Yeah, I agree with you. If you are going to read slashdot, you are just going to have to get used to and get over the fact that you won't find any journalistic fairness here, nor will you find real two-sided debate. This isn't a newspaper and it's not a debate class. This is a discussion board and the people here believe the way they do and they want to discuss the things they believe, not get all touchy-feely with conservatives or Republicans.
I'm often very guilty of this, but a conservative arguing on slashdot is like arguing on IRC is like competing in the Special Olympics. Does it matter who wins?
What other way could we evaluate a political candidate? What is wrong with looking at a persons voting history, public comments and personal preferences to try to determine if this person is worth our vote? Would you have us simply evaluate him on how often the media falls over themselves to praise him, or how large his promises are during his candidacy announcement or campaign? How often has that turned out to be a measure of a president or politician's character or leadership skills? Ever?
The simple fact is that he voted for a very extreme measure of gun control and if someone cares about their second amendment rights, I would think that that someone might pay attention to this.
Using your argument, the lack of standards is an antipode of the freedom to chose. It does not remove your freedom, but it gives you no real quantifiable option to choose from, nor does it allow you to maximize the effects of your freedom of choice. Sure, you can choose any alternative you wish, but if you are the only one using that alternative, what good is it? By not having standards, I do not have the freedom to choose one, nor the freedom to freely interoperate with anything else.
Your comment, as well as mine, is absurd because the freedoms we are discussing are the antipode (if I could use your own term) to other's freedom. Your freedom can only be achieved by restricting the freedom of others to create, in this particular case, a standard.
It's dangerous for one to think that his freedom extends beyond the freedoms of others. See modern abortion rights as well.
No, I will not quote the entire fucking Senate hearing. Why don't you read a bit and learn yourself before discussing something you know little to nothing about?
"You are utterly ignorant. The Fairness Doctrine had existed, in one form or another, since before most Americans had television in their homes (pre-1050). See: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairness doct/fairnessdoct.htm"
Fine, in the early 1940's there was something called the Fairness Doctrine, but it was and is not the same as the Fairness Doctrine that was repealed by the FCC in 1987 and is not the same fairness doctrine being pushed today. Congratulations on calling names, but a Google search result doesn't not make you an expert.
"It is a great idea, for many reasons. One of the best is that the airwaves are a limited public resource that are the most effective means in history of reaching people and molding their attitudes and opinions. Remember that crucial fact: it's a limited resource that is vital to our continued existence as free human beings in the United States. There is no reason that anyone should be allowed to "own" it with impunity, any more than someone should be allowed to "own" the airspace over Illinois or the Mississippi River."
This already exists and the FCC maintains control via this standard. The Fairness Doctrine today does not affect who gets licenses as much as it requires that those who already have licenses must give equal time between two opposing viewpoints. On the face of this, this sounds fair, reasonable and mature, but when it comes down to it, you are telling a commercial entity that for every piece of content they air, there must be an equal piece to oppose it of the same length of time. So, for every Air America, a conservative show must air on the same station and for every Rush Limbaugh a liberal show must air on the same station. They can't just exist, they must both get EQUAL air time. What effect do you think that would have on a stations' profitability? Or, do you even understand the concept of FREE and commercial enterprise? (Your comments tell me you do not.)
"There are exactly two choices:
1. A small oligopoly of for-profit companies decides what is acceptable, with day-to-day choices made by "journalists" who only care about propaganda and shouting matches. 2. The people decide what is acceptable."
1) You act as if the radio or TV dial is full and there are no more stations available for use. Don't like the content you see? Start your own. No law says you can't. There are radio stations available and anyone can start a cable network. Local TV broadcasts could be different, I'm not sure about them.
2) The people do decide. How do you think commercial media enterprises stay in business? Customers... people who are customers. If people didn't listen, there would be no advertisers willing to pay for advertising. Unless of course, you are NPR and are propped up by the government.
"It should be a no-brainer. The only people that can honestly consider the subject and still be against it, are the delusionists who think "the market" will fix everything."
I'm sorry, I have 200+ years of free market to fall back on for proof as to how "the market" corrects things. You have about 30 years of liberal *theory*. Our government has only ever truly been needed to steer the market in the correct path, not squelch dissent by forcing the media to produce content approved by government bodies.
"Also, if you are going to extrapolate from Barbara Boxer to all Democrats, I'm going to extrapolate from David Duke to all Republicans."
My statement was, "My point still stands. Boxer and, by extension, Democrats like her aren't interested in honest debate,...".
I never said all Democrats. You must have misread, possibly from also not practicing enough? Touché.
I'm not sure how to take your comment. You called me on my, admittedly incorrect, comments and I agreed and then supplied the real quote and clarified the point I was trying to make.
My point still stands. Boxer and, by extension, Democrats like her aren't interested in honest debate, they prefer to use Stalinistic and Mcarthy style tactics to squelch opposing viewpoints.
Why don't you stop posting as an asshole AC and we can maybe discuss this?
Your link is broken and you are wrong anyway. It's 25K per quarter. Make $25 one calendar quarter and you are suddenly a political lobbyist. Also, the problem with the law is much less about the law existing as much as it is about the broad scope that it can cover and the fact that it allows the government to further specify who and how can make political dissent.
Do you just not give a damn about other's rights as long as they are against the Democrats?
In any case, do you honestly think that it's lobbyists that make politicians bad? That they are just wide-eyed, pure, virginal little congressmen up there trying to make this country a better place and the evil lobbyists force them to take those land deals or trips to Martha's Vineyard? What a rube.
"There is no "global warming consensus", there are facts and stupid fringe scientists who disagree to make a name for themselves."
Yes, of course. It's always the fools and idiots who challenge the conventions and consensus of the day. How many of our great scientists in human history have been persecuted and ridiculed for going against the group think? Two that even you would recognize, Galileo and Edison are great examples. One was persecuted and the other was ridiculed. Good thing they learned to shut the fuck up, huh?
Look, I don't care if you think these people are crazy, lots of people thought that the round-earthers were fools, but is it necessary for the government to silence them? Let them say what they want, let them deny it. If they are wrong, who should really care?
What if they are right, though. Is the possibility of that truth so damaging to your psyche that can't even stand to hear their rebuttal? Why is it such human nature to wish to crush those who disagree with you instead of honestly debating them and their ideas?
Yes I paraphrased, but used it in context. The exact quote is:
"Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families."
The context here is of Rice not being able make appropriate decisions about Iraq or the war on terror for reasons ranging from her loyalty to Bush, as she was also accused of in the hearing, to the fact that she has no immediate family that would "pay the price." I'll give it to you that I should not have used the phrase "has no right", but should have said, "isn't qualified."
So, Boxer feels rice isn't qualified because she has no children. Given this oh, so erudite logic coming from that twit, Boxer, I have no right to talk about social security since I'm not old enough to draw yet. And, as an example, you have to no right to say that Iraq was a mistake since you aren't in the military. (I assume, obviously.) I also have no right to say that pedophilia is right or wrong since I've never participated in it.
So, in your mind places like littlegreenfootballs.com and drudgereport.com are astroturfing? Come on.. that's bullshit and you know it. This is about making sure those who oppose the Democrats can't when the election cycles come around.
Why would anyone want to say that the little guy who's writing a blog is somehow evil, while multi-million dollar enterprises like CNN, Fox News, et. al. are somehow legitimate and better for our political system? Unless of course, they are politically threatened by those little guys.
Why do you ignore the smell right under your nose? You think the Democrats, POLITICIANS, are somehow pure as the wind driven snow?
Even if you do drink the koolade, this is America. Why not let this great nation handle problems the way we always have? Have we needed laws to run astroturfing blogs out of business? No. How far did the PSP viral blogs get? Nowhere and the goverment never had to be involved.
I know it goes against the tenets of the religion of Liberalism, but the individual is king and individuals banding together on their own accord trump anything government could do for them.
It truly amazes me that you people are surprised at this. Really, come on... you all voted for these people, yet you don't know who they really are? The Fairness Doctrine was tried back in the late 80's when the Democrats held both congresses and here it is again, just weeks into them gaining power. A mainstream Democrat's entire political existence is built around silencing people who disagree with them. Since when have you ever really heard a Democrat ask for honest debate? What you do hear are people like Barbara Boxer telling Condoleeza Rice in senate hearings this week that she has no right to speak about the Iraq war because she has no children that could be sent there and killed.
"Why? Why do you want our side to look even more technology stupid than the Republicans?"
Look, I don't understand why, but you seem to live in a completely different reality than I do. In my reality, the Democrats often put a lot of effort into silencing people who do not agree with them. Just this week, we've had two separate stories about people trying to squelch dissent. The Democrats are pushing the Fairness Doctrine, a law giving the government arbitrary control over what the media can or can say politically and the weather babe who wants to take away the SOA from weathermen who don't agree with the current global warming consensus. Btw, Michael Criton has written some excellent thoughts about how consensus and science can not legitimately co-exist. Hint: Isn't real science about discovering facts and not aggregating opinions?
And now, we have news that nearly every Democrat in the senate wishes to further restrict the right for the people of this country to speak dissent. It's stalinistic and fascist and it warms my heart to finally see the tables turned on you people who think the Repbulicans are evil goose-stepping fascists themselves.
Yeah, boy, that Patriot act that made it easy for law enforcement to arrest and prosecute terrorists sure is a hell of a lot worse than near continuous efforts by the party in power to take away one of the very most sacred and fundamental rights that make our constitution the greatest document ever written by mankind.
Yet, only a few articles ago, the majority here were in favor of the return of the Fairness Doctrine, giving the government the absolute right to effectively silence political opposition by requiring that there be equal time for opposing viewpoints. The problem is.. as we've seen with things like Air America, certain types of media just do not sell well to the American public. Whether or not a radio station has the air time for a Lefist "Rush Limbaugh", it won't matter as there apparently isn't any one that people actually want to listen to. That won't matter of course, there *must* be equal time, so either air some boorish personality with a opposing view, or shut down the conservative pundit. Which do you thin will happen in a free market?
The comments by this Weather-chick and the Dems supporting the Fairness Doctrine are nothing more than Stalinistic tactics meant to silence opposition. They can't or do not want to debate the issues at hand, so they do their best to silence them first.
I think what makes me so angry about it is that Slashdot, the strongold of YRO, doesn't really care as long as the rights being infringed on are the rights of those who oppose their viewpoints.
What, did you just look up the word "reparations" over at dictionary.com so you could chime in? Humanitarian relief sent to DRKP is most certainly not reparations and has never been. It's HUMANITARIAN AID in the form of food and other things in order to relieve the daily suffering of the North Korean people under a totalitarian dictatorship. They are starving and we are helping feed them. Absolutely nothing about it is reparations for the Korean war.
God, you are an ignorant ass! The fact of the matter is that Google pushes a massive amount of new eyeballs to sites every day and they tend to be valuable and highly targeted visitors. You just can't spend enough on advertising to get those kinds of visitors. Google and other search engines are a huge part of running any business where you do not have a majority of the mindshare out there. Does McDonalds or Amazon need Google? No.. Does Joe Blow's Car Part Emporium from Utah need Google? Fuck yes.
Just because people don't or shouldn't put all their eggs in one basket, it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when one falls out and breaks..
Slashdot (and digg for that matter) only hurt the small personal and hobby sites run on the $19.99 hosted solutions. Traffic from slashdot to real sites running real businesses isn't all that much to write home about. Now a mention on Yahoo, that is serious traffic.
Congratulations, even in an article that has little to do with the US government, you succeeded in somehow making it the focus of evil in this world. DRKP is a 5th world country because it's run by a little tin-horned dictator who rules with such an iron fist, that you could never even imagine living under it. Do you know that the DRKP still, to this day, tell it's citizens that food given as humanitarian relief are war reparations?
Boy, yeah... if it weren't for those sanctions, the DRKP would be a utopia of the far east!
You people are being absolute dorks arguing about hard drive space. This isn't 1994. Right now, for the cost of taking your significant other out to dinner, you can buy a hard drive that is so fucking large, you can put several vista installs and still have plenty of room for porn.
Seriously, who really gives a fuck how large an OS install is? What apps run on it and how much does it cost?
Oh, right, that's what killed off the old Soviet union. They ignored the theories of a long dead naturalist about the origin of life. Wow, to think that the rest of us have always incorrectly thought that it was the failure of a broken political system and the constant military pressure of the US that brought down the Soviets.
This is all good an well, but my point still remains. You, in your cushy bed of Western comfort, see fit that others should do with less than you so that you can feel good about the well being of an animal. And who says it was negligence, or ever was negligence?
I'm sorry, but your elitism is never going to convince me, nor any other sane person that an animal is anywhere in the order of importance other than directly below the human population.
It's unfortunate that a species might be gone, but how exactly does this affect the planet's ecosystem? Species come and go and if you believe your precious religion of evolution, species have come and gone ad nasuem, yet the planet still revolves and nature still survives. The disappearance of this species of dolphin means little in the grand scheme of things. Unless of course, your goal, is to blame humans for every single mishap on this planet. What would you prefer us to do? Become extinct ourselves? Go back to cave man days? Go back to horse and buggy so we don't disturb nature? You seem to know exactly who is to blame, what is your answer to this urgent problem?
I'll bite, troll. You stated that you couldn't care less that someone in another country had a job if you thought that they might be encroaching on the existence of another species and I called you on your hate-filled rhetoric. I'm sure it's easy for you to say in you cushy western lifestyle that others don't deserve the same opportunity your magnanimous existence has to offer you, but it only illustrates your disgustingly elitist superiority.
But I do despise holier-than-thou environmentalists talking out of their asses.
boohoo, welcome to system administration. It's not an easy job and assholes like you won't change that fact, no matter how much you whine. Who gives a flying fuck how much of a PITA it is, it's part of administering a system. Changing the oil in your car suck, putting gas in it sucks, why should a computer be any different? Even more so since it's a hell of a lot more complex system.
Bravo! Well said. Of course the original author will choose neither, as the real problem is that he hates humanity. Nothing we could do would save ourselves in his eyes, as an animal is infinitely more important than the human race to this fool.
Hear hear, it's amazing how many people think we are a straight democracy. Even worse, the same uneducated fools will proclaim that, "we need to change the LAW".
Of course, we can't catch Bin Laden because Bush is an idiot, but he has the POWAR to influence another country's legal system such as to perfectly time it to this years elections? How perfectly conspiratorial for you.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I agree with you. If you are going to read slashdot, you are just going to have to get used to and get over the fact that you won't find any journalistic fairness here, nor will you find real two-sided debate. This isn't a newspaper and it's not a debate class. This is a discussion board and the people here believe the way they do and they want to discuss the things they believe, not get all touchy-feely with conservatives or Republicans.
I'm often very guilty of this, but a conservative arguing on slashdot is like arguing on IRC is like competing in the Special Olympics. Does it matter who wins?
What other way could we evaluate a political candidate? What is wrong with looking at a persons voting history, public comments and personal preferences to try to determine if this person is worth our vote? Would you have us simply evaluate him on how often the media falls over themselves to praise him, or how large his promises are during his candidacy announcement or campaign? How often has that turned out to be a measure of a president or politician's character or leadership skills? Ever?
The simple fact is that he voted for a very extreme measure of gun control and if someone cares about their second amendment rights, I would think that that someone might pay attention to this.
Using your argument, the lack of standards is an antipode of the freedom to chose. It does not remove your freedom, but it gives you no real quantifiable option to choose from, nor does it allow you to maximize the effects of your freedom of choice. Sure, you can choose any alternative you wish, but if you are the only one using that alternative, what good is it? By not having standards, I do not have the freedom to choose one, nor the freedom to freely interoperate with anything else.
Your comment, as well as mine, is absurd because the freedoms we are discussing are the antipode (if I could use your own term) to other's freedom. Your freedom can only be achieved by restricting the freedom of others to create, in this particular case, a standard.
It's dangerous for one to think that his freedom extends beyond the freedoms of others. See modern abortion rights as well.
No, I will not quote the entire fucking Senate hearing. Why don't you read a bit and learn yourself before discussing something you know little to nothing about?
Fine, in the early 1940's there was something called the Fairness Doctrine, but it was and is not the same as the Fairness Doctrine that was repealed by the FCC in 1987 and is not the same fairness doctrine being pushed today. Congratulations on calling names, but a Google search result doesn't not make you an expert.
This already exists and the FCC maintains control via this standard. The Fairness Doctrine today does not affect who gets licenses as much as it requires that those who already have licenses must give equal time between two opposing viewpoints. On the face of this, this sounds fair, reasonable and mature, but when it comes down to it, you are telling a commercial entity that for every piece of content they air, there must be an equal piece to oppose it of the same length of time. So, for every Air America, a conservative show must air on the same station and for every Rush Limbaugh a liberal show must air on the same station. They can't just exist, they must both get EQUAL air time. What effect do you think that would have on a stations' profitability? Or, do you even understand the concept of FREE and commercial enterprise? (Your comments tell me you do not.)
1) You act as if the radio or TV dial is full and there are no more stations available for use. Don't like the content you see? Start your own. No law says you can't. There are radio stations available and anyone can start a cable network. Local TV broadcasts could be different, I'm not sure about them.
2) The people do decide. How do you think commercial media enterprises stay in business? Customers... people who are customers. If people didn't listen, there would be no advertisers willing to pay for advertising. Unless of course, you are NPR and are propped up by the government.
I'm sorry, I have 200+ years of free market to fall back on for proof as to how "the market" corrects things. You have about 30 years of liberal *theory*. Our government has only ever truly been needed to steer the market in the correct path, not squelch dissent by forcing the media to produce content approved by government bodies.
My statement was, "My point still stands. Boxer and, by extension, Democrats like her aren't interested in honest debate,
I never said all Democrats. You must have misread, possibly from also not practicing enough? Touché.
I'm not sure how to take your comment. You called me on my, admittedly incorrect, comments and I agreed and then supplied the real quote and clarified the point I was trying to make.
My point still stands. Boxer and, by extension, Democrats like her aren't interested in honest debate, they prefer to use Stalinistic and Mcarthy style tactics to squelch opposing viewpoints.
Why don't you stop posting as an asshole AC and we can maybe discuss this?
Your link is broken and you are wrong anyway. It's 25K per quarter. Make $25 one calendar quarter and you are suddenly a political lobbyist. Also, the problem with the law is much less about the law existing as much as it is about the broad scope that it can cover and the fact that it allows the government to further specify who and how can make political dissent.
Do you just not give a damn about other's rights as long as they are against the Democrats?
In any case, do you honestly think that it's lobbyists that make politicians bad? That they are just wide-eyed, pure, virginal little congressmen up there trying to make this country a better place and the evil lobbyists force them to take those land deals or trips to Martha's Vineyard? What a rube.
"There is no "global warming consensus", there are facts and stupid fringe scientists who disagree to make a name for themselves."
Yes, of course. It's always the fools and idiots who challenge the conventions and consensus of the day. How many of our great scientists in human history have been persecuted and ridiculed for going against the group think? Two that even you would recognize, Galileo and Edison are great examples. One was persecuted and the other was ridiculed. Good thing they learned to shut the fuck up, huh?
Look, I don't care if you think these people are crazy, lots of people thought that the round-earthers were fools, but is it necessary for the government to silence them? Let them say what they want, let them deny it. If they are wrong, who should really care?
What if they are right, though. Is the possibility of that truth so damaging to your psyche that can't even stand to hear their rebuttal? Why is it such human nature to wish to crush those who disagree with you instead of honestly debating them and their ideas?
Yes I paraphrased, but used it in context. The exact quote is:
"Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families."
The context here is of Rice not being able make appropriate decisions about Iraq or the war on terror for reasons ranging from her loyalty to Bush, as she was also accused of in the hearing, to the fact that she has no immediate family that would "pay the price." I'll give it to you that I should not have used the phrase "has no right", but should have said, "isn't qualified."
So, Boxer feels rice isn't qualified because she has no children. Given this oh, so erudite logic coming from that twit, Boxer, I have no right to talk about social security since I'm not old enough to draw yet. And, as an example, you have to no right to say that Iraq was a mistake since you aren't in the military. (I assume, obviously.) I also have no right to say that pedophilia is right or wrong since I've never participated in it.
Do you see the absurdity here?
So, in your mind places like littlegreenfootballs.com and drudgereport.com are astroturfing? Come on.. that's bullshit and you know it. This is about making sure those who oppose the Democrats can't when the election cycles come around.
Why would anyone want to say that the little guy who's writing a blog is somehow evil, while multi-million dollar enterprises like CNN, Fox News, et. al. are somehow legitimate and better for our political system? Unless of course, they are politically threatened by those little guys.
Why do you ignore the smell right under your nose? You think the Democrats, POLITICIANS, are somehow pure as the wind driven snow?
Even if you do drink the koolade, this is America. Why not let this great nation handle problems the way we always have? Have we needed laws to run astroturfing blogs out of business? No. How far did the PSP viral blogs get? Nowhere and the goverment never had to be involved.
I know it goes against the tenets of the religion of Liberalism, but the individual is king and individuals banding together on their own accord trump anything government could do for them.
It truly amazes me that you people are surprised at this. Really, come on... you all voted for these people, yet you don't know who they really are? The Fairness Doctrine was tried back in the late 80's when the Democrats held both congresses and here it is again, just weeks into them gaining power. A mainstream Democrat's entire political existence is built around silencing people who disagree with them. Since when have you ever really heard a Democrat ask for honest debate? What you do hear are people like Barbara Boxer telling Condoleeza Rice in senate hearings this week that she has no right to speak about the Iraq war because she has no children that could be sent there and killed.
"Why? Why do you want our side to look even more technology stupid than the Republicans?"
Look, I don't understand why, but you seem to live in a completely different reality than I do. In my reality, the Democrats often put a lot of effort into silencing people who do not agree with them. Just this week, we've had two separate stories about people trying to squelch dissent. The Democrats are pushing the Fairness Doctrine, a law giving the government arbitrary control over what the media can or can say politically and the weather babe who wants to take away the SOA from weathermen who don't agree with the current global warming consensus. Btw, Michael Criton has written some excellent thoughts about how consensus and science can not legitimately co-exist. Hint: Isn't real science about discovering facts and not aggregating opinions?
And now, we have news that nearly every Democrat in the senate wishes to further restrict the right for the people of this country to speak dissent. It's stalinistic and fascist and it warms my heart to finally see the tables turned on you people who think the Repbulicans are evil goose-stepping fascists themselves.
Yeah, boy, that Patriot act that made it easy for law enforcement to arrest and prosecute terrorists sure is a hell of a lot worse than near continuous efforts by the party in power to take away one of the very most sacred and fundamental rights that make our constitution the greatest document ever written by mankind.
"Censorship is no solution."
Yet, only a few articles ago, the majority here were in favor of the return of the Fairness Doctrine, giving the government the absolute right to effectively silence political opposition by requiring that there be equal time for opposing viewpoints. The problem is.. as we've seen with things like Air America, certain types of media just do not sell well to the American public. Whether or not a radio station has the air time for a Lefist "Rush Limbaugh", it won't matter as there apparently isn't any one that people actually want to listen to. That won't matter of course, there *must* be equal time, so either air some boorish personality with a opposing view, or shut down the conservative pundit. Which do you thin will happen in a free market?
The comments by this Weather-chick and the Dems supporting the Fairness Doctrine are nothing more than Stalinistic tactics meant to silence opposition. They can't or do not want to debate the issues at hand, so they do their best to silence them first.
I think what makes me so angry about it is that Slashdot, the strongold of YRO, doesn't really care as long as the rights being infringed on are the rights of those who oppose their viewpoints.
Bzzt! Wrong.
What, did you just look up the word "reparations" over at dictionary.com so you could chime in? Humanitarian relief sent to DRKP is most certainly not reparations and has never been. It's HUMANITARIAN AID in the form of food and other things in order to relieve the daily suffering of the North Korean people under a totalitarian dictatorship. They are starving and we are helping feed them. Absolutely nothing about it is reparations for the Korean war.
Where do you people come up with this crap?
God, you are an ignorant ass! The fact of the matter is that Google pushes a massive amount of new eyeballs to sites every day and they tend to be valuable and highly targeted visitors. You just can't spend enough on advertising to get those kinds of visitors. Google and other search engines are a huge part of running any business where you do not have a majority of the mindshare out there. Does McDonalds or Amazon need Google? No.. Does Joe Blow's Car Part Emporium from Utah need Google? Fuck yes.
Just because people don't or shouldn't put all their eggs in one basket, it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when one falls out and breaks..
Slashdot (and digg for that matter) only hurt the small personal and hobby sites run on the $19.99 hosted solutions. Traffic from slashdot to real sites running real businesses isn't all that much to write home about. Now a mention on Yahoo, that is serious traffic.
Congratulations, even in an article that has little to do with the US government, you succeeded in somehow making it the focus of evil in this world. DRKP is a 5th world country because it's run by a little tin-horned dictator who rules with such an iron fist, that you could never even imagine living under it. Do you know that the DRKP still, to this day, tell it's citizens that food given as humanitarian relief are war reparations?
Boy, yeah... if it weren't for those sanctions, the DRKP would be a utopia of the far east!
You people are being absolute dorks arguing about hard drive space. This isn't 1994. Right now, for the cost of taking your significant other out to dinner, you can buy a hard drive that is so fucking large, you can put several vista installs and still have plenty of room for porn.
Seriously, who really gives a fuck how large an OS install is? What apps run on it and how much does it cost?
Oh, right, that's what killed off the old Soviet union. They ignored the theories of a long dead naturalist about the origin of life. Wow, to think that the rest of us have always incorrectly thought that it was the failure of a broken political system and the constant military pressure of the US that brought down the Soviets.
What's it like to be a nincompoop?
This is all good an well, but my point still remains. You, in your cushy bed of Western comfort, see fit that others should do with less than you so that you can feel good about the well being of an animal. And who says it was negligence, or ever was negligence?
I'm sorry, but your elitism is never going to convince me, nor any other sane person that an animal is anywhere in the order of importance other than directly below the human population.
It's unfortunate that a species might be gone, but how exactly does this affect the planet's ecosystem? Species come and go and if you believe your precious religion of evolution, species have come and gone ad nasuem, yet the planet still revolves and nature still survives. The disappearance of this species of dolphin means little in the grand scheme of things. Unless of course, your goal, is to blame humans for every single mishap on this planet. What would you prefer us to do? Become extinct ourselves? Go back to cave man days? Go back to horse and buggy so we don't disturb nature? You seem to know exactly who is to blame, what is your answer to this urgent problem?
I'll bite, troll. You stated that you couldn't care less that someone in another country had a job if you thought that they might be encroaching on the existence of another species and I called you on your hate-filled rhetoric. I'm sure it's easy for you to say in you cushy western lifestyle that others don't deserve the same opportunity your magnanimous existence has to offer you, but it only illustrates your disgustingly elitist superiority.
But I do despise holier-than-thou environmentalists talking out of their asses.
boohoo, welcome to system administration. It's not an easy job and assholes like you won't change that fact, no matter how much you whine. Who gives a flying fuck how much of a PITA it is, it's part of administering a system. Changing the oil in your car suck, putting gas in it sucks, why should a computer be any different? Even more so since it's a hell of a lot more complex system.
Bravo! Well said. Of course the original author will choose neither, as the real problem is that he hates humanity. Nothing we could do would save ourselves in his eyes, as an animal is infinitely more important than the human race to this fool.
Hear hear, it's amazing how many people think we are a straight democracy. Even worse, the same uneducated fools will proclaim that, "we need to change the LAW".
Imagine that said in my best Jame Carvile voice.
Of course, we can't catch Bin Laden because Bush is an idiot, but he has the POWAR to influence another country's legal system such as to perfectly time it to this years elections? How perfectly conspiratorial for you.