The majority of newspaper reports say "Jobless claims either up or down" - which is indeed the rate that people are claiming joblessness (to unemployment and other govt programs).
The "unemployment" rate is based on "unemployed people actively seeking a job" - if you work one day a month, you are considered employed. If you are not "looking for work" every day, you are "not unemployed".
The true unemployment rate in the US is nearing 10%, if you are talking about regular full time employment - very similar to Europe.
In any case, the Bush administration has put out false statistics every month for over a year now, and revises the numbers (very quietly) downward. Doesn't anyone read the newspapers anymore?
I prefer the Wall Street Journal, insterestingly enough, the editorials are the most right wing, conservative, pro-Republican in America. The editorials are a joke, but the reporters are top notch (separate divisions, and a very different culture). They cover the facts of the economy very well.
The definition of "terrorism" is something like "the use of violence or the threat of violence for political or ideological purposes".
FARC are most certainly terrorists, ask any Colombian. The Colombian government and their death squads are certainly terrorists, and, to my dismay and shame as an American, the US government are also terrorists.
FARC only look good when you compare them to the paramilitaries and the government. Colombia would be better off without the lot of them.
I agree with most of what you said, but I cannot let this pass.
Is is perfectly and 100% legal for students and teachers to pray in a public school, and people pray in public schools on a daily basis. When I was in public school, I did so myself on numerous occasions, and no one tried to stop me.
It is illegal for public school employees to require participation in prayers, because that would violate the freedom of religion of both the students and the teachers.
Well, it was more of a comment on those that defend Microsoft's business practices as "capitalism" when it seems it's more "communist" than anything else.
I don't see how putting linux on an xbox is "software piracy", arg matey. I mean, unless you're not actually buying an xbox, but buying the right to use it for a specified period of time, shiver me timbers.
"Contract manufacturer Flextronics' Xbox assembly plant in China has switched to the new configuration, and the Guadalajara, Mexico, plant that supplies Xbox units for North American consumption will make the change soon, O'Donnell said."
So here, Microsoft, the epitome of American free market capitalism, is manufacturing their XBox in Communist China, where there is no freedom of speech, no freedom of association, and political repression is an everyday occurence. I guess having near slaves manufacturing your products is certainly cost effective?
And this is the Microsoft who intimates that free software is somehow communist and anti-American?
I assume the Randians, libertarians and conservatives on this board will now berate Microsoft for getting in bed with the statists and communists.
Turning a doorknob is not a request, requesting an IP number from a DHCP server is.
If you knock on my door, and I open it and invite you in, you have asked permission to enter my house and I have given it.
In any case, as I said, I'm being (mostly) sarcastic. I imagine that companies like Nokia are scared of free cooperative public wireless networks, just like many software companies are scared of free open source cooperatively developed software. Are you scared?
Now that we've made the jokes, strange analogies, and the conservo-libertarian-capitalist wannabees have browned their noses in the asses of the corporate elite, let's just get it out of the way:
If you want a public, free, and open wireless network, we'll have to bribe politicians. Nokia and the rest already are. If they want warchalkers branded as terrorists, the way things are now, they'll be rounded up right after the pirates (aye, matey) who help Binladen by downloading music without paying CEOs the intellectual property tax.
Can't we build our own network, and leave Nokia and the rest out of it?
Maybe we can have some kind of hardware GPL, you get free access to the network as long as you allow others free access as well.
I am sure that Microsoft (no $, see?) will do a good job of buying wireless networking hardware from some communist Chinese company, and putting it in boxes marked "Microsoft".
Thank you for pointing this out. If I request an IP, and they grant the request, haven't I asked for and received permission? So what the hell are they complaining about?
"And then the non-participating Islamic nuts dance in the street when informed of the action. I seriously doubt the white residents of Augusta would dance in the streets and pass out free candy to children when they heard of a lynching in Atlanta a few miles down the road."
And of course, that is exactly what they did, and there is photographic evidence of it in every bookstore in America.
If Microsoft manages to alienate enough customers with their new "subscribe to XP" scheme, free software on the desktop might happen sooner then we think.
Mary in accounting is *not* going to be installing her own OS, and I assume most folks working in IT have had experience with *nix of some kind. I don't think there will be a problem when management finally gets it and tells IT to start installing linux.
KDE with Open Office and Mozilla can do anything that Win2K can do, now, and it's, you know, *free*.
I work in a very *nix centered IT group, but they still give us Win2K boxen, and we use the Exceed X server. I am pretty sure that they will never move to XP, and at that point, I would bet we'll go to linux on the desktop.
And just to make sure I'm not modded down as off-topic, let me just say that United Linux, or if they really have the problems the article suggests, some similar group will be well represented on corporate desktops in the next 2 years.
I haven't used Debian since 1998, but let me tell you, that install program sucked so bad. Select one option wrong, and everything gets reset.
Yes, I know, it hasn't been like that in years, I just wanted to complain.
I've been using slack for years, and we've installed it on all our servers. It's always well maintained, and they seem to make sure everything works together in a new release.
I've been itching to try the new Mandrake, though, since I've heard so many good things about it. Everyone keeps saying it's so easy to install that your mother could work it.
And I suppose that the black victims of lynching, mutilations, etc, were "guilty" of something?
To all of you non-Americans, I would like to point out that the majority of Americans do NOT feel the way that these people do. We are decent, humane people, regardless of what these types do and say. Honestly.
You are ignorant of the fact of Nicaragua, as well as Japan.
Please explain why the US had to bomb two cities full of civilians to stop the war between Japan and the US. Oh I suppose that the historians who don't like the idea of bombing cities full of women and children are not "serious" while those who do like the idea of women and children being slaughtered are "serious".
You morality is on the level of suicide bombers in Palestine. How do you sleep at night?
Let me ask you a question - have you ever been to Nicaragua? Have you ever spoken to anyone from Nicaragua? I doubt it.
As I said before, every single non-government source in the world has said that the US and the US proxies did most of the killings, but obviously facts don't matter too much to your kind.
You are a disgrace to America, and I am ashamed of you. I hope the non-US people on this board realize that you don't speak for the majority.
If you don't have a problem with the US invading and subjugating the Phillipines, then there's no use arguing. Many people consider invading a country and enslaving it's population to be evil, but many people don't. I guess you're the latter.
FDR wanted a war, and did what he could to start one. The story for years has been the US was peacefully minding it's own business, and the evil Japanese attacked us for no reason. Of couse, that's nonsense. The US was an imperial, expansionist power in the Pacific, just like the Japanese.
People will use the BS about Japan to justify the mass murder of civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima - the same kind of people who strap bombs on themselves and blow up kids at ice cream parlors.
In one case, it's to "stop an aggressive imperialist Japan" and in the other it's to stop the "evil Zionist occupiers" - in both cases it's people supporting and justifing mass murder of men, women, and children.
Honestly, I don't know how you people can look at yourself in the mirror.
The Arab/Muslim cultures can be brutal - cutting of people's hands, grisly death sentences, sanctioned rapel. It's disgusting.
But what's really disgusting is my fellow Americans who point the finger at other cultures, and refuse to look at our own culture.
Ever heard of "lynching"? It's been 50 years since lyching was common in the country, but most people don't realize what it was. It wasn't just hanging black men and women - it was cutting of their hands, genitals, skin, setting them on fire, and selling pieces of their body as mementos. Children! were brought to watch the festivities. Search sometimes for pictures of lynching and see white Americans smile for the camera in front of charred, mutilated corpses - and then tell me how bad the Muslims are.
Of course, there was the white Americans who dragged a black man behind their truck to death just a few years ago.
I remember the first Gulf War - my friends and I sat CHEERING as bombs were dropping on Iraqis. The Muslims have NOTHING on the US.
If you don't see the US demanding repayment (usually, "maintenance or refinancing") then you are not looking. Most third world debtor government transfer a significant amount of wealth from their people to US lenders.
A most important point - most of the creditors are US and Europe based corporations, not the US government. The debtors are not the people of a nation, but the government, often illegitimate.
Nice dodge on the economics, but the point is that finance is a zero sum game, which is what "liberals" are talking about. I believe it was Rush Limbaugh who started the "liberals believe in a zero sum economy" meme, and it has been parroted by the "conservatives" for years now.
Health care is remarkably elastic - tell that to someone waiting at the emergency room.
The United States had been aggressively expanding in the Pacific for over 50 years before World War II. Did you forget Hawaii, the Phillipines? The US murdered tens of thousands of non-combatants.
Just a few days ago, there was an article posted on this board that explained the US fired the first shots of WWII, against the Japanese. A hot, but low intensity, war between the US and Japan had been going on for over a year before Pearl Harbor.
The US military was outraged that they were blamed for Pearl Harbor, since FDR knew full well about a coming attack (which he himself admitted he wanted).
The US did not need to bomb two cities full of civilians to end hostilities with Japan. That was just pure muderous evil from the psychos who ran our Department of War, and the need to scare the USSR and other countries.
I mean really, does anyone even read history anymore? With the internet and all, there's no excuse to be so ignorant.
Slashdot Mirror
The majority of newspaper reports say "Jobless claims either up or down" - which is indeed the rate that people are claiming joblessness (to unemployment and other govt programs).
The "unemployment" rate is based on "unemployed people actively seeking a job" - if you work one day a month, you are considered employed. If you are not "looking for work" every day, you are "not unemployed".
The true unemployment rate in the US is nearing 10%, if you are talking about regular full time employment - very similar to Europe.
In any case, the Bush administration has put out false statistics every month for over a year now, and revises the numbers (very quietly) downward. Doesn't anyone read the newspapers anymore?
I prefer the Wall Street Journal, insterestingly enough, the editorials are the most right wing, conservative, pro-Republican in America. The editorials are a joke, but the reporters are top notch (separate divisions, and a very different culture). They cover the facts of the economy very well.
The definition of "terrorism" is something like "the use of violence or the threat of violence for political or ideological purposes".
FARC are most certainly terrorists, ask any Colombian. The Colombian government and their death squads are certainly terrorists, and, to my dismay and shame as an American, the US government are also terrorists.
FARC only look good when you compare them to the paramilitaries and the government. Colombia would be better off without the lot of them.
I agree with most of what you said, but I cannot let this pass.
Is is perfectly and 100% legal for students and teachers to pray in a public school, and people pray in public schools on a daily basis. When I was in public school, I did so myself on numerous occasions, and no one tried to stop me.
It is illegal for public school employees to require participation in prayers, because that would violate the freedom of religion of both the students and the teachers.
A hypertext link seems to me to be the written word, and a web page seems to me to be press.
... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
The relevant part of the first amendment says:
"Congress shall make no law
I wonder, what part of "Congress shall make no law" does George Bush and Congress not understand?
IIRC, the Supreme Court has said that any legislation that violates the Constitution is null and void.
Now if we could only get them to follow the Constitution...
Well, it was more of a comment on those that defend Microsoft's business practices as "capitalism" when it seems it's more "communist" than anything else.
I don't see how putting linux on an xbox is "software piracy", arg matey. I mean, unless you're not actually buying an xbox, but buying the right to use it for a specified period of time, shiver me timbers.
As long as you choose Microsoft!
"Contract manufacturer Flextronics' Xbox assembly plant in China has switched to the new configuration, and the Guadalajara, Mexico, plant that supplies Xbox units for North American consumption will make the change soon, O'Donnell said."
So here, Microsoft, the epitome of American free market capitalism, is manufacturing their XBox in Communist China, where there is no freedom of speech, no freedom of association, and political repression is an everyday occurence. I guess having near slaves manufacturing your products is certainly cost effective?
And this is the Microsoft who intimates that free software is somehow communist and anti-American?
I assume the Randians, libertarians and conservatives on this board will now berate Microsoft for getting in bed with the statists and communists.
I anxiously await your righteous indignation.
Is there any advantage to kazaa over Gnutella?
Just so you know.
Turning a doorknob is not a request, requesting an IP number from a DHCP server is.
If you knock on my door, and I open it and invite you in, you have asked permission to enter my house and I have given it.
In any case, as I said, I'm being (mostly) sarcastic. I imagine that companies like Nokia are scared of free cooperative public wireless networks, just like many software companies are scared of free open source cooperatively developed software. Are you scared?
Boo!
If you want a public, free, and open wireless network, we'll have to bribe politicians. Nokia and the rest already are. If they want warchalkers branded as terrorists, the way things are now, they'll be rounded up right after the pirates (aye, matey) who help Binladen by downloading music without paying CEOs the intellectual property tax.
Can't we build our own network, and leave Nokia and the rest out of it? Maybe we can have some kind of hardware GPL, you get free access to the network as long as you allow others free access as well.
I am sure that Microsoft (no $, see?) will do a good job of buying wireless networking hardware from some communist Chinese company, and putting it in boxes marked "Microsoft".
Thank you for pointing this out. If I request an IP, and they grant the request, haven't I asked for and received permission? So what the hell are they complaining about?
I'm only being marginally sarcastic.
ten points to you!
"And then the non-participating Islamic nuts dance in the street when informed of the action. I seriously doubt the white residents of Augusta would dance in the streets and pass out free candy to children when they heard of a lynching in Atlanta a few miles down the road."
And of course, that is exactly what they did, and there is photographic evidence of it in every bookstore in America.
Funny and tragic :) My boss bought VA Linux at $100 a share.
If Microsoft manages to alienate enough customers with their new "subscribe to XP" scheme, free software on the desktop might happen sooner then we think.
Mary in accounting is *not* going to be installing her own OS, and I assume most folks working in IT have had experience with *nix of some kind. I don't think there will be a problem when management finally gets it and tells IT to start installing linux.
KDE with Open Office and Mozilla can do anything that Win2K can do, now, and it's, you know, *free*.
I work in a very *nix centered IT group, but they still give us Win2K boxen, and we use the Exceed X server. I am pretty sure that they will never move to XP, and at that point, I would bet we'll go to linux on the desktop.
And just to make sure I'm not modded down as off-topic, let me just say that United Linux, or if they really have the problems the article suggests, some similar group will be well represented on corporate desktops in the next 2 years.
I haven't used Debian since 1998, but let me tell you, that install program sucked so bad. Select one option wrong, and everything gets reset. Yes, I know, it hasn't been like that in years, I just wanted to complain.
I've been using slack for years, and we've installed it on all our servers. It's always well maintained, and they seem to make sure everything works together in a new release.
I've been itching to try the new Mandrake, though, since I've heard so many good things about it. Everyone keeps saying it's so easy to install that your mother could work it.
And I suppose that the black victims of lynching, mutilations, etc, were "guilty" of something?
To all of you non-Americans, I would like to point out that the majority of Americans do NOT feel the way that these people do. We are decent, humane people, regardless of what these types do and say. Honestly.
You are ignorant of the fact of Nicaragua, as well as Japan.
Please explain why the US had to bomb two cities full of civilians to stop the war between Japan and the US. Oh I suppose that the historians who don't like the idea of bombing cities full of women and children are not "serious" while those who do like the idea of women and children being slaughtered are "serious".
You morality is on the level of suicide bombers in Palestine. How do you sleep at night?
Let me ask you a question - have you ever been to Nicaragua? Have you ever spoken to anyone from Nicaragua? I doubt it.
As I said before, every single non-government source in the world has said that the US and the US proxies did most of the killings, but obviously facts don't matter too much to your kind.
You are a disgrace to America, and I am ashamed of you. I hope the non-US people on this board realize that you don't speak for the majority.
If you don't have a problem with the US invading and subjugating the Phillipines, then there's no use arguing. Many people consider invading a country and enslaving it's population to be evil, but many people don't. I guess you're the latter.
FDR wanted a war, and did what he could to start one. The story for years has been the US was peacefully minding it's own business, and the evil Japanese attacked us for no reason. Of couse, that's nonsense. The US was an imperial, expansionist power in the Pacific, just like the Japanese.
People will use the BS about Japan to justify the mass murder of civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima - the same kind of people who strap bombs on themselves and blow up kids at ice cream parlors.
In one case, it's to "stop an aggressive imperialist Japan" and in the other it's to stop the "evil Zionist occupiers" - in both cases it's people supporting and justifing mass murder of men, women, and children.
Honestly, I don't know how you people can look at yourself in the mirror.
The Arab/Muslim cultures can be brutal - cutting of people's hands, grisly death sentences, sanctioned rapel. It's disgusting.
But what's really disgusting is my fellow Americans who point the finger at other cultures, and refuse to look at our own culture.
Ever heard of "lynching"? It's been 50 years since lyching was common in the country, but most people don't realize what it was. It wasn't just hanging black men and women - it was cutting of their hands, genitals, skin, setting them on fire, and selling pieces of their body as mementos. Children! were brought to watch the festivities. Search sometimes for pictures of lynching and see white Americans smile for the camera in front of charred, mutilated corpses - and then tell me how bad the Muslims are.
Of course, there was the white Americans who dragged a black man behind their truck to death just a few years ago.
I remember the first Gulf War - my friends and I sat CHEERING as bombs were dropping on Iraqis. The Muslims have NOTHING on the US.
If you don't see the US demanding repayment (usually, "maintenance or refinancing") then you are not looking. Most third world debtor government transfer a significant amount of wealth from their people to US lenders.
A most important point - most of the creditors are US and Europe based corporations, not the US government. The debtors are not the people of a nation, but the government, often illegitimate.
Nice dodge on the economics, but the point is that finance is a zero sum game, which is what "liberals" are talking about. I believe it was Rush Limbaugh who started the "liberals believe in a zero sum economy" meme, and it has been parroted by the "conservatives" for years now.
Health care is remarkably elastic - tell that to someone waiting at the emergency room.
The United States had been aggressively expanding in the Pacific for over 50 years before World War II. Did you forget Hawaii, the Phillipines? The US murdered tens of thousands of non-combatants.
Just a few days ago, there was an article posted on this board that explained the US fired the first shots of WWII, against the Japanese. A hot, but low intensity, war between the US and Japan had been going on for over a year before Pearl Harbor.
The US military was outraged that they were blamed for Pearl Harbor, since FDR knew full well about a coming attack (which he himself admitted he wanted).
The US did not need to bomb two cities full of civilians to end hostilities with Japan. That was just pure muderous evil from the psychos who ran our Department of War, and the need to scare the USSR and other countries.
I mean really, does anyone even read history anymore? With the internet and all, there's no excuse to be so ignorant.