They *did* design the API that caused the problem, but there's a lot of places that one can assign blame for bad APIs -- consider things like tmpnam() on POSIX.
Do you really think Bush is devicive enough to lie about WMD's, don't you think he's kind of an idiot? If he was 'smart' enough to lie about WMD's don't you think he would be 'smart' enough to plant them in Iraq so that he could say 'we found em!' How embarassing, and politically hurtful is it to Bush to not have found very much that's significant yet. If he was really as evil and devicisive as you thought he was, he would have planted some WMD's there to trick us.
He could have -- but if he were ever found out, the repercussions would be enormous. There's a lot of risk in trying to frame another country. I think that you'd have to be awfully desperate to try something like that. I don't think that Bush is that desperate.
The fact that he fesses up to saying there may be no WMD's there, is a hard thing to do, but there were several other reasons we went to Iraq.
Most of those reasons were given, in order, as the previous ones were shot down *after* we were in Iraq.
Your going to have to elaborate on [Cheney's hawkishness.
Take a look at this for a critical but in-depth look at Cheney's history.
I'm not sure you typed this right - you said Bush supports a Ban on weapons but Republicans are better about protecting gun rights (which usually means the ability to own guns if you want to)
No, it's right. One of the few points that I tend to agree with the Republican viewpoint on is gun rights. Unfortunately, Bush is not being traditionally Republican here, and supported the Assault Weapons Ban.
That's what the news wants you to believe, but have you been to other countries to verify this? Have you seen any unbiased polls? Or by unpopular internationally do you mean that the government of France doesn't like us.
The foreign news sources I read from news.google.com are quite critical, and the people that I speak to from other countries (including those on Slashdot) have been very critical of the United States' current stances.
So you did a poll of 1/1? Watch the news on some T.V. stations (i.e. ABC, NBC, CBS, or even CNN), and see what they call him, be a bit more scientific about it, by polling a larger gourp, then get back to me.
I don't watch TV, but I'll take a look at their news sites:
abcnews's top instance of "Bush" on their page is:
A new ABC News poll shows Sen. John Kerry gaining in personal ratings, but President Bush still maintains lead overall.
NBC doesn't seem to have online news.
CBS News's top instance of "Bush" on their page is:
Sen. John Kerry's strong debate performance has returned the presidential horserace to a dead heat and eroded some of President Bush's advantages on national security issues, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll.
I've provided several instances, with quotes, supporting my view. Would you please provide even one instance of an article on any of the mainstream news sources that refers to Bush without his title and Clinton (or Kerry, I'll go with that as well) with their title?
He's also allocated more money than any other president towards AIDS research. Has anyone mentioned that?
He did more to set back the anti-AIDS effort by trying to quash condom education in Africa, I'd say. That research might pay off in a decade -- in the meantime, there are a lot more people becoming infected.
And he is fighting the war on terrorists now so we don't have to fight it later on our own soil.
Or making it worse. Iraq hadn't supported al Qaeda. Iraq hadn't really done much of anything by way of endangering the United States. *Now* there are scads of angry Iraqis that have become potential terrorists.
I'm wondering how much a certain other Steve is regretting trying to patch things up between Apple and Microsoft and talking about his "web browser of choice".
Didn't take long for Microsoft to get around to sticking Apple, did it? Just as soon as Apple had a profitable market that Microsoft wasn't controlling.
They hate SUVs and think trees are more precious than people
Hyperbole.
smoke more pot than Tommy Chong in 1971, and mysteriously drive ancient Volkswagens that pollute worse than any modern fuel-injected vehicle.
Kerry as as anti-drug as Bush. Where did you get this from?
Usually pacifist, but only because their chronic protein deficiency from lack of meat consumption makes them physically weak; not, as some think, because of a well-conceived ethical philosophy.
Emotional argument; trying to portray someone with a position as the "weak members of a pack" whom people shouldn't associate with.
Ironically enough, the only palid vegetarian I know is a strong Libertarian -- not Democrat.
Earth Liberation Fronters : They're like nature freaks, but violent. They hate corporations as much as they hate genetically modified corn. Their scaremongering is usually relegated to city street corners where they attempt to get you to sign their petition, but they look utterly confused when you question how banning bumper crops of genetically modified produce could possibly help the millions starving annually in Africa due to famines.
Anti-genetically enhanced organism people do not, as far as I know, vote particularly one way or another. Neither party has taken genetic engineering on as a major issue. If anything, Bush has pushed to stop stem cell research, so I'd say that Bush is more anti-genetic work than Kerry.
Moral Equivocaters : These people blame the US for terrorism, and consider US responses to terrorism the moral equivalent of the 9/11 attacks.
Hyperbole. The US responses can be very bad without being equivalent.
Usually (and quite conveniently) they never blame themselves, or their own political heroes: just Republicans. These people are plagued by guilt at living in a country that is a superpower, and feel compelled to side with the underdog at all times, even when the underdog murders innocent people intentionally.
What, the 11K Iraqis we've killed thus far contain an awful lot of civilians -- more than the number of American citizens killed by the non-Iraq-related al Qaeda on 9/11.
Internet Revolutionaries : They know just enough about using a computer and a web browser to read (and believe) 99% of what they see on the Internet. They do not read print media (like newspapers), and think that they get a balanced perspective by only clicking on the stories they want to read. The groups they form online help them to feel like they're a part of something special, when in reality they are simply hiding from reality by clinging to cyberspace. They would never attempt to argue in person like they do online, because they actually aren't very knowledgeable: they rely entirely on Google to "back up" their pathological reasoning.
Yup. But I don't think that this is associated with any party. There are don't-trust-the-latest-liberal-conspiracy websites as well.
Social Libertines : Paranoid that their way of life will be prosecuted by John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act, they spread more FUD to derail legitimate law enforcement than actual terrorists themselves. This paranoia is most likely the result of illegal activity and the fear of being caught, e.g. closet pedophilia or habitual drug use/sales. They are convinced that John Ashcroft is more concerned about their silly little antics than about world terrorism. If the weed smoke were to ever settle down, they might see reality.
Whether or not Ashcroft is "more interested" in me than terrorists is besides the point -- the fact that he's interested at *all* is what disturbs me. I have pretty serious issues with what Ashcroft is doing. Yes, some of it is because I might be impacted by laws -- I like to hack on P2P software. I like having end-to-end unbreakable encryption if I choose to use it. I find the covering of the statue of Justice an appalling sign, a case of a religious extremist plac
Seriously, I dislike Bush. A lot. I think that Kerry is infinitely more qualified for the Presidency. I think that Bush supporters tend to spread around more bullshit than Kerry supporters. However, this post was at least as good as the parent, and deserved to be modded up as Funny if nothing else, not modded down.
Those with a real political position can accept criticism (and explain why they do things). If there is harsh criticism in this post, you could either answer the criticism or mod it down. Answer the criticism instead.
He is a pompous assclown who must think people come to slashdot for Michael Sims' opinions only.
Personally, I think that it's even more ridiculous that some people come just to post in articles that they don't like that "Michael Simms is a pompous assclown".
Liberal NYT "spin"? Who *do* you consider unbiased? Ann Coulter? Michelle Malkin?
If it seems that you're being attacked on all sides by "liberal media" and "liberal judges", have you ever considered that perhaps they are neutral and you have a conservative bias?
Not only did Slashdot run the *exact* item that you're discussing -- and it showed up on *my* front page, not sure what variables might not make it appear on yours -- but I posted to the story.
I agree that Slashdot has bias different from the mainstream public, but i'd say that it's bias caused by a disproportionate number of educated, professional users.
#1 - Iraq is a strategic location flanking Iran on the west. We are also in Afghanistan flaking Iran on the east. WMD's were just a floater to get us into Iraq and prepare for the next targets. The Pentagon and CIA know much more than we do and know that all of our media is watched by the enemies. So due to national security, they cannot disclose all information.
So if Kerry wins the election, gets into the White House, appoints non-Republican Supreme Court justices, and makes a bunch of decisions that you don't agree with and appear corrupt and ill-thought-out to you given your available information, will you still stick to your "the government knows better what's good for me than I do" line?
#2 - Peak Oil (and natural gas). Just Google for Peak Oil. China is now the #2 importer of oil behind the US. Our entire economy and way of living depends on oil. There is no way at all we can just switch to solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power in a decade. Further, we use natural gas for fertilizers for food. We use oil to power the machines which harvest and transport food. Without oil, the US economy and population will die. So you liberals can cry me a farking river about Iraq. We are better off now and in the future by securing oil in the Middle East. That is, unless you want to starve and die.
That is a slippery slope fallacy, and one of the most extreme I've ever seen. Vote for Bush -- or *starve and die*!
#3 - US Dollar. If oil is allowed to trade in a currency other than the US Dollar such as the Euro or Gold, the US Dollar will collapse, our economy will grind to a halt, and we will be in a Greater Depression. We must ensure that oil transactions will continue to take place in the US Dollar currency.
See above. Seriously, where do you *get* this stuff? This is absurd! The strength of a currency depends on the stability of the government backing it and the inflation rate. How is the US keeping fingers in the Middle East particularly important to either?
#1 - I really like this guy. He's a no-nonsense guy who won't take BS from anyone. Just watch the VP debate on Tuesday. Cheney is a great business leader and enhances the Bush ticket.
He's also corrupt, a hawk, pushes for secrecy and lack of oversight, has lied about his corporate ties and has had his fingers in Middle East wars for too long.
#1 - Clinton's "Assault" Weapon Control Act expired! You liberals can take my guns from my cold, dead hands. If you really want it, I'll give it to you, one bullet at a time.
Ah, yes. The act that Bush said he supported? That one?
It's either us or them, kill or be killed.
The hell it is. When Saddam Hussein represents a greater risk to you of anything other than paying a quarter cent more a gallon at the gas pump, *then* you can talk.
We were attacked on 9/11 and now it's time to kill everyone involved.
Have you ever considered the possibility that maybe the mainstream media is *neutral* and that the sources that you're comparing them to -- Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh -- are just *very* Republican?
So, Bush lied to the american public in order to get us to to go war. Why would he do that? For political advantage? That's maybe a plausible theory, so let's think about it. He got a rise in the polls after septh 11th, so maybe he wanted to take us to war in Iraq as a way to keep his approval numbers up, and maybe just line the pockets of his corporate cronies.
I'm going to go more with "line the pockets" than "keep approval ratings up". It'd be eaiser to keep manufacturing bogus terrorist threats to keep approval ratings high.
What about catching Bin Laden? Wouldn't catching him bring bush a massive boost in the polls? If you're after poll boosts, going into iraq is a decent way to do it, but why not put all of your effort into catching that guy alive? You could drag his trial out for months, and then hang him for 3,000 counts of murder during the democratic national convention.
Because (a) the man could be dead and thus a lost cause, and (b) bin Laden isn't financially interesting to energy companies.
Timing: If you're going to war in Iraq, when's the best time to do it? We know it'll be a relatively quick victory. The first gulf war only lasted a hundred days, so even if you guess it'll take you three times as long, you're still under a year.
Take the line-the-pockets approach. You have to win the war, stabilize the government, and put in place administrators that will do what *you* want them to do. Bush needs that time.
WMD: Why would you make up a reason for going to war? It's not as if your republican supporters wouldn't back you all the way, regardless of your reasoning for going to war.
Not *all* Republicans are hawks.
All you've got to do is say that we've given saddam enough time to abide by his resolutions, and he's not cooperating. Your loyalists will support you no matter what, those damned liberals will oppose you no matter what, and anyone dumb enough to support the president just because we're currently at war isn't going to need much convincing. Inventing a reason to go to war only invites intense criticism when it's found out that the reason is completely false.
If it's a matter of proving intent, you can provide strong evidence, but it's a darn hard thing to prove that someone deliberately lied. And clearly the support *wasn't* there -- Iraq was pretty controversial from the start. WMD -- scare the people -- is a great tool.
Oil: Going to war will create situations where you can award lucrative government contracts to fellow oil cronies, and maybe you'll see a bit of money yourself, right? If that were the case, why aren't we taking a lot more of Iraq's oil?
Because the war and subsequent anti-occupation sabotage has damaged Iraqs oil infrastructure. Bush might want Iraq oil (I'd imagine he does what with oil prices and having to call in favors to get Saudi Arabia to increase production to try to offset things), but he simply can't have it.
You're telling me there isn't one document anywhere, one shred of evidence that shows bush intentionally mislead the public?
Don't forget the uranium bits. But, seriously, why would there be one? Do you expect Bush to keep a diary and write "Today I deliberately lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to try to garner support for invading Iraq?" Of course not.
He stopped going after Bin Laden because Bin Laden was no longer a threat once most of his operatives were destroyed. Capturing him is like cutting off the head of a corpse - it's a nice symbolic gesture, but you've got other things to worry about. Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are still reasonably strong and pose a threat; going after bin laden is a waste of time when there are others who pose a real danger. The only benefit to bush would have been political.
Except that this doesn't jibe with Bush's statements about al Qaeda still being a threat.
How many people cared about politics or debated gun rights issues before Michael Moore started bringing up points about them?
I'll agree that Moore is a propagandist, but he *definitely* winds up, directly or indirectly, improving public awareness and debate over important national issues.
When you people understand - he's not a scoundrel like Clinton, he's honestly doing the right things for the right reasons!
Clinton lied because he thought he could keep his wife from finding out that another woman at the office had given him a blowjob. Total damage: possibly set a bad example.
Bush lied because he didn't think he'd have enough support for Iraq otherwise and likely because he has strong oil ties. Total damage: loss of positive foreign regard for the United States, huge military spending, civilian lives in Iraq and the United States, an Iraq in shambles, more angry al Qaeda recruits than ever -- and oil prices *higher* than ever.
Why does this make Clinton a scoundrel and Bush honest? I just can't follow the reasoning.
Look I'd like to vote for someone better than Bush, but I don't think Kerry is the man, if you think Bush lies, guess what, so does Kerry.
Oh, absolutely. I doubt that there's a potential presidential candidate that absolutely refrains from lying.
However, Bush is in hot water not for lying (Clinton, for instance, lied about his sex life and the public didn't care) but for lying to convince the public that we needed to declare war on Iraq. Clinton's lie maybe set a bad example, but that's about it -- Bush's had a lot of lives, international relations, and money at stake.
People are attracted to voting for Bush because we always know where he stands, and yes I do want him to send the military to kill terrorists and terrorist networks (and yes I do know somewhat of the sacrifice military people make, my dad was in the military, and was half paralyzed and half brain dead from the time I was 7 due to his injuries in the service).
Do you? What's Bush's timeline for Iraq over the next four years? What, in detail, does he intend to do with alternative fuel research? I don't know, because Bush hasn't announced anything. I don't really know much about Bush's specifics. I know that:
* His VP is very hawkish.
* Bush is willing to invade and occupy countries for reasons that I do not consider sufficient to invade and occupy countries.
* Bush backs changing the Constitution to ban gay/lesbian marriage. I don't like this.
* Bush has pushed NASA into reallocating a huge amount of their funds towards a manned Mars mission, not something that I view as worthwhile as other projects that were replaced.
* Bush has said that he supports the Assault Weapon Ban (one of the few reasons I could see voting for Bush instead of Kerry would be that Republicans tend to be better about protecting gun rights).
* Bush has made my nation very unpopular internationally over the span of his presidency.
* Ashcroft is Bush's appointed AG -- and Ashcroft pushes his conservative religious values on the nation, is an advocate of monitoring and eliminating oversight of the Department of Justice.
Does anyone remember September 11th? Does anyone remember Osama declaring war on the U.S.? Does anyone remember the feelings they had that day, or the day after 9/11,... the feelings that justice must be done for these several thousand people that died, and we must prevent it from happening again. Look, Kerry voted for this war too, he supported it. Bush just stuck to his guns, I know where he stands and that's why I'm voting for him.
That many people die each week from smoking or each month from car crashes. Both problems cause much more economic on a *recurring*, *yearly* basis. Yet most of Bush's presidency has been spent prioritizing the "War on Terror" over everything else, and allocating my money to fight this "War on Terror". Said "War on Terror" could be taken directly from 1984. I don't like it.
Even if there weren't WMD's, remember Saddam was a tyrant dictator that killed thousands of his own people with WMD's and then threw them in mass graves.
He killed those people *after* we encouraged them to rise up against him. It's a little difficult to call him out on that point. Besides -- I expect that with the proper media coverage, the skeletons in just about anyone's closet can be made pretty awful -- I don't want a leader to declare war and try justifying it afterwards on very flimy grounds. By this logic, if we find Bush's grounds for war to be legitimate, we also need to allow him to declare war on a large number of other regimes around the world, and try to use military force to cause change. I think that this is a bad idea -- I don't accept the "well, Saddam was a nasty guy" justification. Besides, if Saddam is *that* bad, don't you think it'd be better for the Iraqis to rise up and remove him, rather than us? Look at our Revolutionary War. We had enough people get fed up with the leaders
While I agree with you that software patents are a terribly bad idea, I have to call you on one of your arguments:
An example: Controller software managing transformation and transmission of data structures.
That is almost certainly the title of a patent. The title means effectively nothing from a legal standpoint. Ignore it and the abstract and go straight to the claims. No claim will look like the example you listed.
I appreciate very much the work that DeCSS has done. Without the work from folks who were willing to move around in a legal gray area, DVDs would be a closed system, and I probably wouldn't be able to play my DVDs on my computer (which runs Linux) and *certainly* wouldn't be able to play DVDs with open source software on same.
I appreciate what P2P does. P2P is a new and important economic infrastructure that allows costs of distribution to (a) be low due to efficient use of resources, (b) be spread out across all the content consumers. This lets me give a piece of content that I've created to the world -- look at the Red vs Blue people, or Linux distributions, and so forth. Sure, pirates use it. There's a *big demand* for free (if illegal) content. P2P filesharing is nothing more than another data transfer system. It just happens to be used for copyright infringement a lot because it's so effective at letting people inexpensively spread content -- which is an important characteristic of a system in which pirates are not making money off of their work.
To be fair -- PJ originally had some of the most fair and objective content on the Internet. As she's gotten tied up in the swing of the open source movement, she's gotten much less objective. Still worth reading, but not as good as "old Groklaw", IMHO.
One thing: in the current state of the software world, change is much more rapid than almost any other fields. The length of patents is quite high.
Other issues:
* With software, systems are generally quite complex and require effort to re-implement. Consider your "Method to attach spring to washer" -- if you *didn't* have a patent, it'd take your competitor five minutes to figure out what to do by glancing at your system. In software, just because you have the latest version of a 3d rendering package doesn't mean that you can reproduce the features. Since the reimplementation cost is relatively high, patents are less crucial for software than for other fields.
* The bogus patent boom has coincided with the tech boom. Might just be unfortunate coincidence, might be a serious problem.
* The barrier to entry to designing and producing professional-class software is much lower than to designing and manufacturing new professional-class mechanical systems. You need a computer and a compiler versus machine tools, a CAD system, materials knowledge, and so forth. It's harder to regulate and monitor the software world.
I think that you're right -- that patents in general have some problems -- but it's a lot easier to try to loosen patents WRT software, especially since originally most countries disallowed patenting of algorithms. One thing at a time.
Lucasarts is very cool when it comes to their old games -- they continue to offer value-priced bundles of their old games on CD from their website, and you can play them anew on all platforms using ScummVM. And they're still as good as they day they were released -- these aren't games that depend much on the state-of-the-art in technology.
I could try to write something but I'm too much of a n00b for such a project:(
Where do you think that the people that you consider to "know what they're doing" became not new?
Seriously, read some post-mortems of game development. It's very common for people not to know at all what they're going to need to do to solve a particular problem and just have to learn what to do as things move along.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft didn't write the software.
They *did* design the API that caused the problem, but there's a lot of places that one can assign blame for bad APIs -- consider things like tmpnam() on POSIX.
Do you really think Bush is devicive enough to lie about WMD's, don't you think he's kind of an idiot? If he was 'smart' enough to lie about WMD's don't you think he would be 'smart' enough to plant them in Iraq so that he could say 'we found em!' How embarassing, and politically hurtful is it to Bush to not have found very much that's significant yet. If he was really as evil and devicisive as you thought he was, he would have planted some WMD's there to trick us.
He could have -- but if he were ever found out, the repercussions would be enormous. There's a lot of risk in trying to frame another country. I think that you'd have to be awfully desperate to try something like that. I don't think that Bush is that desperate.
The fact that he fesses up to saying there may be no WMD's there, is a hard thing to do, but there were several other reasons we went to Iraq.
Most of those reasons were given, in order, as the previous ones were shot down *after* we were in Iraq.
Your going to have to elaborate on [Cheney's hawkishness.
Take a look at this for a critical but in-depth look at Cheney's history.
I'm not sure you typed this right - you said Bush supports a Ban on weapons but Republicans are better about protecting gun rights (which usually means the ability to own guns if you want to)
No, it's right. One of the few points that I tend to agree with the Republican viewpoint on is gun rights. Unfortunately, Bush is not being traditionally Republican here, and supported the Assault Weapons Ban.
That's what the news wants you to believe, but have you been to other countries to verify this? Have you seen any unbiased polls? Or by unpopular internationally do you mean that the government of France doesn't like us.
The foreign news sources I read from news.google.com are quite critical, and the people that I speak to from other countries (including those on Slashdot) have been very critical of the United States' current stances.
So you did a poll of 1/1? Watch the news on some T.V. stations (i.e. ABC, NBC, CBS, or even CNN), and see what they call him, be a bit more scientific about it, by polling a larger gourp, then get back to me.
I don't watch TV, but I'll take a look at their news sites:
abcnews's top instance of "Bush" on their page is:
A new ABC News poll shows Sen. John Kerry gaining in personal ratings, but President Bush still maintains lead overall.
NBC doesn't seem to have online news.
CBS News's top instance of "Bush" on their page is:
Sen. John Kerry's strong debate performance has returned the presidential horserace to a dead heat and eroded some of President Bush's advantages on national security issues, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll.
I've provided several instances, with quotes, supporting my view. Would you please provide even one instance of an article on any of the mainstream news sources that refers to Bush without his title and Clinton (or Kerry, I'll go with that as well) with their title?
He's also allocated more money than any other president towards AIDS research. Has anyone mentioned that?
He did more to set back the anti-AIDS effort by trying to quash condom education in Africa, I'd say. That research might pay off in a decade -- in the meantime, there are a lot more people becoming infected.
And he is fighting the war on terrorists now so we don't have to fight it later on our own soil.
Or making it worse. Iraq hadn't supported al Qaeda. Iraq hadn't really done much of anything by way of endangering the United States. *Now* there are scads of angry Iraqis that have become potential terrorists.
I'm wondering how much a certain other Steve is regretting trying to patch things up between Apple and Microsoft and talking about his "web browser of choice".
Didn't take long for Microsoft to get around to sticking Apple, did it? Just as soon as Apple had a profitable market that Microsoft wasn't controlling.
What, that he's interested in money? Sure, he's a commercial director. That doesn't invalidate his value.
What? No. Look, Iraq was thumbing it's nose at the UN. How many resolutions?
We (US) thumbed our nose at the UN too. How are we better?
I really hate to say this, but Americans might be better off if the *British* were the ones doing the voting for the US President.
They hate SUVs and think trees are more precious than people
Hyperbole.
smoke more pot than Tommy Chong in 1971, and mysteriously drive ancient Volkswagens that pollute worse than any modern fuel-injected vehicle.
Kerry as as anti-drug as Bush. Where did you get this from?
Usually pacifist, but only because their chronic protein deficiency from lack of meat consumption makes them physically weak; not, as some think, because of a well-conceived ethical philosophy.
Emotional argument; trying to portray someone with a position as the "weak members of a pack" whom people shouldn't associate with.
Ironically enough, the only palid vegetarian I know is a strong Libertarian -- not Democrat.
Earth Liberation Fronters : They're like nature freaks, but violent. They hate corporations as much as they hate genetically modified corn. Their scaremongering is usually relegated to city street corners where they attempt to get you to sign their petition, but they look utterly confused when you question how banning bumper crops of genetically modified produce could possibly help the millions starving annually in Africa due to famines.
Anti-genetically enhanced organism people do not, as far as I know, vote particularly one way or another. Neither party has taken genetic engineering on as a major issue. If anything, Bush has pushed to stop stem cell research, so I'd say that Bush is more anti-genetic work than Kerry.
Moral Equivocaters : These people blame the US for terrorism, and consider US responses to terrorism the moral equivalent of the 9/11 attacks.
Hyperbole. The US responses can be very bad without being equivalent.
Usually (and quite conveniently) they never blame themselves, or their own political heroes: just Republicans. These people are plagued by guilt at living in a country that is a superpower, and feel compelled to side with the underdog at all times, even when the underdog murders innocent people intentionally.
What, the 11K Iraqis we've killed thus far contain an awful lot of civilians -- more than the number of American citizens killed by the non-Iraq-related al Qaeda on 9/11.
Internet Revolutionaries : They know just enough about using a computer and a web browser to read (and believe) 99% of what they see on the Internet. They do not read print media (like newspapers), and think that they get a balanced perspective by only clicking on the stories they want to read. The groups they form online help them to feel like they're a part of something special, when in reality they are simply hiding from reality by clinging to cyberspace. They would never attempt to argue in person like they do online, because they actually aren't very knowledgeable: they rely entirely on Google to "back up" their pathological reasoning.
Yup. But I don't think that this is associated with any party. There are don't-trust-the-latest-liberal-conspiracy websites as well.
Social Libertines : Paranoid that their way of life will be prosecuted by John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act, they spread more FUD to derail legitimate law enforcement than actual terrorists themselves. This paranoia is most likely the result of illegal activity and the fear of being caught, e.g. closet pedophilia or habitual drug use/sales. They are convinced that John Ashcroft is more concerned about their silly little antics than about world terrorism. If the weed smoke were to ever settle down, they might see reality.
Whether or not Ashcroft is "more interested" in me than terrorists is besides the point -- the fact that he's interested at *all* is what disturbs me. I have pretty serious issues with what Ashcroft is doing. Yes, some of it is because I might be impacted by laws -- I like to hack on P2P software. I like having end-to-end unbreakable encryption if I choose to use it. I find the covering of the statue of Justice an appalling sign, a case of a religious extremist plac
Seriously, I dislike Bush. A lot. I think that Kerry is infinitely more qualified for the Presidency. I think that Bush supporters tend to spread around more bullshit than Kerry supporters. However, this post was at least as good as the parent, and deserved to be modded up as Funny if nothing else, not modded down.
Those with a real political position can accept criticism (and explain why they do things). If there is harsh criticism in this post, you could either answer the criticism or mod it down. Answer the criticism instead.
He is a pompous assclown who must think people come to slashdot for Michael Sims' opinions only.
Personally, I think that it's even more ridiculous that some people come just to post in articles that they don't like that "Michael Simms is a pompous assclown".
Liberal NYT "spin"? Who *do* you consider unbiased? Ann Coulter? Michelle Malkin?
If it seems that you're being attacked on all sides by "liberal media" and "liberal judges", have you ever considered that perhaps they are neutral and you have a conservative bias?
Not only did Slashdot run the *exact* item that you're discussing -- and it showed up on *my* front page, not sure what variables might not make it appear on yours -- but I posted to the story.
I agree that Slashdot has bias different from the mainstream public, but i'd say that it's bias caused by a disproportionate number of educated, professional users.
"You are either with us, or against us."
Have you ever read 1984? I admit that I'm kind of curious.
#1 - Iraq is a strategic location flanking Iran on the west. We are also in Afghanistan flaking Iran on the east. WMD's were just a floater to get us into Iraq and prepare for the next targets. The Pentagon and CIA know much more than we do and know that all of our media is watched by the enemies. So due to national security, they cannot disclose all information.
So if Kerry wins the election, gets into the White House, appoints non-Republican Supreme Court justices, and makes a bunch of decisions that you don't agree with and appear corrupt and ill-thought-out to you given your available information, will you still stick to your "the government knows better what's good for me than I do" line?
#2 - Peak Oil (and natural gas). Just Google for Peak Oil. China is now the #2 importer of oil behind the US. Our entire economy and way of living depends on oil. There is no way at all we can just switch to solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power in a decade. Further, we use natural gas for fertilizers for food. We use oil to power the machines which harvest and transport food. Without oil, the US economy and population will die. So you liberals can cry me a farking river about Iraq. We are better off now and in the future by securing oil in the Middle East. That is, unless you want to starve and die.
That is a slippery slope fallacy, and one of the most extreme I've ever seen. Vote for Bush -- or *starve and die*!
#3 - US Dollar. If oil is allowed to trade in a currency other than the US Dollar such as the Euro or Gold, the US Dollar will collapse, our economy will grind to a halt, and we will be in a Greater Depression. We must ensure that oil transactions will continue to take place in the US Dollar currency.
See above. Seriously, where do you *get* this stuff? This is absurd! The strength of a currency depends on the stability of the government backing it and the inflation rate. How is the US keeping fingers in the Middle East particularly important to either?
#1 - I really like this guy. He's a no-nonsense guy who won't take BS from anyone. Just watch the VP debate on Tuesday. Cheney is a great business leader and enhances the Bush ticket.
He's also corrupt, a hawk, pushes for secrecy and lack of oversight, has lied about his corporate ties and has had his fingers in Middle East wars for too long.
#1 - Clinton's "Assault" Weapon Control Act expired! You liberals can take my guns from my cold, dead hands. If you really want it, I'll give it to you, one bullet at a time.
Ah, yes. The act that Bush said he supported? That one?
It's either us or them, kill or be killed.
The hell it is. When Saddam Hussein represents a greater risk to you of anything other than paying a quarter cent more a gallon at the gas pump, *then* you can talk.
We were attacked on 9/11 and now it's time to kill everyone involved.
And, apparently, Iraq, just for the hell of it?
They are just another part of the liberal media.
Have you ever considered the possibility that maybe the mainstream media is *neutral* and that the sources that you're comparing them to -- Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh -- are just *very* Republican?
So, Bush lied to the american public in order to get us to to go war. Why would he do that? For political advantage? That's maybe a plausible theory, so let's think about it. He got a rise in the polls after septh 11th, so maybe he wanted to take us to war in Iraq as a way to keep his approval numbers up, and maybe just line the pockets of his corporate cronies.
I'm going to go more with "line the pockets" than "keep approval ratings up". It'd be eaiser to keep manufacturing bogus terrorist threats to keep approval ratings high.
What about catching Bin Laden? Wouldn't catching him bring bush a massive boost in the polls? If you're after poll boosts, going into iraq is a decent way to do it, but why not put all of your effort into catching that guy alive? You could drag his trial out for months, and then hang him for 3,000 counts of murder during the democratic national convention.
Because (a) the man could be dead and thus a lost cause, and (b) bin Laden isn't financially interesting to energy companies.
Timing: If you're going to war in Iraq, when's the best time to do it? We know it'll be a relatively quick victory. The first gulf war only lasted a hundred days, so even if you guess it'll take you three times as long, you're still under a year.
Take the line-the-pockets approach. You have to win the war, stabilize the government, and put in place administrators that will do what *you* want them to do. Bush needs that time.
WMD: Why would you make up a reason for going to war? It's not as if your republican supporters wouldn't back you all the way, regardless of your reasoning for going to war.
Not *all* Republicans are hawks.
All you've got to do is say that we've given saddam enough time to abide by his resolutions, and he's not cooperating. Your loyalists will support you no matter what, those damned liberals will oppose you no matter what, and anyone dumb enough to support the president just because we're currently at war isn't going to need much convincing. Inventing a reason to go to war only invites intense criticism when it's found out that the reason is completely false.
If it's a matter of proving intent, you can provide strong evidence, but it's a darn hard thing to prove that someone deliberately lied. And clearly the support *wasn't* there -- Iraq was pretty controversial from the start. WMD -- scare the people -- is a great tool.
Oil: Going to war will create situations where you can award lucrative government contracts to fellow oil cronies, and maybe you'll see a bit of money yourself, right? If that were the case, why aren't we taking a lot more of Iraq's oil?
Because the war and subsequent anti-occupation sabotage has damaged Iraqs oil infrastructure. Bush might want Iraq oil (I'd imagine he does what with oil prices and having to call in favors to get Saudi Arabia to increase production to try to offset things), but he simply can't have it.
You're telling me there isn't one document anywhere, one shred of evidence that shows bush intentionally mislead the public?
Don't forget the uranium bits. But, seriously, why would there be one? Do you expect Bush to keep a diary and write "Today I deliberately lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to try to garner support for invading Iraq?" Of course not.
He stopped going after Bin Laden because Bin Laden was no longer a threat once most of his operatives were destroyed. Capturing him is like cutting off the head of a corpse - it's a nice symbolic gesture, but you've got other things to worry about. Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are still reasonably strong and pose a threat; going after bin laden is a waste of time when there are others who pose a real danger. The only benefit to bush would have been political.
Except that this doesn't jibe with Bush's statements about al Qaeda still being a threat.
He went to war when he did because he feared that
How many people cared about politics or debated gun rights issues before Michael Moore started bringing up points about them?
I'll agree that Moore is a propagandist, but he *definitely* winds up, directly or indirectly, improving public awareness and debate over important national issues.
When you people understand - he's not a scoundrel like Clinton, he's honestly doing the right things for the right reasons!
Clinton lied because he thought he could keep his wife from finding out that another woman at the office had given him a blowjob. Total damage: possibly set a bad example.
Bush lied because he didn't think he'd have enough support for Iraq otherwise and likely because he has strong oil ties. Total damage: loss of positive foreign regard for the United States, huge military spending, civilian lives in Iraq and the United States, an Iraq in shambles, more angry al Qaeda recruits than ever -- and oil prices *higher* than ever.
Why does this make Clinton a scoundrel and Bush honest? I just can't follow the reasoning.
Look I'd like to vote for someone better than Bush, but I don't think Kerry is the man, if you think Bush lies, guess what, so does Kerry.
Oh, absolutely. I doubt that there's a potential presidential candidate that absolutely refrains from lying.
However, Bush is in hot water not for lying (Clinton, for instance, lied about his sex life and the public didn't care) but for lying to convince the public that we needed to declare war on Iraq. Clinton's lie maybe set a bad example, but that's about it -- Bush's had a lot of lives, international relations, and money at stake.
People are attracted to voting for Bush because we always know where he stands, and yes I do want him to send the military to kill terrorists and terrorist networks (and yes I do know somewhat of the sacrifice military people make, my dad was in the military, and was half paralyzed and half brain dead from the time I was 7 due to his injuries in the service).
Do you? What's Bush's timeline for Iraq over the next four years? What, in detail, does he intend to do with alternative fuel research? I don't know, because Bush hasn't announced anything. I don't really know much about Bush's specifics. I know that:
* His VP is very hawkish.
* Bush is willing to invade and occupy countries for reasons that I do not consider sufficient to invade and occupy countries.
* Bush backs changing the Constitution to ban gay/lesbian marriage. I don't like this.
* Bush has pushed NASA into reallocating a huge amount of their funds towards a manned Mars mission, not something that I view as worthwhile as other projects that were replaced.
* Bush has said that he supports the Assault Weapon Ban (one of the few reasons I could see voting for Bush instead of Kerry would be that Republicans tend to be better about protecting gun rights).
* Bush has made my nation very unpopular internationally over the span of his presidency.
* Ashcroft is Bush's appointed AG -- and Ashcroft pushes his conservative religious values on the nation, is an advocate of monitoring and eliminating oversight of the Department of Justice.
Does anyone remember September 11th? Does anyone remember Osama declaring war on the U.S.? Does anyone remember the feelings they had that day, or the day after 9/11,... the feelings that justice must be done for these several thousand people that died, and we must prevent it from happening again. Look, Kerry voted for this war too, he supported it. Bush just stuck to his guns, I know where he stands and that's why I'm voting for him.
That many people die each week from smoking or each month from car crashes. Both problems cause much more economic on a *recurring*, *yearly* basis. Yet most of Bush's presidency has been spent prioritizing the "War on Terror" over everything else, and allocating my money to fight this "War on Terror". Said "War on Terror" could be taken directly from 1984. I don't like it.
Even if there weren't WMD's, remember Saddam was a tyrant dictator that killed thousands of his own people with WMD's and then threw them in mass graves.
He killed those people *after* we encouraged them to rise up against him. It's a little difficult to call him out on that point. Besides -- I expect that with the proper media coverage, the skeletons in just about anyone's closet can be made pretty awful -- I don't want a leader to declare war and try justifying it afterwards on very flimy grounds. By this logic, if we find Bush's grounds for war to be legitimate, we also need to allow him to declare war on a large number of other regimes around the world, and try to use military force to cause change. I think that this is a bad idea -- I don't accept the "well, Saddam was a nasty guy" justification. Besides, if Saddam is *that* bad, don't you think it'd be better for the Iraqis to rise up and remove him, rather than us? Look at our Revolutionary War. We had enough people get fed up with the leaders
There are also soldiers who rape women. Do you blame all soldiers for this?
Nicely put.
While I agree with you that software patents are a terribly bad idea, I have to call you on one of your arguments:
An example:
Controller software managing transformation and transmission of data structures.
That is almost certainly the title of a patent. The title means effectively nothing from a legal standpoint. Ignore it and the abstract and go straight to the claims. No claim will look like the example you listed.
Hold on there a moment, sailor.
I appreciate very much the work that DeCSS has done. Without the work from folks who were willing to move around in a legal gray area, DVDs would be a closed system, and I probably wouldn't be able to play my DVDs on my computer (which runs Linux) and *certainly* wouldn't be able to play DVDs with open source software on same.
I appreciate what P2P does. P2P is a new and important economic infrastructure that allows costs of distribution to (a) be low due to efficient use of resources, (b) be spread out across all the content consumers. This lets me give a piece of content that I've created to the world -- look at the Red vs Blue people, or Linux distributions, and so forth. Sure, pirates use it. There's a *big demand* for free (if illegal) content. P2P filesharing is nothing more than another data transfer system. It just happens to be used for copyright infringement a lot because it's so effective at letting people inexpensively spread content -- which is an important characteristic of a system in which pirates are not making money off of their work.
To be fair -- PJ originally had some of the most fair and objective content on the Internet. As she's gotten tied up in the swing of the open source movement, she's gotten much less objective. Still worth reading, but not as good as "old Groklaw", IMHO.
One thing: in the current state of the software world, change is much more rapid than almost any other fields. The length of patents is quite high.
Other issues:
* With software, systems are generally quite complex and require effort to re-implement. Consider your "Method to attach spring to washer" -- if you *didn't* have a patent, it'd take your competitor five minutes to figure out what to do by glancing at your system. In software, just because you have the latest version of a 3d rendering package doesn't mean that you can reproduce the features. Since the reimplementation cost is relatively high, patents are less crucial for software than for other fields.
* The bogus patent boom has coincided with the tech boom. Might just be unfortunate coincidence, might be a serious problem.
* The barrier to entry to designing and producing professional-class software is much lower than to designing and manufacturing new professional-class mechanical systems. You need a computer and a compiler versus machine tools, a CAD system, materials knowledge, and so forth. It's harder to regulate and monitor the software world.
I think that you're right -- that patents in general have some problems -- but it's a lot easier to try to loosen patents WRT software, especially since originally most countries disallowed patenting of algorithms. One thing at a time.
Lucasarts is very cool when it comes to their old games -- they continue to offer value-priced bundles of their old games on CD from their website, and you can play them anew on all platforms using ScummVM. And they're still as good as they day they were released -- these aren't games that depend much on the state-of-the-art in technology.
:(
I could try to write something but I'm too much of a n00b for such a project
Where do you think that the people that you consider to "know what they're doing" became not new?
Seriously, read some post-mortems of game development. It's very common for people not to know at all what they're going to need to do to solve a particular problem and just have to learn what to do as things move along.