning or threatening to shoot people or blow up a federal building, I don't think you have to worry about this. Call me back when the Obama administration starts labeling everyone who disagrees with them on foreign policy as potential terrorists and raising the alert level anytime politically inconvenient news hit the mainstream media, the way our previous administration was so fond of doing.
It's not the summary that's biased here; it's a fair summary of a large company showing biased behavior.
Fixed that for ya.
Or then again, it may not.
How do you know this?
The sad thing is, it didn't have to come to this. General Chilton's sharp, but his real area of expertise is space, and his command is behind the curve on cyberspace. Two recent events demonstrate this nicely.
First, and most recently, he commented on the vulnerability of the electrical grids -- that hackers, including possibly agents of foreign governments, have been able to break into power systems that are connected to the Internet. Computer security experts outside the government -- including people on SlashDot -- brought this issue up in 2001 or 2002, if not earlier. And Washington is just now aware of the problem? Now, to be fair, they might have been aware of it for years, in which case they might have recently declassified it with the intention of getting more money from Congress to "fix" the problem.
Second, and somewhat older news, is the brouhaha that is Agent.btz -- a worm that was spread onto the Secure Internet Protocol Router Network, most likely by someone who used a USB storage device to transfer data from an infected computer connected to the NIPRNet. But for the attack to succeed, the SIPRNet computers either couldn't have had antivirus software installed or had antivirus definitions that were at least six months out of date.
Now, all this is speculation on my part -- I don't have access to any information, classified or otherwise, that could corroborate this ... but given that we know how the virus spreads, it's a pretty easy conclusion to draw. But the course of events is pretty damning, given how heavily the U.S. military relies on its computer networks.
Do we need to step up security across our networks? Hells yes. But I'd rather see an Internet "militia," if you will, comprising experts from every part of the computer industry (including open source) who could collaborate with the military and with other government and non-government agencies to secure their networks from attack. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would work a lot better in my mind than trusting the security of our networks to either (A) a six-year-old checklist in the hands of an E-2 or (B) an overpaid contractor who's taking kickbacks from Microsoft, Cisco, et al, to promote one particular and proprietary solution.
Except that we're talking about the Pentagon. The execution will be sloppy, and it will only get worse for two or three years until it becomes such a mess that the secretary of defense personally has to step in, smack some bitches and get it cleaned up. Then it will be okay, at least for a year or two.
Think I'm kidding? Look at the whole debacle with Darleen Druyun a few years back, or the more recent mess surrounding the Air Force's contract for a new tanker. In fact, I can't think of a single DOD acquisition program that has come in on budget recently, at least not among the high-ticket items symptomatic of what Secretary Gates called "next war-itis." My impression -- as a servicemember 1,400 miles outside the Beltway -- is that the Pentagon doesn't give a shit about cost overruns because it knows Congress will gladly pony up more taxpayer money at the drop of a hat to keep the military-industrial complex running smoothly.
You see, there's a precedent for the bank bailouts we just bent over to pay for: the American public has been "bailing out" Lockheed Martin and Boeing for decades.
Likewise. That was one of the best books, if not the best, of the series. "Ashes of Victory" was pretty good, too, though I'm not sure how that book's bittersweet ending would translate to the big screen.
I've seen the "core set of engaged, frequent, transacting users" at one of my local newspaper Web sites. They embody solid evidence of John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.
I'd agree with this, by and large, but how would you incorporate Weber's 20-page digressions into the 500-year history of Manpower, Inc., etc.? I stopped reading "Storm from the Shadows" because Weber's en media res divergences into the Honorverse -- while fascinating -- was getting in the way of the story. They needed to be in a glossary or on a Wiki or something.
Maybe that's because they've moved out west: Nonprofit news Web site wins coveted investigative journalism award. Interestingly, the Voice of San Diego web site follows National Public Radio's basic format -- deliver a top-notch product and let people donate what they're willing to donate. Maybe the more traditional newspapers could construct a similar model ... that is, if they don't mind ditching their decades-old mindsets of what a newspaper "should be" and get with the times.
tl;dr: Newspapers can either adapt or die. If they choose the latter, they deserve no pity from us.