You're being totally unfair. You have to realize that both Republican and Democrat politicians have been pushing e-voting. Just because a group of mostly young, very liberal people (read:/.'ers) want secure e-voting doesn't mean that the Democrat party does.
Furthermore, you have a one-sided kritik of the system. Ever think of the fact that maybe the reason the left went along with this is so that they could commit voter fraud as well? What's that you say? "The Democratic Party would NEVER commit voter fraud." If that's your answer, then you're incredibly naive. For example, about 90% of the dead vote goes democrat. Just because some liberals want verifiable voting and many visible people on the right aren't as entheusiastic about it doesn't mean that all conservatives want to commit election fraud. As a Republican myself, I can tell you that plenty of people on the right are worried about the left sabotaging the election and want some form of secure voting. Just because most people you know who are pushing for secure voting are liberals doesn't mean this issue is in the domain of the liberals. I think if you ask most people about it, they will want something done; the problem is that elected politicians on both sides are just ignoring it.
Another objection to this might be: "Look at all the problems that have favored Bush! There MUST be fraud somewhere because they can't ALL favor Bush." However, you only hear about the ones that favored Bush because the news story about how Bush should have gotten more votes somewhere (even in a swing state) wouldn't change the outcome and wouldn't be a good news story. It wouldn't sell.
Lastly, there are some problems with producing receipts. Think about it. First, you have to make the receipts available to the people to inspect to make sure they voted for the right person. What that means is you might have fraud somewhere where these receipts were counterfeited. Or imagine people walking out of the booth with the receipt. Potentially as proof to someone who wanted to buy that person's vote. I'm not saying that the current system is really acceptable, but my point is just that no system is really perfect. Think about it.
Here here! I agree completely. People bitch about how freedom of speech is taken away. There are the "Bush=Hitler" stickers still floating around (I saw some in D.C. over Thanksgiving weekend). However, stop and think for a second. If Bush were even close to being that bad, the first right you'd lose is the freedom to bitch about not having your rights. The right to free speech, and the right to bitch about not having it (yes, I realize that's an oxymoron) are the most effective means of keeping the government in check. Stop and ask yourself: What's the worst government abuse of power? I think the one/.'ers will be most familiar with is the DMCA, signed by Clinton in '98.
Oh, and to the previous poster: I'm an 18-year-old college student; my parents are lower-class parents (their combined gross income, before taxes or anything else, would be barely enough to cover cost of college, if I weren't getting such a nice financial aid package). I don't come from suburbs, I come from Wyoming. Do we have minorities? Not really. However, there are a bunch here on campus (I'm on the East Coast), and I still don't see any of this abuse. Do Republican and Democrat votes mysteriously disappear? Yes, but that's more of a local thing, rather than the vast national conspiracy.
OK, this probably won't get read this far down. However, I have my own $.02 to add.
First, this story is essentially one guy's word against a bunch of other people's. How do we know he's not lying? The fact of the matter is, we have no objective (yes, objective) standard for weighing the truth value of this story, and so it's inappropriate to go and believe it.
Second, has anyone seen the vote-switching program? It requires access to not just the voting machine software, but the voting official who set it up! As a Diebold programmer pointed out, they program the code to accept _generic_ ballots, to be made by voting officials. Think about it. Although they can switch a vote from person A to person B, how do you know who person A is in the first place? Also, person A can change from time to time. Furthermore, do you know how many people you'd have to keep quiet about this in order to pull it off? It just isn't logistically possible.
Furthermore, as has been pointed out, this software could be created to just see how easy it would be to do. However, this guy just sets up a VB interface, and he makes basic assumptions about how the interface would work. In practice, you'd need to know the internal structure of the vote tally file, and that can change, as I said. And who the HELL would write this in VB?
Also, I'd like to point out that having a president win due to voter fraud won't cause the fall of the country. JFK did it in 1960, and we survived him (and his successor, and the Vietnam War, which Nixon got us out of).
I didn't get the time to read the whole article, as it's getting late; however, it's simply an amalgation of unsubstantiated rumors on an anti-Bush, anti-Repubican conspiracy site. Bias, anyone?
Lastly, I'd just like to point out that I'm tired of these baseless allegations coming out about voter fraud by the Republicans. Every single time an error with voting comes up, it's blown up by the media, but only if it somehow helps Republicans, and the facts are distorted to make a story seem more plausible. When it's shown that no conspiracy existed, it isn't reported. For example, the whole felon mess in FL in 2000? You hear the claims that more blacks were removed from the rolls than whites? Well, as a matter of fact, while that may be true in absolute terms, an investigation by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission found that, in fact, whites were actually disproportionately wrongly disenfranchised (because there are more black felons than white ones, probably because more black people live in poverty than white people). Did you hear about this in any sort of major way? Of course not, because the mainstream media is largely biased towards the liberal side (doubt me? I think the Dan Rather/forged memo scandal, the ABC memo saying that Bush should be held to a higher standard than Kerry, the editor of Newsweek saying that the media's positive coverage of Kerry would be worth 15%, later revised downward to 5%, in the polls, and the economy being spun as constantly bad, while the '96 economy was spun as good, despite the fact that they were comparable, shows that most of the media, except Fox and talk radio, were out to defeat Bush).
Oh, and to those who ask why more stories about republican voter fraud is coming out that democrat fraud, I say the answer is simple. The republicans don't care; they won. The democrats are trying to soil the republican victory, trying to find even the most improbable thread of illogic to convince themselves that the U.S. really wants someone like Kerry to be president. The republicans aren't turning over every stone looking for votes, the democrats are, and every time they see a situation where Kerry might have lost a vote due to simple mistakes, they cry wolf.
Actually, I am familiar with Desert Fox... and its utter failure to bring weapons inspectors back to Iraq. Furthermore, it was conducted under questionable circumstances (it's possible that Clinton did this just to try to distract public opinion from the illegal shit he was doing back home).
Re:Why I think Kerry is a worse choice than Bush
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Pre-Election Discussion
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· Score: 1, Interesting
OK, responding to everyone:
1. The evidence indicated that Saddam still had WMD. Kerry himself came to that conclusion from the evidence. Regardless of the warrants behind the conclusion, Kerry came to the same one himself. You can't logcially fault Bush more than Kerry for this.
2. The Economist decided that Kerry was the better choice because it's time for change. Yet, you can't ignore the fact that they agreed more with what Bush wants to do, but they don't think he can get it done. This is based on Iraq, and refer to my other points about how everyone's being pessimistically myopic.
3. The tax policy. The Bush tax cuts actually made the system more progressive. Hard data here that's impossible to dispute: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=5746&type= 1 Besides, the lower tax brackets don't pay much in taxes, so you can't give tax breaks to those who don't pay them. However, what the tax breaks did was to expand the bracket that paid no taxes. Also, when you give tax cuts to the rich, that money gets reinvested somehow. Whether it't in creating jobs, in the stock market, in government bonds, or even in the bank, it's still invested somehow. Unless the rich just sit on the stack of cash (and I mean literally, a physical stack of cash), it's being reinvested. So, Bush did all he reasonably could to try and help the economy.
4. I don't see the deficit itself as a problem. I see it as indicitive of too much government spending. Intrest rates on US loans are the lowest in the world b/c everyone knows the US won't default on its loans. The deficit isn't that bad. What is bad is too much government spending (from my perspective), and Kerry's promising to increase THAT! For example, check out the Citizens Against Government Waste's analysis of his health care proposal: http://www.cagw.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id =8287
4. On the republican talking points, you did a good job of refuting absolutely nothing I said. You didn't dispute a single point I raised. Congratualtions on wasting/.'s bandwidth. Besides, I've independantly come to these conclusions from thinking, by myself, and analyzing the facts. You should try it yourself sometime, instead of just listening to the democrats' talking points.
5. Hmm, in this case, how do you know that Saddam didn't have WMD's? However, on a more practical level, Saddam can produce records showing the destruction of his chemical weapons, which could then be verified. That's exactly what the UN wanted with the final report, and that's exactly what Saddam didn't produce. People who had seen Saddam's earlier report concluded that the second one was merely a recycled version of the first, and they left a bunch of holes. Bottom line, Saddam was supposed to detail his weapons programs, and he didn't. Furthermore, Saddam kicked out the weapons inspectors in 1998, when Clinton was still in power. The UN pulled them out in 2003, before we invaded. Saddam kicking the weapons inspectors out in 1998 was a clear violation of UN resolutions and treaties ending the war. We did jack shit about it then.
Why I think Kerry is a worse choice than Bush
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Pre-Election Discussion
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Hopefully, this will get read, so far down.
That being said, I think that Bush is a better choice that Kerry. I don't especially like Bush; however, I dislike Kerry even more.
First, let's stop living in 1971, and start living in 2004. What happened in VietNam is long over, and people have changed since then. I thank Kerry for his service 30 years ago, but I think that there are other issues more relevant to today's election that VietNam.
That being said, the most pertinant issue is Iraq. The war was totally justified. We knew Saddam had WMD's at one point in time. There's no question about it. We also knew that, when he kicked out the weapons inspectors in 1998, they said that their work wasn't done. We also had intelligence indicating that Saddam still had WMD. What evidence did we have that Saddam had gotten rid of his WMD? His word. Nothing more. UN Resolution 1441, passed in November (IIRC) of 2002 gave Saddam one last chance to document fully his weapons programs. He failed miserably. There was a ton of stuff that was just plain unaccounted for. Saddam had the burden of proof to prove that he had gotten rid of the WMD's, in the treaties ending the first Gulf War. He failed. He gave no proof whatsoever. It would be irresponsible to put the the security of the US in Saddam's hands.
As we found out later, Saddam wanted us to believe that he still had WMD. He wanted everyone to think that he was strong. Well, he kind of fucked up there.
Also, let's not forget that John Kerry looked at the very same intelligence as the Bush administration and came to the very same conclusions, namely that Saddam posed an iminent threat. So, any critiques you might have about Bush's judgement also apply to Kerry. Kerry also voted for the war. He also stated, a couple months ago, that, knowing what he knows now, he'd still vote for authorization to use the troops. Well, that was a couple of months ago. I don't know if it's still true today.
However, Kerry tried to attach a caveat to that, namely that he voted for the authorization so that Bush could back up his threats of military power, but Kerry didn't want Bush to actually use it. In a nutshell, he said that he wanted the threat of military force to be a bluff. What kind of respect will that get on the world stage, now that our enemies know that Kerry won't actually use the military?
Speaking of world respect, the Economist has no respect for Kerry either. To use their word, they recognize that his vacillations lose a lot of respect. Furthermore, his whole promise to bring American troops home is based on a false premis, namely that France and Germany will send troops. However, that's fallacious, as France and Germany have flat-out stated that they won't send troops, no matter who wins in November.
Next, we have to look at the big picture in Iraq. The media is claiming that we're losing the peace. However, they said that about Afghanistain in 2002. They said that about France and Germany in 1946. The moral of the story: It may be a long and hard road, but we'll prevail. Iraq is slowly training Iraqis to enforce their on security. It'll take time, but eventually they'll be able to police themselves. Until that time, they need US troops there to prevent the situation from deteriorating even more.
Furthermore, the actual troops in Iraq support Bush's plan to Kerry's, by a fairly large margin. They don't see the same spin that we do; they actually see that there are positives, that we're actually accomplishing stuff over there now. A majority also believe that we're on the right track. If the people who have the best knowledge of what's going on over there support the current policy, don't you think that that means something?
Now, let's get on to the economy. I realize that Bush's policies aren't the best, but I do have a couple of points to make. First, the president really doesn't have that much direct control over the economy. Also, if you insist on assigning blame to the current recession, then Clinton des
Wrong, wrong, wrong. There is a reason that most libertarians generally side more with republicans than democrats, and that's because Republicans are more strongly anti-paternalist than Democrats.
In other words, it's the Republicans who don't want to rely on the Great Leader to do the thinking. Why is it that the democrats are more socialist than the Republicans? Why is it that Republicans are for a more free economy where people have more choice? (Forgive the pseudo-Socratic method here.)
On a general note about the how every single article in there is anti-right, there's a simple reason. The people who publish that list determine what's important enough to make the list and what's not. Think about it. The list is entirely subjective, and the liberal bias is blatantly obvious.
To the first reply, I stated that we don't have the right to copy them freely. You're missing the whole point. The government mandates that the MPAA give us certain rights, including the right of review. However, we don't have the right to copy the movie freely; however, we do have the right to "copy" it in certain forms.
To the second reply: YOU seem to have missed the original intent of the grandparent. He's saying that we're whining about our right to bear arms, which he/she doesn't seem to think we have a right to do. Instead, the grandparent is saying that our intentions are mis-directed. Granted, the weapons we're allowed to buy now are nothing compared to what the military has. However, a shotgun in the hands of the right person, at the right place, at the right time, can do some real damage to the government.
Granted, our rights are being eroded. It has been hapenning ever since the constitution was first written. All we can do is fight for our rights.
Uh, no, you're wrong. They have learned from the RIAA a little bit. The MPAA hasn't sued any end-user file sharers, have they? In fact, I seem to remember a/. article talking about how they wouldn't sue individuals guility of file sharing.
However, since their lawsuit against grokster fell through, that might not be the case any more.
Insightful? WTF? The parent post is a flat-out troll posted by an AC and nothing more.
You talk about our rights being taken away, and yet you forget about the right to "have and bear arms." The "right" to watch movies isn't in the Constitution, the 2nd amendment is. Furthermore, if armed insurrection becomes necessary to prevent tyranny (god forbid), what are you going to do? Show the government Region 2 DVD's on your Region 1 DVD player? Sorry, that won't work.
I agree that the MPAA is being a bunch of bastards. However, it's their right to do so. Nobody is forcing them to distribute DVD's. They are doing so of their own free will, influenced mainly by their desire to make money. Since they don't HAVE to sell you movies, they have the right to distribute them under any terms they want. If that includes the concept of regions, so be it. It may be onerous, but it's their right to do so.
In this respect, we don't have as many rights as the parent would like to believe. We have the right to purchase the DVD's on the MPAA's terms, or we have the right not to. If you don't like the concept of Regioning and CSS, then DON'T BUY THE F'ING DVD'S. Plain and simple. We DO NOT have the right to purchase them on our own terms; we do not have the right to copy them freely.
Where's your warrent to support your claims that Hitchens is as bad as Moore is? Until I see any sort of proof backing up your statement, I can only assume it is false. Otherwise, I would be just as justified to believe the grandparent.
Sorry, but that wouldn't work. Assign all copyrights/patents to the legal representative, and then make the legal rep contractually obligated to reassign everything over to the new legal rep when the old one leaves.
Or even simpler: make employees contractually obligated to assign copyright back to another individual in the company when he/she leaves.
Is it somewhat oppressive? Yes. Don't like it? Don't work there. Simple.
OT: It's definitely, not definately.
OK, I'll respond. Not to the comments about the Iraq war solely (because they are off topic), just to those about the validity of the analogy.
First, I'm not trying to evoke an emotional reaction. As a matter of fact, I'm somewhat of a cold-hearted bastard, so that thought never occured to me.
OK, so the two numbers seem unrelated. However, consider that the RIAA has virtually declared war on filesharers. The U.S. is actively at war in Iraq. Considering larger problems of the world, I think that the RIAA is taking this way too seriously. Granted, the U.S. has killed more people than have been killed, but that's another story. However, I'm talking about relative problems facing Americans (since most/. readers are probably Americans, and the RIAA is the Recording Industry Association of America. File Sharers are like soldiers in Iraq -- in danger. Getting sued is like getting killed (well, settling the case, but that'll probably happen in all of them).
Anyone else find it interesting that the RIAA has sued more people than Americans have died in the Iraqi war? According to Yahoo! News, "584 U.S. troops have died -- 396 from hostile action." Compare this with the 1997 file sharers sued by the RIAA. The RIAA has sued over 3 times as many Americans as have died in the war. Looks like this really is a war on file sharers. Too bad that we can't shoot back as we can (and do) in Iraq.
Note to the mods: I'm not trying to be flamebait here, I just want to point out something that I find iteresting.
I'm criticizing right wing extremists that believe that once you commit a crime, your rights as a human being should be taken away.
FYI: California is one of the most liberal states in the US right now (despite the fact that they have a Republican governor, this particular governor is a very liberal one). So, maybe you should criticize the left-wing extremists.
But wait, who am I kidding, you guys have Guantanamo bay goin' on
2 things:
1: We recently released many Taliban prisoners. We had to give them each a new pair of jeans b/c they gained, yes gained, on average, 13 pounds apiece! Does that sound inhumane?
2: A Russian mother pleaded for her son to stay in Guatanamo Bay b/c she realized that Guatanamo bay has a higher standard of living than Russia. In fact, she said that even Russian health clubs aren't as good as this supposedly inhumane prison.
Please check your facts before falling into the mainstream misconception and anti-Americanism.
OK, I don't see how this is new. The pain of rejection is not real physical pain. All the article says is that it involves similar regions of the brain. The fact that it is related to physical pain has been proven by authors, otherwise they wouldn't use it. Granted, they affect the same region of the brain, but they're still distinctly different signals to the brain.
Oh, yeah, and the quote at the bottom of the page is very appropriate: "If you suspect a man, don't employ him."
Amendment 1:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment 2:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particu larly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Notice they ALL say the same thing -- "The right of the people." If "the people" means only a select group, then I guess we're f***'ed as far as our constitutional rights go.
BTW: In amendments 5, 9, AND 10 also mention "the people." Remember, these were all written by, and passed by, the same people at the same time.
Don't know about other states, but here in Wyoming where we do things right, the state constitution specifically says that the "militia" shall consist of all able-bodied persons between the ages of 18 and (I think) 60. So, come be a Wyoming resident, and you have the guaranteed right to bear arms, no matter what bullshit the courts are saying the "people" mean.
Most people who go into the whole Big-Brother is out to get us type of mob-attitude don't think of that fact when they think of fingerprinting. However, I agree, DNA is better than fingerprinting b/c the matches are more reliable, and the technology for potential misuse is years off, if not decades.
>>Now all you have to do is dust something touched by the suspect to get a DNA sample.
Not exactly true. If you touch something, you're probably leaving behind sweat molecules and skin cells which contain your DNA. Also, you shed many hair cells all the time -- DNA again.
You always have the problem of getting it admitted in a US court. Expect big battles over this. For example, if the judge isn't the most tech-savvy judge around, someone could bullshit him/her into believing that the DNA samples are unreliable.
Also, you have the BigBrother concern. However, fingerprints are already considered uniquely identifying. The only added problem w/ getting DNA from fingerprints is technology that is still years away, if it even comes to the market -- predicting people's characteristics/future death from DNA. However, the only reason to get the DNA from the fingerprint and not from the sweat that the person left, or the hairs that the person left, etc., is because of the storage factor. So, while people worry about their DNA being extracted from a fingerprint, they should be more worried about all the hair follicles and skin cells they are leaving behind that also give away their DNA.
Some of the more unusual projects were developed by students Microsoft invited to participate in the research fair. Students from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands presented the idea of parents keeping in touch with grown children through special bowls with digital cameras in them.
A child could come home and put his keys in the bowl, which would take a picture of the keys and send the image to the parents' bowl. Parents could look into their bowls and feel comforted that their child is home safe. (Emphasis added)
I think the title says it all. I mean, BOWLS? Who the hell is on crack at MS (besides the MS Software Security and Ethics divisions, if they even exist)? Excuse me, but why would looking at a picture of keys make a parent feel more comfortable? Me, I'd prefer see the actual child. This is one invention destined to fail.
Great, another machine to do the impossible. I mean, really, how is this different than just looking someone in the eye when you ask them a question? Some people can lie convincingly and others can't. That's all there is to this system. Once you have a system, you CAN beat it, and some people do. Why don't we just accept that fact and get rid of polygraph machines? Either that, or have an experienced poker player read the results, as they have TONS of experience with poker-faces.
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You're being totally unfair. You have to realize that both Republican and Democrat politicians have been pushing e-voting. Just because a group of mostly young, very liberal people (read: /.'ers) want secure e-voting doesn't mean that the Democrat party does.
Furthermore, you have a one-sided kritik of the system. Ever think of the fact that maybe the reason the left went along with this is so that they could commit voter fraud as well? What's that you say? "The Democratic Party would NEVER commit voter fraud." If that's your answer, then you're incredibly naive. For example, about 90% of the dead vote goes democrat. Just because some liberals want verifiable voting and many visible people on the right aren't as entheusiastic about it doesn't mean that all conservatives want to commit election fraud. As a Republican myself, I can tell you that plenty of people on the right are worried about the left sabotaging the election and want some form of secure voting. Just because most people you know who are pushing for secure voting are liberals doesn't mean this issue is in the domain of the liberals. I think if you ask most people about it, they will want something done; the problem is that elected politicians on both sides are just ignoring it.
Another objection to this might be: "Look at all the problems that have favored Bush! There MUST be fraud somewhere because they can't ALL favor Bush." However, you only hear about the ones that favored Bush because the news story about how Bush should have gotten more votes somewhere (even in a swing state) wouldn't change the outcome and wouldn't be a good news story. It wouldn't sell.
Lastly, there are some problems with producing receipts. Think about it. First, you have to make the receipts available to the people to inspect to make sure they voted for the right person. What that means is you might have fraud somewhere where these receipts were counterfeited. Or imagine people walking out of the booth with the receipt. Potentially as proof to someone who wanted to buy that person's vote. I'm not saying that the current system is really acceptable, but my point is just that no system is really perfect. Think about it.
For those of you who haven't seen the previous story on /., here's my reaction to this story.
Here here! I agree completely. People bitch about how freedom of speech is taken away. There are the "Bush=Hitler" stickers still floating around (I saw some in D.C. over Thanksgiving weekend). However, stop and think for a second. If Bush were even close to being that bad, the first right you'd lose is the freedom to bitch about not having your rights. The right to free speech, and the right to bitch about not having it (yes, I realize that's an oxymoron) are the most effective means of keeping the government in check. Stop and ask yourself: What's the worst government abuse of power? I think the one /.'ers will be most familiar with is the DMCA, signed by Clinton in '98.
3 11203&tid=158&tid=93&tid=103&tid=2 19 ).
Oh, and to the previous poster: I'm an 18-year-old college student; my parents are lower-class parents (their combined gross income, before taxes or anything else, would be barely enough to cover cost of college, if I weren't getting such a nice financial aid package). I don't come from suburbs, I come from Wyoming. Do we have minorities? Not really. However, there are a bunch here on campus (I'm on the East Coast), and I still don't see any of this abuse. Do Republican and Democrat votes mysteriously disappear? Yes, but that's more of a local thing, rather than the vast national conspiracy.
What I really fear isn't so much the Patriot Act under a Republican administration as I do under a Democrat administration (see http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/26/2
OK, this probably won't get read this far down. However, I have my own $.02 to add.
First, this story is essentially one guy's word against a bunch of other people's. How do we know he's not lying? The fact of the matter is, we have no objective (yes, objective) standard for weighing the truth value of this story, and so it's inappropriate to go and believe it.
Second, has anyone seen the vote-switching program? It requires access to not just the voting machine software, but the voting official who set it up! As a Diebold programmer pointed out, they program the code to accept _generic_ ballots, to be made by voting officials. Think about it. Although they can switch a vote from person A to person B, how do you know who person A is in the first place? Also, person A can change from time to time. Furthermore, do you know how many people you'd have to keep quiet about this in order to pull it off? It just isn't logistically possible.
Furthermore, as has been pointed out, this software could be created to just see how easy it would be to do. However, this guy just sets up a VB interface, and he makes basic assumptions about how the interface would work. In practice, you'd need to know the internal structure of the vote tally file, and that can change, as I said. And who the HELL would write this in VB?
Also, I'd like to point out that having a president win due to voter fraud won't cause the fall of the country. JFK did it in 1960, and we survived him (and his successor, and the Vietnam War, which Nixon got us out of).
I didn't get the time to read the whole article, as it's getting late; however, it's simply an amalgation of unsubstantiated rumors on an anti-Bush, anti-Repubican conspiracy site. Bias, anyone?
Lastly, I'd just like to point out that I'm tired of these baseless allegations coming out about voter fraud by the Republicans. Every single time an error with voting comes up, it's blown up by the media, but only if it somehow helps Republicans, and the facts are distorted to make a story seem more plausible. When it's shown that no conspiracy existed, it isn't reported. For example, the whole felon mess in FL in 2000? You hear the claims that more blacks were removed from the rolls than whites? Well, as a matter of fact, while that may be true in absolute terms, an investigation by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission found that, in fact, whites were actually disproportionately wrongly disenfranchised (because there are more black felons than white ones, probably because more black people live in poverty than white people). Did you hear about this in any sort of major way? Of course not, because the mainstream media is largely biased towards the liberal side (doubt me? I think the Dan Rather/forged memo scandal, the ABC memo saying that Bush should be held to a higher standard than Kerry, the editor of Newsweek saying that the media's positive coverage of Kerry would be worth 15%, later revised downward to 5%, in the polls, and the economy being spun as constantly bad, while the '96 economy was spun as good, despite the fact that they were comparable, shows that most of the media, except Fox and talk radio, were out to defeat Bush).
Oh, and to those who ask why more stories about republican voter fraud is coming out that democrat fraud, I say the answer is simple. The republicans don't care; they won. The democrats are trying to soil the republican victory, trying to find even the most improbable thread of illogic to convince themselves that the U.S. really wants someone like Kerry to be president. The republicans aren't turning over every stone looking for votes, the democrats are, and every time they see a situation where Kerry might have lost a vote due to simple mistakes, they cry wolf.
Actually, I am familiar with Desert Fox... and its utter failure to bring weapons inspectors back to Iraq. Furthermore, it was conducted under questionable circumstances (it's possible that Clinton did this just to try to distract public opinion from the illegal shit he was doing back home).
OK, responding to everyone:
d =8287
/.'s bandwidth. Besides, I've independantly come to these conclusions from thinking, by myself, and analyzing the facts. You should try it yourself sometime, instead of just listening to the democrats' talking points.
1. The evidence indicated that Saddam still had WMD. Kerry himself came to that conclusion from the evidence. Regardless of the warrants behind the conclusion, Kerry came to the same one himself. You can't logcially fault Bush more than Kerry for this.
2. The Economist decided that Kerry was the better choice because it's time for change. Yet, you can't ignore the fact that they agreed more with what Bush wants to do, but they don't think he can get it done. This is based on Iraq, and refer to my other points about how everyone's being pessimistically myopic.
3. The tax policy. The Bush tax cuts actually made the system more progressive. Hard data here that's impossible to dispute: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=5746&type= 1 Besides, the lower tax brackets don't pay much in taxes, so you can't give tax breaks to those who don't pay them. However, what the tax breaks did was to expand the bracket that paid no taxes. Also, when you give tax cuts to the rich, that money gets reinvested somehow. Whether it't in creating jobs, in the stock market, in government bonds, or even in the bank, it's still invested somehow. Unless the rich just sit on the stack of cash (and I mean literally, a physical stack of cash), it's being reinvested. So, Bush did all he reasonably could to try and help the economy.
4. I don't see the deficit itself as a problem. I see it as indicitive of too much government spending. Intrest rates on US loans are the lowest in the world b/c everyone knows the US won't default on its loans. The deficit isn't that bad. What is bad is too much government spending (from my perspective), and Kerry's promising to increase THAT! For example, check out the Citizens Against Government Waste's analysis of his health care proposal: http://www.cagw.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&i
4. On the republican talking points, you did a good job of refuting absolutely nothing I said. You didn't dispute a single point I raised. Congratualtions on wasting
5. Hmm, in this case, how do you know that Saddam didn't have WMD's? However, on a more practical level, Saddam can produce records showing the destruction of his chemical weapons, which could then be verified. That's exactly what the UN wanted with the final report, and that's exactly what Saddam didn't produce. People who had seen Saddam's earlier report concluded that the second one was merely a recycled version of the first, and they left a bunch of holes. Bottom line, Saddam was supposed to detail his weapons programs, and he didn't. Furthermore, Saddam kicked out the weapons inspectors in 1998, when Clinton was still in power. The UN pulled them out in 2003, before we invaded. Saddam kicking the weapons inspectors out in 1998 was a clear violation of UN resolutions and treaties ending the war. We did jack shit about it then.
Hopefully, this will get read, so far down.
That being said, I think that Bush is a better choice that Kerry. I don't especially like Bush; however, I dislike Kerry even more.
First, let's stop living in 1971, and start living in 2004. What happened in VietNam is long over, and people have changed since then. I thank Kerry for his service 30 years ago, but I think that there are other issues more relevant to today's election that VietNam.
That being said, the most pertinant issue is Iraq. The war was totally justified. We knew Saddam had WMD's at one point in time. There's no question about it. We also knew that, when he kicked out the weapons inspectors in 1998, they said that their work wasn't done. We also had intelligence indicating that Saddam still had WMD. What evidence did we have that Saddam had gotten rid of his WMD? His word. Nothing more. UN Resolution 1441, passed in November (IIRC) of 2002 gave Saddam one last chance to document fully his weapons programs. He failed miserably. There was a ton of stuff that was just plain unaccounted for. Saddam had the burden of proof to prove that he had gotten rid of the WMD's, in the treaties ending the first Gulf War. He failed. He gave no proof whatsoever. It would be irresponsible to put the the security of the US in Saddam's hands.
As we found out later, Saddam wanted us to believe that he still had WMD. He wanted everyone to think that he was strong. Well, he kind of fucked up there.
Also, let's not forget that John Kerry looked at the very same intelligence as the Bush administration and came to the very same conclusions, namely that Saddam posed an iminent threat. So, any critiques you might have about Bush's judgement also apply to Kerry. Kerry also voted for the war. He also stated, a couple months ago, that, knowing what he knows now, he'd still vote for authorization to use the troops. Well, that was a couple of months ago. I don't know if it's still true today.
However, Kerry tried to attach a caveat to that, namely that he voted for the authorization so that Bush could back up his threats of military power, but Kerry didn't want Bush to actually use it. In a nutshell, he said that he wanted the threat of military force to be a bluff. What kind of respect will that get on the world stage, now that our enemies know that Kerry won't actually use the military?
Speaking of world respect, the Economist has no respect for Kerry either. To use their word, they recognize that his vacillations lose a lot of respect. Furthermore, his whole promise to bring American troops home is based on a false premis, namely that France and Germany will send troops. However, that's fallacious, as France and Germany have flat-out stated that they won't send troops, no matter who wins in November.
Next, we have to look at the big picture in Iraq. The media is claiming that we're losing the peace. However, they said that about Afghanistain in 2002. They said that about France and Germany in 1946. The moral of the story: It may be a long and hard road, but we'll prevail. Iraq is slowly training Iraqis to enforce their on security. It'll take time, but eventually they'll be able to police themselves. Until that time, they need US troops there to prevent the situation from deteriorating even more.
Furthermore, the actual troops in Iraq support Bush's plan to Kerry's, by a fairly large margin. They don't see the same spin that we do; they actually see that there are positives, that we're actually accomplishing stuff over there now. A majority also believe that we're on the right track. If the people who have the best knowledge of what's going on over there support the current policy, don't you think that that means something?
Now, let's get on to the economy. I realize that Bush's policies aren't the best, but I do have a couple of points to make. First, the president really doesn't have that much direct control over the economy. Also, if you insist on assigning blame to the current recession, then Clinton des
Wrong, wrong, wrong. There is a reason that most libertarians generally side more with republicans than democrats, and that's because Republicans are more strongly anti-paternalist than Democrats.
In other words, it's the Republicans who don't want to rely on the Great Leader to do the thinking. Why is it that the democrats are more socialist than the Republicans? Why is it that Republicans are for a more free economy where people have more choice? (Forgive the pseudo-Socratic method here.)
On a general note about the how every single article in there is anti-right, there's a simple reason. The people who publish that list determine what's important enough to make the list and what's not. Think about it. The list is entirely subjective, and the liberal bias is blatantly obvious.
All Right, I'll respond to the two replies.
To the first reply, I stated that we don't have the right to copy them freely. You're missing the whole point. The government mandates that the MPAA give us certain rights, including the right of review. However, we don't have the right to copy the movie freely; however, we do have the right to "copy" it in certain forms.
To the second reply:
YOU seem to have missed the original intent of the grandparent. He's saying that we're whining about our right to bear arms, which he/she doesn't seem to think we have a right to do. Instead, the grandparent is saying that our intentions are mis-directed. Granted, the weapons we're allowed to buy now are nothing compared to what the military has. However, a shotgun in the hands of the right person, at the right place, at the right time, can do some real damage to the government.
Granted, our rights are being eroded. It has been hapenning ever since the constitution was first written. All we can do is fight for our rights.
Uh, no, you're wrong. They have learned from the RIAA a little bit. The MPAA hasn't sued any end-user file sharers, have they? In fact, I seem to remember a /. article talking about how they wouldn't sue individuals guility of file sharing.
However, since their lawsuit against grokster fell through, that might not be the case any more.
Insightful? WTF? The parent post is a flat-out troll posted by an AC and nothing more. You talk about our rights being taken away, and yet you forget about the right to "have and bear arms." The "right" to watch movies isn't in the Constitution, the 2nd amendment is. Furthermore, if armed insurrection becomes necessary to prevent tyranny (god forbid), what are you going to do? Show the government Region 2 DVD's on your Region 1 DVD player? Sorry, that won't work. I agree that the MPAA is being a bunch of bastards. However, it's their right to do so. Nobody is forcing them to distribute DVD's. They are doing so of their own free will, influenced mainly by their desire to make money. Since they don't HAVE to sell you movies, they have the right to distribute them under any terms they want. If that includes the concept of regions, so be it. It may be onerous, but it's their right to do so. In this respect, we don't have as many rights as the parent would like to believe. We have the right to purchase the DVD's on the MPAA's terms, or we have the right not to. If you don't like the concept of Regioning and CSS, then DON'T BUY THE F'ING DVD'S. Plain and simple. We DO NOT have the right to purchase them on our own terms; we do not have the right to copy them freely.
Where's your warrent to support your claims that Hitchens is as bad as Moore is? Until I see any sort of proof backing up your statement, I can only assume it is false. Otherwise, I would be just as justified to believe the grandparent.
Until then, here's a link to think about.
Sorry, but that wouldn't work. Assign all copyrights/patents to the legal representative, and then make the legal rep contractually obligated to reassign everything over to the new legal rep when the old one leaves. Or even simpler: make employees contractually obligated to assign copyright back to another individual in the company when he/she leaves. Is it somewhat oppressive? Yes. Don't like it? Don't work there. Simple. OT: It's definitely, not definately.
OK, I'll respond. Not to the comments about the Iraq war solely (because they are off topic), just to those about the validity of the analogy.
/. readers are probably Americans, and the RIAA is the Recording Industry Association of America. File Sharers are like soldiers in Iraq -- in danger. Getting sued is like getting killed (well, settling the case, but that'll probably happen in all of them).
First, I'm not trying to evoke an emotional reaction. As a matter of fact, I'm somewhat of a cold-hearted bastard, so that thought never occured to me.
OK, so the two numbers seem unrelated. However, consider that the RIAA has virtually declared war on filesharers. The U.S. is actively at war in Iraq. Considering larger problems of the world, I think that the RIAA is taking this way too seriously. Granted, the U.S. has killed more people than have been killed, but that's another story. However, I'm talking about relative problems facing Americans (since most
Anyone else find it interesting that the RIAA has sued more people than Americans have died in the Iraqi war? According to Yahoo! News, "584 U.S. troops have died -- 396 from hostile action." Compare this with the 1997 file sharers sued by the RIAA. The RIAA has sued over 3 times as many Americans as have died in the war. Looks like this really is a war on file sharers. Too bad that we can't shoot back as we can (and do) in Iraq.
Note to the mods: I'm not trying to be flamebait here, I just want to point out something that I find iteresting.
One more tip -- you have to shut down your computer every night -- you're lucky to get "crazy uptimes" of 3-6 months in Windows.
Note to mods: This isn't flamebate, it's supposed to be funny.
OK, I'll bite your flamebait:
I'm criticizing right wing extremists that believe that once you commit a crime, your rights as a human being should be taken away.
FYI: California is one of the most liberal states in the US right now (despite the fact that they have a Republican governor, this particular governor is a very liberal one). So, maybe you should criticize the left-wing extremists.
But wait, who am I kidding, you guys have Guantanamo bay goin' on
2 things:
1: We recently released many Taliban prisoners. We had to give them each a new pair of jeans b/c they gained, yes gained, on average, 13 pounds apiece! Does that sound inhumane?
2: A Russian mother pleaded for her son to stay in Guatanamo Bay b/c she realized that Guatanamo bay has a higher standard of living than Russia. In fact, she said that even Russian health clubs aren't as good as this supposedly inhumane prison.
Please check your facts before falling into the mainstream misconception and anti-Americanism.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of... oh, wait.
Well, imagine a beowulf cluster of beowulf clusters (if that's possible).
OK, I don't see how this is new. The pain of rejection is not real physical pain. All the article says is that it involves similar regions of the brain. The fact that it is related to physical pain has been proven by authors, otherwise they wouldn't use it. Granted, they affect the same region of the brain, but they're still distinctly different signals to the brain. Oh, yeah, and the quote at the bottom of the page is very appropriate: "If you suspect a man, don't employ him."
Amendment 1:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment 2:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment 4:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particu larly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Notice they ALL say the same thing -- "The right of the people." If "the people" means only a select group, then I guess we're f***'ed as far as our constitutional rights go.
BTW: In amendments 5, 9, AND 10 also mention "the people." Remember, these were all written by, and passed by, the same people at the same time.
Don't know about other states, but here in Wyoming where we do things right, the state constitution specifically says that the "militia" shall consist of all able-bodied persons between the ages of 18 and (I think) 60. So, come be a Wyoming resident, and you have the guaranteed right to bear arms, no matter what bullshit the courts are saying the "people" mean.
Most people who go into the whole Big-Brother is out to get us type of mob-attitude don't think of that fact when they think of fingerprinting. However, I agree, DNA is better than fingerprinting b/c the matches are more reliable, and the technology for potential misuse is years off, if not decades.
>>Now all you have to do is dust something touched by the suspect to get a DNA sample.
Not exactly true. If you touch something, you're probably leaving behind sweat molecules and skin cells which contain your DNA. Also, you shed many hair cells all the time -- DNA again.
You always have the problem of getting it admitted in a US court. Expect big battles over this. For example, if the judge isn't the most tech-savvy judge around, someone could bullshit him/her into believing that the DNA samples are unreliable. Also, you have the BigBrother concern. However, fingerprints are already considered uniquely identifying. The only added problem w/ getting DNA from fingerprints is technology that is still years away, if it even comes to the market -- predicting people's characteristics/future death from DNA. However, the only reason to get the DNA from the fingerprint and not from the sweat that the person left, or the hairs that the person left, etc., is because of the storage factor. So, while people worry about their DNA being extracted from a fingerprint, they should be more worried about all the hair follicles and skin cells they are leaving behind that also give away their DNA.
Some of the more unusual projects were developed by students Microsoft invited to participate in the research fair. Students from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands presented the idea of parents keeping in touch with grown children through special bowls with digital cameras in them.
A child could come home and put his keys in the bowl, which would take a picture of the keys and send the image to the parents' bowl. Parents could look into their bowls and feel comforted that their child is home safe.
(Emphasis added)
I think the title says it all. I mean, BOWLS? Who the hell is on crack at MS (besides the MS Software Security and Ethics divisions, if they even exist)? Excuse me, but why would looking at a picture of keys make a parent feel more comfortable? Me, I'd prefer see the actual child. This is one invention destined to fail.
Great, another machine to do the impossible. I mean, really, how is this different than just looking someone in the eye when you ask them a question? Some people can lie convincingly and others can't. That's all there is to this system. Once you have a system, you CAN beat it, and some people do. Why don't we just accept that fact and get rid of polygraph machines? Either that, or have an experienced poker player read the results, as they have TONS of experience with poker-faces.