Gak hit wrong button, had more to say, sorry for splitting my reply like this.
As far as mirroring the site, what really bugs me is they don't make it easy to just d/l the updates so you can save them to a cd and install them offline so I can install from there, gonna look into this slipstreaming though as my brother's pc is getting really wonky on him and he's talking about setting up xp when the inevitable re-install occures (he's running ME right now.) On of the apps he runs is still a beta and has a habbit of locking his system hard requireing the magic reset button. Same exact program on xp doese not do this, it just gets really sluggish for a minute or so, but you can still use everything else while waiting for it to realize you've hit the [x] in the corner.
I can't wait till Linux gets to the point where I can play the games I like, and work with the 3d files I want for those games and I can shrink my xp install and usage to near nill.
I admit that winxp has fewer re-boots than the 9x series while installing just the windows core, it's all the drivers you have to install seperately, each with thier own reboots that's a pita.
While this is partly due to the driver makers and partly due to how windows itself works, with linux I get the drivers installed with the o.s. and don't usually need to install driver seperately with thier own install, reboot, set setting cycle.
Linux has it's own usability issues, some pretty bad, but the initial install on many distro's is NOT one of them. I consider it one of the few areas where Linux is clearly ahead of MS.
Now how about fixing cut and paste?
I really don't know much about the benefits of this kind of research, but with so many other issues at hand, what does the investment net us in the end ?
Can't really predict the all the benifits, that's one of the reasons why it's worthwile.
Somtimes you set out to learn somthing specific. Sometimes you don't even know what there is to learn till you happen uppon it.
I trully wish it was as simple as that. But unforntuneatly most of those bad things are in part social and human nature.
The US currently exports more food than not, Our government pays farmers to leave thier fields un-used, yet millions go hungry every day just so the prices of certain crops don't drop and put alot of farmers in even worse situations than they are now, where they can barely make enough $$ to survive themselves.
And that's just one example of how the problems we face as humans isn't as simple as we would have them.
It's my hope that we can grow up a bit more as a society, stop letting stupid superstions and prejudices fuel wars and exacerbate poverty.
I just don't see how staying put on this one tiny rock doing as we have for eons will change things. I don't see for certain how spreading off this rock will make a difference eigther, but it will be first NEW challange mankind has faced since columbus.
Maybe, no likely, we will take all our problems an foibles with us as we go out there, but just maybee we'll actually learn somthing as a race, and if not we'll at least through distance finally eliminate the only real threat this side a cosmic scale distater this race has faced since we came up with fire and the wheel, Ourselves.
If this sounds like I have a low opion of our species I don't. If you consider what we HAVE done it's hard not to be a little proud of what a bunch 'hairless apes' have managed to pull off despite our embarrisng moments.
Besides I think humans are the best people on earth:)
Working on the issues you mentioned is both worthwile and noble, but so is exploring and expanding the human condition and most likely achieving the only true imortality a species can achieve. And there will be lessons learned in getting man off this planet, lessons in medicine, engineering, construction, and so on than can and will be used on your goals as well. And nothing says we can't work on ALL of these goals except us.
Yes certainly, because we'll never get better at getting things and people out of earths gravity well. In fact it's pure luck we've actually got somthing better than what c. columbus and co. left europe with. I see no reason to expect better than appollo capsules to start a new colony with.
I do agree taking basic protections is somthing a user should do. However If the o.s. wasn't so susceptable because of design choices and coding errors, then exactly where would the worms,viri, etc. come from?
Also I'm not really for isp's using a blanket 'blocking proper ports' just because a worm is known to use it, someone may have need of that port for some obscure app. Now if an automated process would detect specific worm activity (It is known what most worms send as packets across the net) and blocked that, it would be different.
I do also blame the writers of such software. Unlike your std analogy, worms are the deliberate creations of people.
So as a practical matter, YES people need to take precautions, even though with raw number of these things out there I can see why many just decide it's futile.
And yes, the people who write these things then release them are definate on my BAD PEOPLE list.
And being the dominant desktop OS makes windows the biggest target.
The fact remains that windows is not only susceptable in too many ways, but is actively pro-worm in many of it's features.
I give microsoft credit when it earns it, but in this case they have fallen miserably short.
Also I've always considered basic maintanence of a machine to be dealing with parts that suffer wear and tear, this isn't wear and tear but deliberated damage. Would you consider it 'basic maintanence' to replace the passenger door after some idiot accidently bumps it with a shopping cart and a design defect causes it to fall off in 4 pieces? Also replacing a defective part or having it fixed also isn't basic maintenance.
I assume you are adressing the masses in general with those direction. (or are in a country where 28.8 is reasonable for an always on 'broadband' connection')
Still I don't recall the option to enable the firewall by default during setup, it's possible I did and decided not to as I was planning on buying some new basic protection software the next day (a.v., firewall, etc.).
Still with the anoying endless stream of reboots involved in setting up a windows system a kind of numbness does set in.
That is one thing I aplaud the linux distros for, boot the install cd., install what you want in one session, reboot ready to go. (well except earlier versions of mandrake, the 7.x and iirc some of the 8.x, would crash with a divide by 0 error durring setup).
The stink of the whole thing is, that dow only is the shrub a crook and a liar, he's an INCOMPETENT crook and liar.
A small edit:
The stink of the whole thing is, that dow only is
Kerry a crook and a liar, he's an INCOMPETENT crook and liar.
Of course I'm assuming a typo and dow=not.
Sad thing is both are true. I'd say Kerry is more of a incompetent liar, but that's just how I see it. I've heard clips of Kerry claiming first one thing, then later it's exact opposite. doese he or doese he not own SUV's, did or did he not throw medals over the wall, and so on.
When do get a statesman to vote for instead of a polotical hack.
And how old is OpenBSD? Eight years sounds about right, but I don't really know.
If it's only 8 years old then it really could be just one remote hole in it's entire lifespan.
Well I'm shure quite a few people here know how old OpenBSD is and will chime up, I'd be curious to see if my guess is right
I see your point, and if I trusted Microsoft implicitly I would agree.
Now will those who trust Microsoft please raise your hands.
hello.... anyone out there.......
In theory it's a great idea, have the machine fix itself so to speak. But many people will NOT like the concept of thier computer 'phoning home' by default, even if there is way to turn it off. (it's already there but it's opt in instead of automatic) and around you risk violence (or least being flamed and modded into non-existance) for even suggesting such a thing.
Actually I believe your premis actually supports the obverse of your conclusion. Well here's my thinking on it anyway.
no ammount of patches can make up for a user who won't keep his machine secure.
This is more reason to point some of the blame right at Microsoft. For releasing a product so buggy it needs dozens of patches in the first place. I understand no one is perfect, and no coder will think of everything, but with the number of people Microsoft hires to write code and so on they should be doing a better job of checking and examing thier code before releasing it.
If this were the case, especialy if of software in general, then patches would get more attention by thier rarity alone. As would exploits.
Frankly in a sane universe Windows update would mostly feature new codec, more languages, and other such improvements and updates to fit/use new technologies that didn't exist at publish time.
And for what it's worth some of us have pitiful connections, you want to try and fully patch winxp pro sp1 over a connection only hits 28.8 on a good day. lemme tell you it takes a LONG time.
Exactly, withing minutes of finishing my first install of XP pro (SP1) (finishing NOT starting), I connect to net intent on A) making shure it's connecting properly and all settings are correct. And B) donwloading the necessary patches, never made it to the windows update page as winxp's firewall isn't on by default and blaster had my system nearly unusable on the net by the time I'd logged in and verified I could get e-mail.(this with a connection that rarely reaches 28.8)
Fourtunately getting the firewall on slowed it down enough to get the patch and clean the system.
This was the third virus I've gotten, the other I got at the same time off of a 5.25" floppy (that long ago, MSdos was still on the 3.x version.)
As far as I'm concerned that is a recall level problem, if a car or tv was that faulty out of the box a recall would almost be certain.
How is it we tolerate this out of 'comercial' software? And accept we'll have to patch most out of the box to get them to work. It's one thing if something doesn't work perfectly with some obscure hardware (though the o.s. and drivers are what's broken in this case). But to be almost unuseable is not acceptable.
Would you buy a car that if the radio was turned on at the wrong point during some songs it blew a fuse and caused the controll module to think it was pumping to much gas to the injectors?
Would you buy a tv that couldn't get the odd numbered channels after watching a channel above 9 unless you powered it off then on with the remote only?
And before anyone starts in on how computers are so much more complex than the above, or how impossible it is to test against everything, etc. I would like to point out that cars and tv's and so on have gotten VERY complex (just look into some of what the ecm module in a new car does)
And simply making shure your code can handle, in a gracefull way, any inputs,exceptions, or other out of bounds conditions it may have to deal with, and that is possible. Some languages make it hard not to and still 'comercial' programs written in these languages still crap out for things they should have been able to deal with, or at least recover from.
Yes and no. It's a double standard only if you don't look at why it's there.
What it really is, is a viewpoint that adresses the fundemental assertions and environment copyright exists in.
There are two (overlapping) groups that your 'double standard' stance. The ones that don't like the creative restrictions current copyright policies and laws reflect. For this group GPL is good because it uses copyright against it's own abuse. Sortof a judo move if you will.
The second group are closer to your meaning. They simply want free-as-in-beer IP and see the use of copyright in GPL as giving them what they want at the lowest possible price (at or near free). And see how *IAA and Microsoft et. al. are using copyright as the opposite.
While I agree the second group is simple ignoble selfishness, and I won't overly protest your claim of them having a double standard. With respect the first group, well them I can respect, even if I do not see it as 'The One True Way'.
Frankly a revamp of the copyright system and other IP laws to more accurately reflect the original intent of thier existance, should seriously reduce the complaint of the first group.
Well actualy it's my understanding that copyright is automatic these days, though if you don't register it with the copyright office your leagle avenues and protections are more limited.
However much of the p2p available porn is indeed up with copyright holder permision. Much of it is flat out spam. put in a search for some funny clip from tv, just as an example. Or search for anything video-ish or with any potentialy porn related term, get a file so labled, then watch and see yet again the same stupid porn clip with a website advertised right on it.
Now if he'd said 99% was for porn, mp3's, warez and movies. That might be more acurate. though not all of any of those categories (except warez by definition) would be against the copyright holders wishes.
Still I've downloaded tutorials, game walkthroughs, info, and other presumably o.k. stuff. What 'music' I've downloaded includes about half the tracks from a 'cd' I bought that wouldn't play in my computer (the only working cd player I have and had at the time) and few OLD comedy skits I couldn't find elsewhere.
Even the USA, gun-crazy as they are, do not allow automatic weapons. Why? Because while they may have safe, legal uses, those uses are very small in number compared to the things that can go wrong with allowing every person to have an AK-47.
Actually it is possible to leagly own an automatic weapon in the US(unless this has changed in the last few years), it's just not practical. The are significant permit fees and other hoops to jump through. In fact I know of an individual who personally owns quite a few (~ 50) main battle tanks and other millitary vehicles as a private hobby. Thier de-milled of course. And just as obviously this guy has some serious $$ (his familiy was involved in building a major bridge or two in CA and other BIG construction contracts). My uncle works for the guy as a mechanic helping restore them.
It's 'fair' because the Federal government is supposed to be an inter-state government. Remember the Founding fathers saw each state as a seperate political entity, a STATE, not an overgrown county as they are now.
Your state government is supposed to be look out for you at the federal level by choosing a president via the electorial colledge. It was never intended for 'The People' to vote for president. Though it was o.k. if this or that state chose to poll it's citizens for thier opion on the matter. One effect (now greatly reduced) of the electorial colledge was to act as a buffer between the passions of the moment and sane governance. And to otherwise increase the likely wisdom of the choosers. While at the same time the federal government was SEVERLY limited in it's ability to act w/respect the individual in order to safeguard on the other side of tyrany. this to has degraded in a major way and now we are at greater risk for tyrany of eigther the majority or the minority.
Sheesh. First off if there was lying about WMD's, it was by Sadam. Oh he said he didn't have them, but then behaved as if he had somthing to hide. Also many other nations intellegence supported this conclusion. Bush did overemphasize, and really should have gone into a less simplistic explanation of why.
As who presided over what economic time. While you are technicaly correct, the implication of your statement is not. The resesion after the 90's boom started under Clintons watch, so what little effect presidents have on the economy (not much really) is a mixed bag for Clinton, while under Bush we got hit on 9/11 right when the economy was susceptible.
As far as the war being for oil. Well actually it would be a un backed war if certain countries with veto power were not dealing under the table with Sadam.
Not that I'm a Bush supporter. Guantonimoe (gak spelling sucks) bay situation is clearly unconstitutional.
I'm not a Kerry supporter eighter, the guy is a pathalogical liar, and a bad one. I've heard to many clips of him saying X then a clip of him saying Y where X = !Y.
Frankly the US people don't have much of a choice this fall. I'm hoping against Kerry as his raising taxes would kill the economic recovery. (His record on taxes is pretty much the only consistancy he's shown, for MORE taxes at every turn).
Well then you have no fear of being shocked. A friend of mine has dvd, and aparently thier is a sequal he's thinking about ordering. It's done as a porn spoof. Pretty funny actually. Somthing about checking up on some mysterious happenings at startbase 69 and delivering a pizza. and the ship is called the uss intercourse.
Mycroft (maybee I shouldn't sign this, just check anonymous and... ah nevermind)
Actually rip-off is the wrong word, considering it started as a contract with Marvel comics.
My understanding is that some company involved in the first X-Man movie got a contract to do a tv series based on the x-man 'concept', and thinking they were going to get to do X-Men the tv series they got another company to buy in and help out. Well aparently the first contract (with Marvel) was such that that the first company got told by marvel they couldn't actually use the x-men or any specific marvel characters, just the basic concept and to use x and mutant in the title. well the third company was a bit disapointed to find out they weren't getting into what they thought and it only got worse till they decided to drop out and sue the company in the middle for misleading them, afaik thier suing Marvel as well. Fireworks is one of the companies, but I can't recall wich.
So in short it may be pathetic, but it's Official pathetic and not a rip off per se. (though I'm shure many viewers feel riped off)
The sad thing is this is likely to kill Andromeda off. I've only seen about 15 or so episodes, but thier at least average for tv. Frankly the only other decent s.f. type series on broadcast tv is SG1 which, while well done, has only minimal continuity and character developement from episode to episode. Whereas Andromeda seems to have a story arc to it.
Slashdot Mirror
Gak hit wrong button, had more to say, sorry for splitting my reply like this.
As far as mirroring the site, what really bugs me is they don't make it easy to just d/l the updates so you can save them to a cd and install them offline so I can install from there, gonna look into this slipstreaming though as my brother's pc is getting really wonky on him and he's talking about setting up xp when the inevitable re-install occures (he's running ME right now.) On of the apps he runs is still a beta and has a habbit of locking his system hard requireing the magic reset button. Same exact program on xp doese not do this, it just gets really sluggish for a minute or so, but you can still use everything else while waiting for it to realize you've hit the [x] in the corner.
I can't wait till Linux gets to the point where I can play the games I like, and work with the 3d files I want for those games and I can shrink my xp install and usage to near nill.
Mycroft
I admit that winxp has fewer re-boots than the 9x series while installing just the windows core, it's all the drivers you have to install seperately, each with thier own reboots that's a pita.
While this is partly due to the driver makers and partly due to how windows itself works, with linux I get the drivers installed with the o.s. and don't usually need to install driver seperately with thier own install, reboot, set setting cycle.
Linux has it's own usability issues, some pretty bad, but the initial install on many distro's is NOT one of them. I consider it one of the few areas where Linux is clearly ahead of MS.
Now how about fixing cut and paste?
Mycroft
Can't really predict the all the benifits, that's one of the reasons why it's worthwile.
Somtimes you set out to learn somthing specific. Sometimes you don't even know what there is to learn till you happen uppon it.
Mycroft
Actually that was a slight miss-translation, he asked for a suana full of vodka.
Mycroft
I trully wish it was as simple as that. But unforntuneatly most of those bad things are in part social and human nature.
The US currently exports more food than not, Our government pays farmers to leave thier fields un-used, yet millions go hungry every day just so the prices of certain crops don't drop and put alot of farmers in even worse situations than they are now, where they can barely make enough $$ to survive themselves.
And that's just one example of how the problems we face as humans isn't as simple as we would have them.
It's my hope that we can grow up a bit more as a society, stop letting stupid superstions and prejudices fuel wars and exacerbate poverty.
I just don't see how staying put on this one tiny rock doing as we have for eons will change things. I don't see for certain how spreading off this rock will make a difference eigther, but it will be first NEW challange mankind has faced since columbus.
Maybe, no likely, we will take all our problems an foibles with us as we go out there, but just maybee we'll actually learn somthing as a race, and if not we'll at least through distance finally eliminate the only real threat this side a cosmic scale distater this race has faced since we came up with fire and the wheel, Ourselves.
If this sounds like I have a low opion of our species I don't. If you consider what we HAVE done it's hard not to be a little proud of what a bunch 'hairless apes' have managed to pull off despite our embarrisng moments.
Besides I think humans are the best people on earth:)
Working on the issues you mentioned is both worthwile and noble, but so is exploring and expanding the human condition and most likely achieving the only true imortality a species can achieve. And there will be lessons learned in getting man off this planet, lessons in medicine, engineering, construction, and so on than can and will be used on your goals as well. And nothing says we can't work on ALL of these goals except us.
Mycroft
Yes certainly, because we'll never get better at getting things and people out of earths gravity well. In fact it's pure luck we've actually got somthing better than what c. columbus and co. left europe with. I see no reason to expect better than appollo capsules to start a new colony with.
Mycroft
I do agree taking basic protections is somthing a user should do. However If the o.s. wasn't so susceptable because of design choices and coding errors, then exactly where would the worms,viri, etc. come from?
Also I'm not really for isp's using a blanket 'blocking proper ports' just because a worm is known to use it, someone may have need of that port for some obscure app. Now if an automated process would detect specific worm activity (It is known what most worms send as packets across the net) and blocked that, it would be different.
I do also blame the writers of such software. Unlike your std analogy, worms are the deliberate creations of people.
So as a practical matter, YES people need to take precautions, even though with raw number of these things out there I can see why many just decide it's futile.
And yes, the people who write these things then release them are definate on my BAD PEOPLE list.
And being the dominant desktop OS makes windows the biggest target.
The fact remains that windows is not only susceptable in too many ways, but is actively pro-worm in many of it's features.
I give microsoft credit when it earns it, but in this case they have fallen miserably short.
Also I've always considered basic maintanence of a machine to be dealing with parts that suffer wear and tear, this isn't wear and tear but deliberated damage. Would you consider it 'basic maintanence' to replace the passenger door after some idiot accidently bumps it with a shopping cart and a design defect causes it to fall off in 4 pieces? Also replacing a defective part or having it fixed also isn't basic maintenance.
Mycroft
I assume you are adressing the masses in general with those direction. (or are in a country where 28.8 is reasonable for an always on 'broadband' connection')
Still I don't recall the option to enable the firewall by default during setup, it's possible I did and decided not to as I was planning on buying some new basic protection software the next day (a.v., firewall, etc.).
Still with the anoying endless stream of reboots involved in setting up a windows system a kind of numbness does set in.
That is one thing I aplaud the linux distros for, boot the install cd., install what you want in one session, reboot ready to go. (well except earlier versions of mandrake, the 7.x and iirc some of the 8.x, would crash with a divide by 0 error durring setup).
Mycroft
A small edit:
Of course I'm assuming a typo and dow=not.
Sad thing is both are true. I'd say Kerry is more of a incompetent liar, but that's just how I see it. I've heard clips of Kerry claiming first one thing, then later it's exact opposite. doese he or doese he not own SUV's, did or did he not throw medals over the wall, and so on.
When do get a statesman to vote for instead of a polotical hack.
Mycroft
Now how, if everyone was a crook, could you imply it had no polotical underpinnings? I'd say crooked pretty much sums up most politicians.
Mycroft
And how old is OpenBSD? Eight years sounds about right, but I don't really know.
If it's only 8 years old then it really could be just one remote hole in it's entire lifespan.
Well I'm shure quite a few people here know how old OpenBSD is and will chime up, I'd be curious to see if my guess is right
Mycroft
I see your point, and if I trusted Microsoft implicitly I would agree.
Now will those who trust Microsoft please raise your hands.
hello.... anyone out there.......
In theory it's a great idea, have the machine fix itself so to speak. But many people will NOT like the concept of thier computer 'phoning home' by default, even if there is way to turn it off. (it's already there but it's opt in instead of automatic) and around you risk violence (or least being flamed and modded into non-existance) for even suggesting such a thing.
Mycroft
This is more reason to point some of the blame right at Microsoft. For releasing a product so buggy it needs dozens of patches in the first place. I understand no one is perfect, and no coder will think of everything, but with the number of people Microsoft hires to write code and so on they should be doing a better job of checking and examing thier code before releasing it.
If this were the case, especialy if of software in general, then patches would get more attention by thier rarity alone. As would exploits.
Frankly in a sane universe Windows update would mostly feature new codec, more languages, and other such improvements and updates to fit/use new technologies that didn't exist at publish time.
And for what it's worth some of us have pitiful connections, you want to try and fully patch winxp pro sp1 over a connection only hits 28.8 on a good day. lemme tell you it takes a LONG time.
Mycroft (all IMHO of course)
Exactly, withing minutes of finishing my first install of XP pro (SP1) (finishing NOT starting), I connect to net intent on A) making shure it's connecting properly and all settings are correct. And B) donwloading the necessary patches, never made it to the windows update page as winxp's firewall isn't on by default and blaster had my system nearly unusable on the net by the time I'd logged in and verified I could get e-mail.(this with a connection that rarely reaches 28.8)
Fourtunately getting the firewall on slowed it down enough to get the patch and clean the system.
This was the third virus I've gotten, the other I got at the same time off of a 5.25" floppy (that long ago, MSdos was still on the 3.x version.)
As far as I'm concerned that is a recall level problem, if a car or tv was that faulty out of the box a recall would almost be certain.
How is it we tolerate this out of 'comercial' software? And accept we'll have to patch most out of the box to get them to work. It's one thing if something doesn't work perfectly with some obscure hardware (though the o.s. and drivers are what's broken in this case). But to be almost unuseable is not acceptable.
Would you buy a car that if the radio was turned on at the wrong point during some songs it blew a fuse and caused the controll module to think it was pumping to much gas to the injectors?
Would you buy a tv that couldn't get the odd numbered channels after watching a channel above 9 unless you powered it off then on with the remote only?
And before anyone starts in on how computers are so much more complex than the above, or how impossible it is to test against everything, etc. I would like to point out that cars and tv's and so on have gotten VERY complex (just look into some of what the ecm module in a new car does)
And simply making shure your code can handle, in a gracefull way, any inputs,exceptions, or other out of bounds conditions it may have to deal with, and that is possible. Some languages make it hard not to and still 'comercial' programs written in these languages still crap out for things they should have been able to deal with, or at least recover from.
Mycroft
That is eigther too much information or not enough, and I'm affraid to find out eigther way.
Mycroft
Yes and no. It's a double standard only if you don't look at why it's there.
What it really is, is a viewpoint that adresses the fundemental assertions and environment copyright exists in.
There are two (overlapping) groups that your 'double standard' stance. The ones that don't like the creative restrictions current copyright policies and laws reflect. For this group GPL is good because it uses copyright against it's own abuse. Sortof a judo move if you will.
The second group are closer to your meaning. They simply want free-as-in-beer IP and see the use of copyright in GPL as giving them what they want at the lowest possible price (at or near free). And see how *IAA and Microsoft et. al. are using copyright as the opposite.
While I agree the second group is simple ignoble selfishness, and I won't overly protest your claim of them having a double standard. With respect the first group, well them I can respect, even if I do not see it as 'The One True Way'.
Frankly a revamp of the copyright system and other IP laws to more accurately reflect the original intent of thier existance, should seriously reduce the complaint of the first group.
Mycroft
Well actualy it's my understanding that copyright is automatic these days, though if you don't register it with the copyright office your leagle avenues and protections are more limited.
However much of the p2p available porn is indeed up with copyright holder permision. Much of it is flat out spam. put in a search for some funny clip from tv, just as an example. Or search for anything video-ish or with any potentialy porn related term, get a file so labled, then watch and see yet again the same stupid porn clip with a website advertised right on it.
Now if he'd said 99% was for porn, mp3's, warez and movies. That might be more acurate. though not all of any of those categories (except warez by definition) would be against the copyright holders wishes.
Still I've downloaded tutorials, game walkthroughs, info, and other presumably o.k. stuff. What 'music' I've downloaded includes about half the tracks from a 'cd' I bought that wouldn't play in my computer (the only working cd player I have and had at the time) and few OLD comedy skits I couldn't find elsewhere.
Mycroft.
Actually it is possible to leagly own an automatic weapon in the US(unless this has changed in the last few years), it's just not practical. The are significant permit fees and other hoops to jump through. In fact I know of an individual who personally owns quite a few (~ 50) main battle tanks and other millitary vehicles as a private hobby. Thier de-milled of course. And just as obviously this guy has some serious $$ (his familiy was involved in building a major bridge or two in CA and other BIG construction contracts). My uncle works for the guy as a mechanic helping restore them.
Mycroft
It's 'fair' because the Federal government is supposed to be an inter-state government. Remember the Founding fathers saw each state as a seperate political entity, a STATE, not an overgrown county as they are now.
Your state government is supposed to be look out for you at the federal level by choosing a president via the electorial colledge. It was never intended for 'The People' to vote for president. Though it was o.k. if this or that state chose to poll it's citizens for thier opion on the matter. One effect (now greatly reduced) of the electorial colledge was to act as a buffer between the passions of the moment and sane governance. And to otherwise increase the likely wisdom of the choosers. While at the same time the federal government was SEVERLY limited in it's ability to act w/respect the individual in order to safeguard on the other side of tyrany. this to has degraded in a major way and now we are at greater risk for tyrany of eigther the majority or the minority.
Mycroft.
Sheesh.
First off if there was lying about WMD's, it was by Sadam. Oh he said he didn't have them, but then behaved as if he had somthing to hide. Also many other nations intellegence supported this conclusion. Bush did overemphasize, and really should have gone into a less simplistic explanation of why.
As who presided over what economic time. While you are technicaly correct, the implication of your statement is not. The resesion after the 90's boom started under Clintons watch, so what little effect presidents have on the economy (not much really) is a mixed bag for Clinton, while under Bush we got hit on 9/11 right when the economy was susceptible.
As far as the war being for oil. Well actually it would be a un backed war if certain countries with veto power were not dealing under the table with Sadam.
Not that I'm a Bush supporter. Guantonimoe (gak spelling sucks) bay situation is clearly unconstitutional.
I'm not a Kerry supporter eighter, the guy is a pathalogical liar, and a bad one. I've heard to many clips of him saying X then a clip of him saying Y where X = !Y.
Frankly the US people don't have much of a choice this fall. I'm hoping against Kerry as his raising taxes would kill the economic recovery. (His record on taxes is pretty much the only consistancy he's shown, for MORE taxes at every turn).
Mycroft
And instead they mod you down. Bummer I think funny + insightfull makes more sense, not that I'm biased or anything. :)
Mycroft
Well then you have no fear of being shocked.
A friend of mine has dvd, and aparently thier is a sequal he's thinking about ordering. It's done as a porn spoof. Pretty funny actually.
Somthing about checking up on some mysterious happenings at startbase 69 and delivering a pizza.
and the ship is called the uss intercourse.
Mycroft (maybee I shouldn't sign this, just check anonymous and... ah nevermind)
Actually rip-off is the wrong word, considering it started as a contract with Marvel comics.
My understanding is that some company involved in the first X-Man movie got a contract to do a tv series based on the x-man 'concept', and thinking they were going to get to do X-Men the tv series they got another company to buy in and help out. Well aparently the first contract (with Marvel) was such that that the first company got told by marvel they couldn't actually use the x-men or any specific marvel characters, just the basic concept and to use x and mutant in the title. well the third company was a bit disapointed to find out they weren't getting into what they thought and it only got worse till they decided to drop out and sue the company in the middle for misleading them, afaik thier suing Marvel as well. Fireworks is one of the companies, but I can't recall wich.
So in short it may be pathetic, but it's Official pathetic and not a rip off per se. (though I'm shure many viewers feel riped off)
The sad thing is this is likely to kill Andromeda off. I've only seen about 15 or so episodes, but thier at least average for tv. Frankly the only other decent s.f. type series on broadcast tv is SG1 which, while well done, has only minimal continuity and character developement from episode to episode. Whereas Andromeda seems to have a story arc to it.
Mycroft
Where are my mod points when I need them. :)
+2 funny or thereabouts.
Last week mod points every 2 days, this week meta mod shows up twice a day. Slashcode may need a better random num generator.(or recheck of algo)
Mycroft
Pretty much, the orbits of the two are such it would take more fuel than can be taken on any usefull mission, possibly more than can be taken.
Mycroft