I know, I'm feeding a troll, but they're just so cute when they sit up and beg like this.
Anyhoo, here goes:
As long as the Federal stormtroopers can forbid us to pray to our Creator as we choose, we are not free.
Pray to Whoever you want, however you want but not on my dime. Unless you're willing to interupt school two or three times a day so that the little Muslim girl sitting next to your kid can pray to Mecca. Either you have to stop everything for everyone or just draw a line and universally say "Do it on your own time." Simple.
As long as they can forbid the education of our children in a Christian manner, we are not free.
See above. You can educate your child however you choose. You do know, don't you, that you have many other choices than a public school, if they bug you. It's the public's dime, not your private parochial system.
As long as they can ram filth down our throats on the television, we are not free.
Laughable. Did you goof and buy a T.V. without and off switch? Forget to pick up this week's T.V. Guide? Are the Federales camped out in your living room, holding little Johnny down on the couch and forcing him to watch hours of South Park or Ellen? Or are you schluffing off your responsibility to raise your children? I don't understand how folks who are so vocal about the glories of a Free Market system can bitch about the results of the Free Market system. Don't like the shows? Don't watch 'em. Don't let your kids watch 'em. Why are you advocating gov't contrl of a communications medium -- I would have thought folks like you would want to keep especially those free of government regulation...
As long as we are denied the right to police our own communities as we see fit, we are not free.
Are police chiefs, sherrifs, etc. not elected officials in your humble 'berg?
Finally, to sum:
This will again be a free nation only when power is excercised at the local level, for the benefit of the community.
We're back to that whole T.V. thing, again. You don't want what you're advocating here. You want the mandating of your agenda. It's clear. The gov't isn't sending Evil signals into your T.V., corporations are. The gov't isn't stopping you from ignoring them. The gov't isn't stopping your neighbor from watching them. Seems like local control to me?
This is probably too late in the discussion to get moderated at all, but Hear, hear!
I'm so glad to hear someone finally point out the idoicy of Nader's "We're not throwing the election" line. All exit polls of Nader voters show clearly that at least 2/3 of Nader voters would have voted for Gore -- and Nader has to know this: if he means what he's spewing to the media today he's either -- at the very least -- being hopelessly naive or disingenuous. He handed the Presidency to a group that will -- whatever he says -- be markedly worse for everything he stands for. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying to you or to themselves.
And your other point is dead on, as well. American politics is not about falling on your sword: it's about compromise. It's the genius of the National political scene and it's something that Nader seems to believe, in his self-righteous tizzy, is below him.
Don't believe me? See the Federalist papers -- the system was set up for compromise. The Founders had no time for ideologues like Nader. They were (are) destructive and the system is designed to moderate their views. (Feel free to check the source code on this is you don't believe me: try Federalist Paper #47, by Madison, available here.)
You think the Republicans and Democrats were the same party? Tear your eyes away from votenader.com and read some policy statements. Start at the top with abortion, scan through environmental policy, and keep reading through urban issues. Still think it doesn't matter which one is sending legislation to the Hill?
And yes, while the two-party system isn't law, and while they do have a virtual monopoly on decision making, it's been this way since the 1805 or so. Parties change, they evolve -- they do complete reversals on some issues (e.g. the Republicans in the 60s) -- but by compromise within themselves and with each other, they can get something done. Nader, by trying to take his toys and go home, went against the system and managed to worsen the condition of everything he professes to care about. Or did you folks vote for him because to the mystical matching funds? Oh, sorry about that, too.
How do you know we haven't been contacted by an alien race?
We've got a couple options here. We can either assume a) that humanity hasn't been contacted; or b) that an incredibly advanced civilization with the power to venture across the intergalactic void is content to reveal itself only at night, to the lone drivers on deserted county roads in Iowa...
I'll preface these remarks by saying that I've been doing web development (not that it was called that) for many moons and that it's only very recently -- with much pain -- that I've started to give up on Netscape.
It goes without saying that if this article were about Mozilla or Netscape the mass of the the posts here would have a very different spin -- probably something along the lines of "C'mon, W3C, get with the program!" or "They're a powerless body that's trying to dictate our code!"
Really, folks, is anyone going to tell me that Netscape was "standards compliant" when they added JavaScript into 2.0? (Speaking of that, why is it that most folks here that lamblast the web for turning into a "all-show-no-content" fluff-fest never point the finger at the company that started it?)
And let's not forget that wonderful belch that Netscape made when it came up with "layers". Is that in the specs? Nope. Netscape wanted to beat M$ to the punch, so they rushed to release with a bunch of new non-standard features. Then they got screwed when the W3C went the opposite direction. What about IE? Oh, Microsoft waited until the standards were fixed, then released. Hm...
And to cap off, looking through my trusty O'Reilly's HTML 4.0 reference, if I'm looking to code as close to the standard 4.0 spec as I can, I can very nearly code for I.E. only. Netscape with choke with some features, but so what? ony 9% of our visitors are using NS -- down from 15% last year.
No one's compliant -- though I.E. is at least as close as NS. But that ignores the real point: It's not 1994; the web is a market-driven industry now and thus out of the control of academia.
The sprawl has a lot to do with this, too. I live in Phoenix right now, too, and I've lived here & in Tucson all my life.
What happens is that older developed areas in the desert were developed for a reason -- namely, they got more moisture. That's why the Salt River area is densly populated and so is the Southeast Valley. The outlying area suck for rainfall -- that's why the settlers didn't settle there! But with this gawd-awful sprawl in the Valley, people are living where there just isn't decent rainfall.
No joke -- I was driving around Tempe (Southeast Valley, for non-Arizonans) two weeks ago and had to pull off the road because the rain was so heavy. Called my wife at our apt. in the North Valley and she was out sunbathing. We never got a drop, but 15 miles south there were trees down and flooded roads.
So I don't think the "heat bubble" really has anything to do with it. I think we've just sprawled past the rainshed.
But I do miss the lightening -- that's why I'm buying a house in South Tempe -- [rummages for UPC]...
Actually, you're wrong about Heinlein. You state that "he had practical experience as a Naval Officer in World War II". He didn't. He was a Navy officer, but he was discharged prior to WWII (1937 I think) due to an injury (his back?). His stint in the military was decidedly short and unglamorous and, it's reasonable to assume, less than what he wanted (cf. the scathing view of the Navy in Starship Troopers).
Further, I don't know that you can call S.T. "a polemic against Communism/Fascism" since RH is clearly using the book to espouse a system of "rule by the military" -- i.e. fascism. Benevolent fascism, sure, but the difference between Heinlein's system and Hitler's is ideology, not method. Take a look at Glory Road or Cat Who Walks Through Walls or, better yet, Between Planets.
Sure DePalma/Hollywood twists stories to better grind their own political axes, but so do writers. Heinlein in particular is a horrible example. How many of his stories at at least -- at minimum -- 25% filled with his characters in some sort of Socratic dialog about politics. And who always gets to be Socrates? Heinlein.
The fiction-as-pulpit racket is nothing new -- it's just that the sermons have changed.
I imagine the developers of this are spending most of their interviews/press releases repeating variations on the following: "No, damn it, p0rn had nothing to do with it!"
[Yes, it was immature to say that. Very immature, thank you.]
Actually, I think the foundations of taxation are somewhat different than you have explained.
But didn't the "founding fathers" explicitly abhor arbitrary taxation? I mean that was what the revolutionary war was supposedly about. Governments can tax citizens, but/for services rendered/.
Actually, that's only partially true. Tax is, fundamentally, just a form of tribute. Stripped of all it's trappings, isn't any tax arbitrary?
Also, the Founding Fathers' battle cry was "No taxation without representation" rather than "No taxation without service rendered." Actually, that's one of the things that confused the hell out of the brits -- us colonials were receiving services for our taxes to the crown -- mostly in the form of Red Coat protection from Indian/French raiding, frontier protection, etc. The Brit taxes were mostly to pay for the upkeep of the 13 colonies. Our beef was that we hadn't a say in the implementation of the taxes.
Besides, Pres. Washington used the military to enforce an unpopular -- and very arbitrary -- tax on Whisky soon after the war. Governments will tax whatever they can -- the beauty of our system is that we (if you're a U.S. citizen) can have a voice in our taxation, through our political process...it's easy to talk about the U.S. Government (or a state gov't) like it's a monolithic Force intent on railroading everyone, but c'mon, folks, if you're over 18 and you aren't a felon, technically, you are part of the government. Yes, a small part. But small parts can organize and become big parts. Look at AARP or the NRA -- traditional fringe groups who now have more than their share of influence.
[look now, ma, I'm digressing!]
With the billions of dollars in the e-commerce industry, there's a potential for a internet/free speech -friendly PAC or special interest group with a very big stick.
Sorry for the rant. I knew that history degree would come in handy.
I mean, after all, odds are the first computer most people saw in an educational setting was a Apple. It doesn't follow that for every little kid who sat down to play with a Turtle on a IIe you now have a die-hard Mac user. Obviously that's not the case.
I used to work in education as an elementary school computer instructor at school in one of the "poorer" neighborhoods in Tucson. It was 1998, and these kids were *still* using Apple IIe's. We had three Compaqs in the library that were from a grant. Did I -- or any of the kids -- give a damn about Bill Gates and Microsoft? Of course not. We were too busy trying to teach children.
If Gates wants to donate software and hardware, more power to him. I'd rather raise children to be informed, able technology users later able to make up their minds about Microsoft than raise children who only see computers in T.V. commercials and get needlessly steamrolled by more fortunate kids whose parents could buy them systems. Let's keep a sense of perspective about this.
Holy Wars Aside, Salon Brings Up Some Good Points
on
Salon on Mindcraft II
·
· Score: 1
The first Mindcraft was pitifully biased. No one really argues that. But one should be a little more careful about dismissing this round of testing. After all, with Red Hat folks in the same room, suddenly this test changes from "let's play with this new Linux thingie" to a legitimate showdown. For PHBs, mostly, Red Hat is Linux, and they're going to make their deployment decissions based on comparison studies like this -- it doesn't matter if Linux groupies quibble about the testing conditions. If Linux is going to try to be a viable alternative in the commercial market, it will live or die by these tests. Salon said this:
If the Linux punks wanted to make good on their claims to be aiming at the big-time "enterprise" market, then they had to learn how to play with the big boys
"Punks" not withstanding, they're right. I know many PHBs, MIS directors, training centers, etc. that are sitting on the sidelines right now, waiting to see if Linux is going to be here in a year (as an enterprise OS). The only thing that will change their mind is favorable mainstream media reviews. We, as a community, have to shift our paradigm a bit. Not totally away from the group-of-hackers mindset, but at least acknowledging that the world-at-large runs on market forces that have to be dealt with. Salon makes a good point: Linux, as community, is going to have to get used to tests, benchmarks, a reasonable amount of shrink-wrap standardization, and so forth. The challenge, as I see it, will be to make that crucial step while holding on to the spirit of invention and community that make Linux great. My $.02; and a rambling first post.
Slashdot Mirror
And then they went and named the place after some schlub who just drew a picture of it. Cripes, we're talking iterative injustice, here.
Amongst Greek philosophers, Eurpoean explorers, "Indians", politicians, and scientists, there is one constant: life's a bitch.
I know, I'm feeding a troll, but they're just so cute when they sit up and beg like this.
Anyhoo, here goes:
As long as the Federal stormtroopers can forbid us to pray to our Creator as we choose, we are not free.
Pray to Whoever you want, however you want but not on my dime. Unless you're willing to interupt school two or three times a day so that the little Muslim girl sitting next to your kid can pray to Mecca. Either you have to stop everything for everyone or just draw a line and universally say "Do it on your own time." Simple.
As long as they can forbid the education of our children in a Christian manner, we are not free.
See above. You can educate your child however you choose. You do know, don't you, that you have many other choices than a public school, if they bug you. It's the public's dime, not your private parochial system.
As long as they can ram filth down our throats on the television, we are not free.
Laughable. Did you goof and buy a T.V. without and off switch? Forget to pick up this week's T.V. Guide? Are the Federales camped out in your living room, holding little Johnny down on the couch and forcing him to watch hours of South Park or Ellen? Or are you schluffing off your responsibility to raise your children? I don't understand how folks who are so vocal about the glories of a Free Market system can bitch about the results of the Free Market system. Don't like the shows? Don't watch 'em. Don't let your kids watch 'em. Why are you advocating gov't contrl of a communications medium -- I would have thought folks like you would want to keep especially those free of government regulation...
As long as we are denied the right to police our own communities as we see fit, we are not free.
Are police chiefs, sherrifs, etc. not elected officials in your humble 'berg?
Finally, to sum:
This will again be a free nation only when power is excercised at the local level, for the benefit of the community.
We're back to that whole T.V. thing, again. You don't want what you're advocating here. You want the mandating of your agenda. It's clear. The gov't isn't sending Evil signals into your T.V., corporations are. The gov't isn't stopping you from ignoring them. The gov't isn't stopping your neighbor from watching them. Seems like local control to me?
What's so difficult?
This is probably too late in the discussion to get moderated at all, but Hear, hear!
I'm so glad to hear someone finally point out the idoicy of Nader's "We're not throwing the election" line. All exit polls of Nader voters show clearly that at least 2/3 of Nader voters would have voted for Gore -- and Nader has to know this: if he means what he's spewing to the media today he's either -- at the very least -- being hopelessly naive or disingenuous. He handed the Presidency to a group that will -- whatever he says -- be markedly worse for everything he stands for. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying to you or to themselves.
And your other point is dead on, as well. American politics is not about falling on your sword: it's about compromise. It's the genius of the National political scene and it's something that Nader seems to believe, in his self-righteous tizzy, is below him.
Don't believe me? See the Federalist papers -- the system was set up for compromise. The Founders had no time for ideologues like Nader. They were (are) destructive and the system is designed to moderate their views. (Feel free to check the source code on this is you don't believe me: try Federalist Paper #47, by Madison, available here.)
You think the Republicans and Democrats were the same party? Tear your eyes away from votenader.com and read some policy statements. Start at the top with abortion, scan through environmental policy, and keep reading through urban issues. Still think it doesn't matter which one is sending legislation to the Hill?
And yes, while the two-party system isn't law, and while they do have a virtual monopoly on decision making, it's been this way since the 1805 or so. Parties change, they evolve -- they do complete reversals on some issues (e.g. the Republicans in the 60s) -- but by compromise within themselves and with each other, they can get something done. Nader, by trying to take his toys and go home, went against the system and managed to worsen the condition of everything he professes to care about. Or did you folks vote for him because to the mystical matching funds? Oh, sorry about that, too.
To quote:
We've got a couple options here. We can either assume a) that humanity hasn't been contacted; or b) that an incredibly advanced civilization with the power to venture across the intergalactic void is content to reveal itself only at night, to the lone drivers on deserted county roads in Iowa...
Hm...
I'll preface these remarks by saying that I've been doing web development (not that it was called that) for many moons and that it's only very recently -- with much pain -- that I've started to give up on Netscape.
It goes without saying that if this article were about Mozilla or Netscape the mass of the the posts here would have a very different spin -- probably something along the lines of "C'mon, W3C, get with the program!" or "They're a powerless body that's trying to dictate our code!"
Really, folks, is anyone going to tell me that Netscape was "standards compliant" when they added JavaScript into 2.0? (Speaking of that, why is it that most folks here that lamblast the web for turning into a "all-show-no-content" fluff-fest never point the finger at the company that started it?)
And let's not forget that wonderful belch that Netscape made when it came up with "layers". Is that in the specs? Nope. Netscape wanted to beat M$ to the punch, so they rushed to release with a bunch of new non-standard features. Then they got screwed when the W3C went the opposite direction. What about IE? Oh, Microsoft waited until the standards were fixed, then released. Hm...
And to cap off, looking through my trusty O'Reilly's HTML 4.0 reference, if I'm looking to code as close to the standard 4.0 spec as I can, I can very nearly code for I.E. only. Netscape with choke with some features, but so what? ony 9% of our visitors are using NS -- down from 15% last year.
No one's compliant -- though I.E. is at least as close as NS. But that ignores the real point: It's not 1994; the web is a market-driven industry now and thus out of the control of academia.
NT tag was much more fun to play.
...or am I confusing that with freeze tag?...
Hm...
Why mock Strom's age when you could mock the fact that this is a man who
a) got his start campaigning as an openly racist, segregationist Dixie-crat;
b) made his name by opposing every scrap of Equal Rights legislation for the past 52 years;
c) Is nevertheless re-elected by a landslide every few years.
The man's not just dead, he's a dinasaur. And, doddering old fool that he is, he weilds an incredible amount of power.
It's enough to drive a voter to support term limits...almost.
The sprawl has a lot to do with this, too. I live in Phoenix right now, too, and I've lived here & in Tucson all my life.
What happens is that older developed areas in the desert were developed for a reason -- namely, they got more moisture. That's why the Salt River area is densly populated and so is the Southeast Valley. The outlying area suck for rainfall -- that's why the settlers didn't settle there! But with this gawd-awful sprawl in the Valley, people are living where there just isn't decent rainfall.
No joke -- I was driving around Tempe (Southeast Valley, for non-Arizonans) two weeks ago and had to pull off the road because the rain was so heavy. Called my wife at our apt. in the North Valley and she was out sunbathing. We never got a drop, but 15 miles south there were trees down and flooded roads.
So I don't think the "heat bubble" really has anything to do with it. I think we've just sprawled past the rainshed.
But I do miss the lightening -- that's why I'm buying a house in South Tempe -- [rummages for UPC]...
Actually, you're wrong about Heinlein. You state that "he had practical experience as a Naval Officer in World War II". He didn't. He was a Navy officer, but he was discharged prior to WWII (1937 I think) due to an injury (his back?). His stint in the military was decidedly short and unglamorous and, it's reasonable to assume, less than what he wanted (cf. the scathing view of the Navy in Starship Troopers).
Further, I don't know that you can call S.T. "a polemic against Communism/Fascism" since RH is clearly using the book to espouse a system of "rule by the military" -- i.e. fascism. Benevolent fascism, sure, but the difference between Heinlein's system and Hitler's is ideology, not method. Take a look at Glory Road or Cat Who Walks Through Walls or, better yet, Between Planets.
Sure DePalma/Hollywood twists stories to better grind their own political axes, but so do writers. Heinlein in particular is a horrible example. How many of his stories at at least -- at minimum -- 25% filled with his characters in some sort of Socratic dialog about politics. And who always gets to be Socrates? Heinlein.
The fiction-as-pulpit racket is nothing new -- it's just that the sermons have changed.
I imagine the developers of this are spending most of their interviews/press releases repeating variations on the following: "No, damn it, p0rn had nothing to do with it!"
[Yes, it was immature to say that. Very immature, thank you.]
Nah...
Not really...
Well, on the other hand...
Soldier: "Where ya' goin', General?"
Patton-esqe character: "Goin' ta Redmond! Gonna shoot that system crashin' sonofabitch!"
Actually, I think the foundations of taxation are somewhat different than you have explained.
Actually, that's only partially true. Tax is, fundamentally, just a form of tribute. Stripped of all it's trappings, isn't any tax arbitrary?
Also, the Founding Fathers' battle cry was "No taxation without representation" rather than "No taxation without service rendered." Actually, that's one of the things that confused the hell out of the brits -- us colonials were receiving services for our taxes to the crown -- mostly in the form of Red Coat protection from Indian/French raiding, frontier protection, etc. The Brit taxes were mostly to pay for the upkeep of the 13 colonies. Our beef was that we hadn't a say in the implementation of the taxes.
Besides, Pres. Washington used the military to enforce an unpopular -- and very arbitrary -- tax on Whisky soon after the war. Governments will tax whatever they can -- the beauty of our system is that we (if you're a U.S. citizen) can have a voice in our taxation, through our political process...it's easy to talk about the U.S. Government (or a state gov't) like it's a monolithic Force intent on railroading everyone, but c'mon, folks, if you're over 18 and you aren't a felon, technically, you are part of the government. Yes, a small part. But small parts can organize and become big parts. Look at AARP or the NRA -- traditional fringe groups who now have more than their share of influence.
[look now, ma, I'm digressing!]
With the billions of dollars in the e-commerce industry, there's a potential for a internet/free speech -friendly PAC or special interest group with a very big stick.
Sorry for the rant. I knew that history degree would come in handy.
I don't think so.
I mean, after all, odds are the first computer most people saw in an educational setting was a Apple. It doesn't follow that for every little kid who sat down to play with a Turtle on a IIe you now have a die-hard Mac user. Obviously that's not the case.
I used to work in education as an elementary school computer instructor at school in one of the "poorer" neighborhoods in Tucson. It was 1998, and these kids were *still* using Apple IIe's. We had three Compaqs in the library that were from a grant. Did I -- or any of the kids -- give a damn about Bill Gates and Microsoft? Of course not. We were too busy trying to teach children.
If Gates wants to donate software and hardware, more power to him. I'd rather raise children to be informed, able technology users later able to make up their minds about Microsoft than raise children who only see computers in T.V. commercials and get needlessly steamrolled by more fortunate kids whose parents could buy them systems. Let's keep a sense of perspective about this.