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User: dkleinsc

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Comments · 6,891

  1. Re:Swap for Cheney? on Cables Show US Seeks Assange · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't think that's a fair deal. Assange may have committed, at most, espionage against the US (which isn't a crime if he's not in the US, which he isn't), and sexual assault in Sweden. Dick Cheney, on the other hand, has proudly proclaimed on CNN that he committed crimes against humanity.

  2. Not even remotely close on Is Windows 8 Microsoft's Riskiest Bet? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The riskiest bet Microsoft ever made was selling IBM an operating system before they actually had one to sell. Imagine what would have happened to the fledgling Microsoft had they failed to come up with the product in time.

  3. Re:The "war" on religion on Kentucky Lawmakers Shocked To Find Evolution In Biology Tests · · Score: 4, Informative

    Also important to point out: Yes, Thomas Jefferson really supported religious freedom. As did John Adams, Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, James Madison, George Washington, Ben Franklin, and most of the rest of that crowd. They did so in part because they wanted to avoid all the religious wars which were common in Europe at the time. 20 years later, they were still writing letters to each other about how great an idea it had turned out to be, and de Tocqueville commented that it had led to a flourishing of religion in the US, which statistically speaking has continued through to the present day.

    The reason I bring this up is that David Barton and others like him have been busily rewriting American history to convince these nutjobs that the Establishment Clause should be ignored and Christianity be given a privileged place in the United States.

  4. Re:"a waterlogged U.K. pit" on Exceptionally Preserved 2,600-Year-Old Brain Found · · Score: 1

    Specifically, at 10 Downing Street.

  5. Re:Go away, you're not 21 on Project To Turn Classical Scores Into Copyright-Free Music Completed · · Score: 1

    Finding a venue that doesn't have insane age restrictions on gigs.

    Which includes, among other things, almost every venue for classical music on the planet. The Boston Symphony is not likely to turn away a 16-year-old who wants to attend their concert. In fact, they'll probably be delighted that younger people are taking an interest in what they're performing.

  6. Re:Obligatory on How Plagiarism Helped Win the American Revolution · · Score: 2

    You should of course give Tom Lehrer the credit he's due for that.

  7. Re:NOT A TROLL, SLASHMODS on Ecuador Grants Asylum To Julian Assange · · Score: 1

    It is a government, but of something not internationally recognized as a nation.

    My point is, that unlike some other crimes, terrorism is defined more by who's doing it than it is by what they're doing.

  8. Re:Both versions on Curiosity's Latest High-Res Photo Looks Like Earth · · Score: 1

    Actually, the real conspiracy is that it's extremely difficult to find tin foil these days - most stores only sell aluminium foil.

  9. Obligatory George Carlin on Dozens of Reported Plagiarism Incidents On Coursera's Free Online Courses · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a reason for this, there's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you've got... because the owners of this country don’t want that. I'm talking about the real owners now... the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

    That's obviously not true for children of wealthy families - we'll send them to the best private schools we can muster, so they'll be well-trained to be masters of the universe.

  10. Re:NOT A TROLL, SLASHMODS on Ecuador Grants Asylum To Julian Assange · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, when the UN went to officially define "terrorism", they had to change the wording because of this exact problem. It now officially states that it's "the use of violence and threats by non-state actors to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes".

    Got that? It's officially not terrorism if a government does exactly the same things as, say, Hamas does.

  11. Re:Oh, the delicious irony! on Ecuador Grants Asylum To Julian Assange · · Score: 2

    He offered to answer questions over the phone or videoconference, and was turned down. The Swedes have made it quite clear that they're demanding his physical presence.

  12. Re:Thankfully on Indian Prime Minister Formally Announces Mars Mission · · Score: 1

    Austin, we won.

  13. Re:check out the Equatorian statement: on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 1

    My basic view of the New York Times is that when it comes to many political issues, you should read it the same way the Russians used to read Pravda: The point is not to determine the truth, the point is to determine what the government wants you to think is the truth.

  14. Re:Oh, Really? on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 1

    Actually, the powers that be have wanted most people to believe 2 things about Wikileaks:
    1. There's nothing important to see here, so you shouldn't bother reading or watching anything they've put out.
    2. There's vital national secrets there, that if anyone learns about them will jeopardize national security.

    That this would seem a bit contradictory doesn't seem to bother these folks in the slightest. It's an excellent example of doublethink.

  15. The US wasn't even close to the inventor of that idea. Why do you think that modern Americans mostly speak English rather than Algonquin or Iroquois?

  16. Re:He REALLY pissed off governments.... on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 2

    I understand we were thanked by the citizens of Afghanistan in New York a few years back, in September, for a similar action.

    You understand incorrectly: we were thanked by a few of the citizens of Saudi Arabia, a couple of folks from U.A.E., and an Egyptian. They wanted to repay us for our longstanding support of the dictatorial governments in their countries, including sending our guys out to die for those dictators in 1991.

  17. Re:Keep trying till they sneak it through? on WIPO Broadcasting Treaty Back On the Table · · Score: 1

    I would say the UN-level bureaucrats are the same.

    And you would be wrong. If, for instance, Mitt Romney won in the upcoming presidential election, then the current US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, would be replaced in relatively short order. By contrast, Justice Scalia will be on the Supreme Court for as long as he is willing and able to serve.

  18. Re:The best defense against scams on Inside a Ransomware Money Machine · · Score: 1

    Sure it wasn't for Sheik Yerbouti?

  19. Re:The best defense against scams on Inside a Ransomware Money Machine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a couple more rules of thumb that help:
    1. It's much harder to cheat an honest person. For example, if you don't download kiddie porn, it's very hard to get you to pay a fine to avoid trials for doing so. The Nigerian prince scam worked only on people who were willing to help somebody commit money laundering.
    2. If it seems fishy, it's a scam. Anyone saying "money for nothing" (who's not a member of Dire Straits) should be suspect.

  20. Re:Best deterrent for this idiocy on WIPO Broadcasting Treaty Back On the Table · · Score: 2

    Treason is a very specific charge, defined in the US Constitution - it requires aiding and abetting a declared enemy of the United States. For instance, when John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan, that was capital murder, not treason. If he had done the same thing because he had received an order from Moscow, then it would have been treason.

    The other problem with your proposal is that slightly modifying the wording might legitimately make an objectionable proposal acceptable: e.g. Someone who opposed throwing kittens into the Potomac would quite possibly not object to throwing stuffed kittens into the Potomac.

  21. Re:Keep trying till they sneak it through? on WIPO Broadcasting Treaty Back On the Table · · Score: 2

    That's no more true than arguing that nobody voted for the Attorney General or Secretary of the Treasury: It's technically true, but UN representatives most definitely answer to their respective governments. For instance, if the US representatives support WIPO this time around, it's because President Obama supports WIPO. And according to the rules of the UN, if the UN supports something, that means the US has acquiesced to it.

    (The same argument is true for residents of the UK and France.)

  22. Re:Reading too much into the cover of The Economis on Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Place To Relocate? · · Score: 0

    An additional question on the "Am I ready to live in an emerging market?" quiz:

    Do you mind dodging gunfire?

    (That's not an everyday problem in all emerging markets, but it's enough of one in many of them that's it's worth mentioning, and being a relatively wealthy person is likely to make you a target.)

  23. Re:Any place except Europe and Africa on Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Place To Relocate? · · Score: 2

    Please explain exactly why Europe has a worse future than, say, South America. It has serious problems, but it also has a highly educated population, an industrialized economy, relatively stable political systems (prime ministers come and go, but governments aren't getting overthrown by force like they would in many other places), long life expectancy, and quite a lot of wealth.

    Also, I highly suspect you've never been there. If you had, you'd be pretty much crazy to prefer living in, say, the Congo.

  24. Re:Meanwhile on Forget 6-Minute Abs: Learn To Code In a Day · · Score: 1

    Don't you worry about "in 1 day" training, let me worry about blank.

  25. Re:language != logic on Forget 6-Minute Abs: Learn To Code In a Day · · Score: 3, Funny

    No problem: 50% up front.

    Hey, if you've done 6 impossible things before breakfast ...