Re:Users are the security problem
on
Security FUD On Linux
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Windows, in the hands of a knowledgeable person, can be just as secure as Linux.
In another dimension...
Tell me - can I not install any vbScript? Can I not install IE or Outlook Express? Can I UNINSTALL IE once it's installed? Can I skip RPC? What about messenger? What about the GUI? What about any of those dozens of services that run by default on my XP box?
Can I install JUST a linux kernel and the absolute bare bones minimum of tools for my box if I'm so inclined?
It's possible to tweak Windows down to help shrink your liability, but never as far as you can go with Linux.
Otherwise, I agree with most of what you said - especially about the users. It might helpful to look at it the OTHER way: in the hands of an idiot, Linux is just as dangerous as Windows. In fact, probably more-so because it's faaaaarrrrr more powerful.
Point being, sure, now linux is secure as houses (yeah yeah, also due to it's structure and whole OS mindset), but the more people use it, the more malicious people will write virusses and find exploitable code and...exploit it. For a large part, I'd say it's just a matter of numbers.
This is such an old, tired argument that I can't believe it still comes up.
If it's a game of numbers, why doesn't the Internet come screeching to a halt under the onslaught of a Linux worm? There are certainly enough critical systems out there running Linux to do it, yet it hasn't happened yet. Why?
We don't even have to get into that speculation though - the fact of the matter is that the most frequent, serious worms are executed on Windows machines. In particular, they're executed on 32-bit Windows machines. If the overwhelming majority of widespread attacks originate from infected Windows machines and affect Windows machines, then it's a pretty safe conclusion that Windows machines are more vulnerable. Maybe the SEVERITY of the attacks is a numbers game, but that's not what the vulnerability numbers suggest.
Just responding to this thread has made me lose half my IQ...
You made that quite obvious right from the start of your response - now you're just being redundant.
Christ - grow up. It was a fucking joke. Nobody's impressed with your apparently mediocre math skills. I can find the same damn information on Google. If you need to feel better about yourself, go beat up some schoolchildren on the playground. You're certainly not impressing anyone here.
Bush is no imbecile. He's very intelligent and he's a very effective manipulator (obviously, he's a perfect politician).
See, he puts a bumbling presence in the White House by doing things like fumbling for words and choking on pretzels. But, just because he's a somewhat inneffective orator (which is the only part of him most of us ever get to see) doesn't mean he's an idiot. By acting like the everyday Joe Blow and showing that he too has human characteristics that cause amusing, but inoccuous missteps, he endears himself to the average American citizen. He is the everyman who is no more immune to foible than the rest of us.
The problem is, a new picture is being painted of him in his dealings behind closed doors. He's bright and he's dangerous. He's capable of orchestrating huge PR moves, power grabs, and he's not afraid to "go it alone" if he has an agenda even if it's at everyone else's expense. The first and last points are critical. During the Vietnam war, Johnson stuck to his guns for what he believed in at everyone else's expense, but he couldn't get the public support behind him. He was crucified for his beliefs because he couldn't get popular support. Bush is different - he can pull public support for something that would normally be very unpopular (granted - with significant help from gentle allusions to 9/11). He's capable of manipulating Joe Blow while he pursues his own agendas.
I think Bush and his administration are perfectly capable and willing to do something like this if they feel it benefits them politically. I'll wait for evidence before I blame them, but I won't surprised if that evidence really does come.
I didn't know that, but the post was SUPPOSED to be a joke... not insightful as it's been modded. I went and looked it up, though, for my own edification (from dictionary.com):
monotonic (mn-tnk) Mathematics. Designating sequences, the successive members of which either consistently increase or decrease but do not oscillate in relative value. Each member of a monotone increasing sequence is greater than or equal to the preceding member; each member of a monotone decreasing sequence is less than or equal to the preceding member.
I don't think it could ever get to zero. With no IQ, I think they'd act totally randomly and, therefore, would have to do something smart from time to time, even if the probability of such an act were very small.
It will decrese at a rate of x^(1/2), where x is the initial IQ. That should allow for the current rapid decline while ensuring they continually get dumber, but never totally random.
I think I'm just going to stop posting on Slashdot. Since your response has NOTHING to do with my post; I don't know if you just didn't read it, or didn't bother to take the time to comprehend it. If you can point out where I said anything about the gap in salaries between idiots like Britney Spears and truly important people like my neighbor, the cop, I'll happily eat my words.
Urrrrgh... I hate this... I hate responding to sigs. Especially when I've already fought with you over this... It's driving me nuts though: why can't you just LINK to the poll's source? I could just post:
Poll: 75% of slashdotters have slept with DAldredge's mom
And it carries EXACTLY as much validity as your signature. Just add the damn link! What, exactly, are you afraid of by including your source?
You'd rather the clearly excessive amounts of money involved here went to the people willing to risk life and limb for your personal viewing pleasure than the crooked schmucks who were smart enough to exploit the players' suicidal tendencies? I don't think there's anything but a lose-lose situation here given the people involved.
I have a better idea... and this works for all moronic celebrities, not just moronic sports celebrities - why not pay them FAIR salaries instead of EXHORBITANT salaries for something that could disappear off the face of the earth tomorrow with little or no ill effect. For example, if Britney Spears drops dead tomorrow of a massive heart attack, I, for one, will not be terribly affected by it. Anyone who is who doesn't know her personally is, quite frankly, pathetic. Why should she be getting millions a year for singing something that gets turned mostly into computerized sound in the end anyway? I think she's worth, maybe, $30K a year... maybe.
I wouldn't even care about this, really - you're free to spend your money whereever you want - but these idiotic things cost ME money even if I don't participate. Taxpayers paying for stadiums for teams, increased police forces for concerts, trash, peripheral interference from idiotic fans who can't control themselves (drunk drivers, fights, pissing in the alleyways etc.)... why should anyone but the people who choose to participate have to be affected by any of this? Not only is this sort of thing ALLOWABLE, it's ENCOURAGED because people keep on pouring money into it at ridiculous rates ($60 for a damn concert ticket? $8 for a cup of watered down beer and a hot dog? WTF? Are the people who go to these things really so stupid that they can't grasp basic economic principles here?).
This isn't really limited strictly to sports and entertainment events, really (bars and nightclubs quickly to mind), but that's the subject so that's what I limited my ranting to.
I didn't realize there was a technical reasoning behind it. Still, the geek in me wants to scream out that this is just begging for a better technical solution... I must be capitalism-intolerant:-P
...they gotta make money to stay afloat, so I put up with it.
I don't understand this new line of reasoning that's cropping up. If they had a business model and products/services that all came together to keep them afloat in the first place, they wouldn't have to irritate their customers to make money. If they've gotten to that stage, they don't have a business that enough people are interested in. Why put up with it? By that logic, there's no problem with Belkin's hijacking scheme. They make decent products - I have a KVM switch from them, works good, pretty nice switch - I like it. That doesn't mean I'd be willing to put up with antics like this to keep them in business. Quite the opposite, really - I no longer see Belkin as a trustworthy company. The instant they hijack MY PURCHASED PRODUCT FOR ANY REASON, they have sold me a defective product and I will carry that mental note with me when I go to make buying decisions in the future.
The BBB doesn't handle any kind of litigation or action against a company. They try to facilitate a resolution between an individual and a corporation. For example, when Best Buy (I will never NEVER NEVER buy anything from Best Buy again) tried to screw me out of a $150 rebate on a laptop, I filed a complaint with the BBB to get my money. The best the BBB can do is "blacklist" a company, but that only does anyone any good if they actively seek info on a company with the BBB before doing business with that company.
This would better be filed through the Attorney General's office or a lawyer. They can seek damages from the company, the AG could push for a recall, etc. The only thing about the AG is - they'll only sit up and take notice if it looks like the company is actively defrauding people somehow, and there are a significant number of victims (if there's not enough victims, they'll just tell you to get a lawyer).
The populace is armed, but not trained. Just having a heavily armed group of people does not a standing army make. Few people in this country are capable of fighting the trained, organized military that's in place. Consider that even during the American revolution the British would've pretty much rolled right over the colonies given a moderate amount of time. Outside intervention and mercs, particularly from the Germans, helped turn the tide of the war in favor of the colonists. In Iraq, you have a powerful army of "peacekeepers", in effect, attempting to fight a decentralized, but very motivated group of, well... nuts. They have the arsenal that the Iraqis abandoned when the government fled the incoming American forces. I don't know too many (read: any) Americans that have SAMs in their basements...
A sustained guerilla campaign against a military as powerful as ours is effective if you own the terrain (Iraq) and are playing defense, but it's a lousy way to try and take over a country. The only place that really works is places like central Africa where you have nearly non-existant governments that can literally be overthrown days after they take power. The problem is, the government doesn't really need bombing runs to overwhelm resistance pockets. And, if the inside groups scatter too broadly, they'll be almost totally uncoordinated across a relatively large country. It just wouldn't work out very well.
Besides... it's a lot easier just to vote sleazeballs out of office (for the time being...) than to violently overthrow them. Hell... if I get to the elections next year (I hate the current administration so much that I've been motivated to vote for the first time) and find Diebold's machines there, I'll throw a fit right in front of everybody at the polling place and let them all know just what Diebold's doing. Yelling at the top of your lungs in public may make you look like an idiot, but it's a good way to at least get people to sit up and take notice about bad things going on. Another good alternative to violent revolution!
Anyone who favors a revolution that only involves people other than themselves being set upon with hardship didn't really favor it to begin with. I would be more suspect of anyone who took that kind of attitude than whatever I was revolting against in the first place.
You still missed the point. I don't care if they're pro-Martian - a poll is not a "fact". There are any number of ridiculous polls running around about every subject at any given time from any number of "reputable" resources. Amusingly enough, despite the fact that many claim to be "independant", they always manage to refute one another's conclusions. A poll can be twisted in any way a pollster wants, so it's not a debateable "fact".
And, I'm not going to argue over the middle east with you. You obviously have drawn a conclusion that you wouldn't change in the face of evidence that piled higher than Mt. Everest. You can believe whatever you want about the conflict. You can believe aliens built Easter Island and the Pyramids as vacation resorts. I don't care. The point still stands that a poll is not a fact.
My sig doesn't say what side of the issue I am on.
Uhhh... and that would be a relevant response how? I'm attacking that you said it's a fact. It's irrelevant which "side" you're on. The point is, it's not a fact. Aribitrary polls are not fact and there's no "good guy" in the conflict. That's the point. I can't really boil my post down any simpler than that, so I hope you can make a relevant response based on that simplification.
Perhaps one who doesn't know such simple things shouldn't be posting about topics that are much more complex.
And... slashcode is relevant to the middle east how? Do you understand how an alternator works? If not, it's my informed opinion that YOU, good friend, should not be commenting on issues this complex.
In fact, I did take out the space, but, I apparently took out more than that as well because I got a 404. Oops, my bad, sorry I typoed because you didn't bother to put your link in a tag so it would've worked properly to begin with.
Oh... dear... God... this is something like the Holy Grail of stupid posts!
For instance, you can teach, or talk about, any religion in school except Christianity.
What the Hell are you talking about? I just looked in two different High School History texts and there are chapters on Christianity in both of them along with several other religions. And, besides, you can't TEACH any religion in a public school. You CAN, however, teach the HISTORY of any religion, which they do. I was taught about Christianity in various contexts in AP European History, World History, and American History. I also read a lot of Christian works in British Literature my senior year. You obviously haven't got a clue.
Get one thing straight you left-wing twit. Guns don't kill people! People kill people!
Guns don't kill people, I kill people. If you can't argue in anything more than soundbites, maybe you just shouldn't say anything. Leave it up to people who actually have some insight into the position you hold rather than just feel strongly about it without understanding why. GUNS fire BULLETS which cause TRAUMA in people who DIE. GUNS are FIRED by PEOPLE. Therefore, PEOPLE firing GUNS kill PEOPLE. Therefore, PEOPLE WITH GUNS KILL PEOPLE. Amusingly, this holds true to varying degrees with other weapons such as blades, clubs, and power tools. Of course, unlike, say, automatic weapons, for example, these other items have legitimate, constructive uses. Since an AK-47 is meant only to kill, and it is not required to kill game, it has no legitimate use. Soooo.. why bother letting people get it. Logically, shouldn't the only people who want it be the people who want to arbitrarily kill things with it (it's a rhetorical question son, I'm making a point - don't waste your time answering becuase you'll be arguing the wrong subject)? Oh yea, and did I mention that anyone who arbitrarily throws out "left", "right", "liberal", "conservative", etc. as an insult is obviously a complete and total stammering moron?
The ACLU is only denying Americans their right to defend themselves from their own government and others. One of the principal reasons that the 2nd Amendment was added was to prevent abuses of the government the founders had experienced in Europe.
Yes, since YOU were PERSONALLY PRESENT when it was written, I'm sure you somehow have a MUCH greater understanding of an issue that has been wrestled with for ages than all of the people who have devoted their entire lives to understanding this sort of thing. Uh huh. Should I just bow before your all-knowing presence now, or can I wait until your powerful intellect takes us over subliminally?
And, as a wrap up: I'm not arguing with you because I'm pro-gun or anti-gun. Frankly, I don't give a fuck about the issue. I'm arguing with you because you made an idiotic post about an issue you obviously don't understand yet feel passionately about.
Ahhhh... that felt good.
BTW - I love the site you link to. Two broken links before I finally got onto it, then a flash intro (no flash plugin) before I get to some half-assed propaganda site that has more half-truths, emotional appeals, and warped statistics than I can count on every finger and toe in this house.
Maybe if you stopped gleaning all of your "information" from one-sided sources that simply fuel your biased, but obviously uninformed, opinion, you'd actually be capable of arguing your position instead of coming off as some fringe lunatic pushing a looney tunes agenda.
I say this is not FACT because the link you didn't bother to put in an anchor tag is broken. So I went to the root site. Needless to say, I wouldn't consider it an unbiased source for such information, much less a source of any reliable FACTS on the matter.
The FACT is probably this:
Poll: 75% of totally unaccountable people who responded to this poll support Haifa restaurant attack
I put as much stock in your FACT as I put in those idiotic call in polls that MSNBC and CNN run.
If you don't agree with it, you should confront it, not try to hide it.
This coming from an individual who has apparently gone out and actively sought "evidence" to support a decision they already made.
The only FACT is that you've got a bunch of Jewish folks running around claiming they own this that and everything else and making constant, aggresive incursions into territory that DOESN'T belong to them. On the other side, you've got fanatical loons blowing themselves and innocent people to smithereens in the name of "justice" and "martyrdom". On both sides, you have the large numbers of people who just want it all to stop so they can pick up their broken lives and try to move on.
Therefore, the only FACT is that a group of Jewish and Palestinian fanatics are making life miserable for everybody else and until they're all dealt with on BOTH sides of the coin, it won't stop.
Being stupid doesn't afflict just Palestinineans or Jews - there's plenty of stupid people on both sides of the border. But, of course, you'd prefer to believe, I suppose, that somehow the Palestineans' fanatical idiots are "worse" than the invading - yes, invading - Jews that keep pushing new settlements into territory they claim some idiotic "divine right" to. Nope - sorry, that's just as stupid. If you don't want a war, you don't engage in acts of war in the first place.
Well, I don't really feel the need to justify my use of adjectives...
I hate when people say they don't feel the need to justify something. Then don't. You're under no obligation to respond to my charges. You have no obligation to justify ANY of your opinions to me.
The point of justifying your position when someone challenges you is because you don't want other people to come along and agree with the challenger just because you didn't bother responding. If you think the challenger is way off base and other people won't agree - just ignore him/her. If you feel that other people might side with the challenge - respond and defend your position. Blah... left over pent-up anger from the "I don't need to justify my car purchase to you!" people.
Anyway, you missed the point. You're slinging the term "left" around indiscriminantly. "oh - the left hates Bush, the leftists would find fault no matter what, blah blah". Yet, at the same time, you're saying you dislike partisan politics. Something doesn't add up here. LOTS of people hate Bush. I don't call myself liberal or left or whatever, and I think that he's off his rocker at this point. I also think that immediately post-9/11 and during the Afghan campaign, he did an excellent job after utter mediocrity during the time leading up 9/11/01 (remember when the biggest news about the guy was that he choked on a pretzel?). My very existence destroys your blanket statements even before you consider that HUGE numbers of people from all political affiliations dislike him when it comes down to SOMETHING. In general, he's well liked by many, not so much by others, some people think he's a total loon. Like anytime before in history, these opinions cross party and philosophical lines indiscriminantly. There's always the exception of stupid people who automatically tow a political line without thinking on their own, but they're idiots and, frankly, nobody should listen to them.
And what would your take be on this, incidentally? I've been called liberal AND conservative within 25 minutes of each other for stating my view on Bush's Iraq war. The view was that he needs to present the evidence of WMD he claims to have and he needs to make a stronger case to the rest of the world before we go to war (this was back when the blathering first began). Apparently, I was liberal for suggesting that we shouldn't just charge right in, but conservative for saying that the war could even be justified. WTF? I think this highlights the problem of slinging blanket labels quite well, don't you?
If you get filled with any more shit your head's gonna pop. Partisan politics sucks, but you throw the meaningless term "left" around like it was going out of style? You know, your head DOES contain a brain, it's not just ornamental. You could always just ignore people who insist on taking a party line on every issue since debating things with them is fruitless anyway. At the same time, you could have intelligent debates with people who think about each issue independant of what a particular political affiliation thinks of it. The first step is to realize the anyone who takes a party stance on every issue automatically is an idiot and isn't worth listening to or arguing with. The second step is to realize that anyone who uses meaningless terms like "left" or "right" or "liberal", etc. as a political insult is part of the "party-line idiot grouping" mentioned previously.
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Windows, in the hands of a knowledgeable person, can be just as secure as Linux.
In another dimension...
Tell me - can I not install any vbScript? Can I not install IE or Outlook Express? Can I UNINSTALL IE once it's installed? Can I skip RPC? What about messenger? What about the GUI? What about any of those dozens of services that run by default on my XP box?
Can I install JUST a linux kernel and the absolute bare bones minimum of tools for my box if I'm so inclined?
It's possible to tweak Windows down to help shrink your liability, but never as far as you can go with Linux.
Otherwise, I agree with most of what you said - especially about the users. It might helpful to look at it the OTHER way: in the hands of an idiot, Linux is just as dangerous as Windows. In fact, probably more-so because it's faaaaarrrrr more powerful.
Point being, sure, now linux is secure as houses (yeah yeah, also due to it's structure and whole OS mindset), but the more people use it, the more malicious people will write virusses and find exploitable code and...exploit it. For a large part, I'd say it's just a matter of numbers.
This is such an old, tired argument that I can't believe it still comes up.
If it's a game of numbers, why doesn't the Internet come screeching to a halt under the onslaught of a Linux worm? There are certainly enough critical systems out there running Linux to do it, yet it hasn't happened yet. Why?
We don't even have to get into that speculation though - the fact of the matter is that the most frequent, serious worms are executed on Windows machines. In particular, they're executed on 32-bit Windows machines. If the overwhelming majority of widespread attacks originate from infected Windows machines and affect Windows machines, then it's a pretty safe conclusion that Windows machines are more vulnerable. Maybe the SEVERITY of the attacks is a numbers game, but that's not what the vulnerability numbers suggest.
I'm sorry, I work in IT in the U.S. What is this "overtime" of which you speak?
Just responding to this thread has made me lose half my IQ...
You made that quite obvious right from the start of your response - now you're just being redundant.
Christ - grow up. It was a fucking joke. Nobody's impressed with your apparently mediocre math skills. I can find the same damn information on Google. If you need to feel better about yourself, go beat up some schoolchildren on the playground. You're certainly not impressing anyone here.
Yea... you short change the coalition! What would we have done with the support of countries like Latvia, Lithuania, and Ethiopia!
Sheesh... you people are so symptathizing with the ter'rists.
WARNING: Sarcasm indicator detects extremely high levels of sarcasm within this post!
It's b) but it looks like a).
Bush is no imbecile. He's very intelligent and he's a very effective manipulator (obviously, he's a perfect politician).
See, he puts a bumbling presence in the White House by doing things like fumbling for words and choking on pretzels. But, just because he's a somewhat inneffective orator (which is the only part of him most of us ever get to see) doesn't mean he's an idiot. By acting like the everyday Joe Blow and showing that he too has human characteristics that cause amusing, but inoccuous missteps, he endears himself to the average American citizen. He is the everyman who is no more immune to foible than the rest of us.
The problem is, a new picture is being painted of him in his dealings behind closed doors. He's bright and he's dangerous. He's capable of orchestrating huge PR moves, power grabs, and he's not afraid to "go it alone" if he has an agenda even if it's at everyone else's expense. The first and last points are critical. During the Vietnam war, Johnson stuck to his guns for what he believed in at everyone else's expense, but he couldn't get the public support behind him. He was crucified for his beliefs because he couldn't get popular support. Bush is different - he can pull public support for something that would normally be very unpopular (granted - with significant help from gentle allusions to 9/11). He's capable of manipulating Joe Blow while he pursues his own agendas.
I think Bush and his administration are perfectly capable and willing to do something like this if they feel it benefits them politically. I'll wait for evidence before I blame them, but I won't surprised if that evidence really does come.
I didn't know that, but the post was SUPPOSED to be a joke... not insightful as it's been modded. I went and looked it up, though, for my own edification (from dictionary.com):
monotonic (mn-tnk) Mathematics. Designating sequences, the successive members of which either consistently increase or decrease but do not oscillate in relative value. Each member of a monotone increasing sequence is greater than or equal to the preceding member; each member of a monotone decreasing sequence is less than or equal to the preceding member.
I don't think it could ever get to zero. With no IQ, I think they'd act totally randomly and, therefore, would have to do something smart from time to time, even if the probability of such an act were very small.
It will decrese at a rate of x^(1/2), where x is the initial IQ. That should allow for the current rapid decline while ensuring they continually get dumber, but never totally random.
I think I'm just going to stop posting on Slashdot. Since your response has NOTHING to do with my post; I don't know if you just didn't read it, or didn't bother to take the time to comprehend it. If you can point out where I said anything about the gap in salaries between idiots like Britney Spears and truly important people like my neighbor, the cop, I'll happily eat my words.
Urrrrgh... I hate this... I hate responding to sigs. Especially when I've already fought with you over this... It's driving me nuts though: why can't you just LINK to the poll's source? I could just post:
Poll: 75% of slashdotters have slept with DAldredge's mom
And it carries EXACTLY as much validity as your signature. Just add the damn link! What, exactly, are you afraid of by including your source?
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say:
Why do you know that?
Humour impaired, please note: this is, indeed, one of those "jokes" you keep hearing about.
You'd rather the clearly excessive amounts of money involved here went to the people willing to risk life and limb for your personal viewing pleasure than the crooked schmucks who were smart enough to exploit the players' suicidal tendencies? I don't think there's anything but a lose-lose situation here given the people involved.
I have a better idea... and this works for all moronic celebrities, not just moronic sports celebrities - why not pay them FAIR salaries instead of EXHORBITANT salaries for something that could disappear off the face of the earth tomorrow with little or no ill effect. For example, if Britney Spears drops dead tomorrow of a massive heart attack, I, for one, will not be terribly affected by it. Anyone who is who doesn't know her personally is, quite frankly, pathetic. Why should she be getting millions a year for singing something that gets turned mostly into computerized sound in the end anyway? I think she's worth, maybe, $30K a year... maybe.
I wouldn't even care about this, really - you're free to spend your money whereever you want - but these idiotic things cost ME money even if I don't participate. Taxpayers paying for stadiums for teams, increased police forces for concerts, trash, peripheral interference from idiotic fans who can't control themselves (drunk drivers, fights, pissing in the alleyways etc.)... why should anyone but the people who choose to participate have to be affected by any of this? Not only is this sort of thing ALLOWABLE, it's ENCOURAGED because people keep on pouring money into it at ridiculous rates ($60 for a damn concert ticket? $8 for a cup of watered down beer and a hot dog? WTF? Are the people who go to these things really so stupid that they can't grasp basic economic principles here?).
This isn't really limited strictly to sports and entertainment events, really (bars and nightclubs quickly to mind), but that's the subject so that's what I limited my ranting to.
I didn't realize there was a technical reasoning behind it. Still, the geek in me wants to scream out that this is just begging for a better technical solution... I must be capitalism-intolerant :-P
I don't understand this new line of reasoning that's cropping up. If they had a business model and products/services that all came together to keep them afloat in the first place, they wouldn't have to irritate their customers to make money. If they've gotten to that stage, they don't have a business that enough people are interested in. Why put up with it? By that logic, there's no problem with Belkin's hijacking scheme. They make decent products - I have a KVM switch from them, works good, pretty nice switch - I like it. That doesn't mean I'd be willing to put up with antics like this to keep them in business. Quite the opposite, really - I no longer see Belkin as a trustworthy company. The instant they hijack MY PURCHASED PRODUCT FOR ANY REASON, they have sold me a defective product and I will carry that mental note with me when I go to make buying decisions in the future.
The BBB doesn't handle any kind of litigation or action against a company. They try to facilitate a resolution between an individual and a corporation. For example, when Best Buy (I will never NEVER NEVER buy anything from Best Buy again) tried to screw me out of a $150 rebate on a laptop, I filed a complaint with the BBB to get my money. The best the BBB can do is "blacklist" a company, but that only does anyone any good if they actively seek info on a company with the BBB before doing business with that company.
This would better be filed through the Attorney General's office or a lawyer. They can seek damages from the company, the AG could push for a recall, etc. The only thing about the AG is - they'll only sit up and take notice if it looks like the company is actively defrauding people somehow, and there are a significant number of victims (if there's not enough victims, they'll just tell you to get a lawyer).
You must be in another world! :p
The populace is armed, but not trained. Just having a heavily armed group of people does not a standing army make. Few people in this country are capable of fighting the trained, organized military that's in place. Consider that even during the American revolution the British would've pretty much rolled right over the colonies given a moderate amount of time. Outside intervention and mercs, particularly from the Germans, helped turn the tide of the war in favor of the colonists. In Iraq, you have a powerful army of "peacekeepers", in effect, attempting to fight a decentralized, but very motivated group of, well... nuts. They have the arsenal that the Iraqis abandoned when the government fled the incoming American forces. I don't know too many (read: any) Americans that have SAMs in their basements...
A sustained guerilla campaign against a military as powerful as ours is effective if you own the terrain (Iraq) and are playing defense, but it's a lousy way to try and take over a country. The only place that really works is places like central Africa where you have nearly non-existant governments that can literally be overthrown days after they take power. The problem is, the government doesn't really need bombing runs to overwhelm resistance pockets. And, if the inside groups scatter too broadly, they'll be almost totally uncoordinated across a relatively large country. It just wouldn't work out very well.
Besides... it's a lot easier just to vote sleazeballs out of office (for the time being...) than to violently overthrow them. Hell... if I get to the elections next year (I hate the current administration so much that I've been motivated to vote for the first time) and find Diebold's machines there, I'll throw a fit right in front of everybody at the polling place and let them all know just what Diebold's doing. Yelling at the top of your lungs in public may make you look like an idiot, but it's a good way to at least get people to sit up and take notice about bad things going on. Another good alternative to violent revolution!
Anyone who favors a revolution that only involves people other than themselves being set upon with hardship didn't really favor it to begin with. I would be more suspect of anyone who took that kind of attitude than whatever I was revolting against in the first place.
I would not call them a pro-jewish org.
You still missed the point. I don't care if they're pro-Martian - a poll is not a "fact". There are any number of ridiculous polls running around about every subject at any given time from any number of "reputable" resources. Amusingly enough, despite the fact that many claim to be "independant", they always manage to refute one another's conclusions. A poll can be twisted in any way a pollster wants, so it's not a debateable "fact".
And, I'm not going to argue over the middle east with you. You obviously have drawn a conclusion that you wouldn't change in the face of evidence that piled higher than Mt. Everest. You can believe whatever you want about the conflict. You can believe aliens built Easter Island and the Pyramids as vacation resorts. I don't care. The point still stands that a poll is not a fact.
Thank you for proving, once again, that on Slashdot you don't have to be paying any attention to make yourself a part of the discussion.
My sig doesn't say what side of the issue I am on.
Uhhh... and that would be a relevant response how? I'm attacking that you said it's a fact. It's irrelevant which "side" you're on. The point is, it's not a fact. Aribitrary polls are not fact and there's no "good guy" in the conflict. That's the point. I can't really boil my post down any simpler than that, so I hope you can make a relevant response based on that simplification.
Perhaps one who doesn't know such simple things shouldn't be posting about topics that are much more complex.
And... slashcode is relevant to the middle east how? Do you understand how an alternator works? If not, it's my informed opinion that YOU, good friend, should not be commenting on issues this complex.
In fact, I did take out the space, but, I apparently took out more than that as well because I got a 404. Oops, my bad, sorry I typoed because you didn't bother to put your link in a tag so it would've worked properly to begin with.
Oh... dear... God... this is something like the Holy Grail of stupid posts!
For instance, you can teach, or talk about, any religion in school except Christianity.
What the Hell are you talking about? I just looked in two different High School History texts and there are chapters on Christianity in both of them along with several other religions. And, besides, you can't TEACH any religion in a public school. You CAN, however, teach the HISTORY of any religion, which they do. I was taught about Christianity in various contexts in AP European History, World History, and American History. I also read a lot of Christian works in British Literature my senior year. You obviously haven't got a clue.
Get one thing straight you left-wing twit. Guns don't kill people! People kill people!
Guns don't kill people, I kill people. If you can't argue in anything more than soundbites, maybe you just shouldn't say anything. Leave it up to people who actually have some insight into the position you hold rather than just feel strongly about it without understanding why. GUNS fire BULLETS which cause TRAUMA in people who DIE. GUNS are FIRED by PEOPLE. Therefore, PEOPLE firing GUNS kill PEOPLE. Therefore, PEOPLE WITH GUNS KILL PEOPLE. Amusingly, this holds true to varying degrees with other weapons such as blades, clubs, and power tools. Of course, unlike, say, automatic weapons, for example, these other items have legitimate, constructive uses. Since an AK-47 is meant only to kill, and it is not required to kill game, it has no legitimate use. Soooo.. why bother letting people get it. Logically, shouldn't the only people who want it be the people who want to arbitrarily kill things with it (it's a rhetorical question son, I'm making a point - don't waste your time answering becuase you'll be arguing the wrong subject)? Oh yea, and did I mention that anyone who arbitrarily throws out "left", "right", "liberal", "conservative", etc. as an insult is obviously a complete and total stammering moron?
The ACLU is only denying Americans their right to defend themselves from their own government and others. One of the principal reasons that the 2nd Amendment was added was to prevent abuses of the government the founders had experienced in Europe.
Yes, since YOU were PERSONALLY PRESENT when it was written, I'm sure you somehow have a MUCH greater understanding of an issue that has been wrestled with for ages than all of the people who have devoted their entire lives to understanding this sort of thing. Uh huh. Should I just bow before your all-knowing presence now, or can I wait until your powerful intellect takes us over subliminally?
And, as a wrap up: I'm not arguing with you because I'm pro-gun or anti-gun. Frankly, I don't give a fuck about the issue. I'm arguing with you because you made an idiotic post about an issue you obviously don't understand yet feel passionately about.
Ahhhh... that felt good.
BTW - I love the site you link to. Two broken links before I finally got onto it, then a flash intro (no flash plugin) before I get to some half-assed propaganda site that has more half-truths, emotional appeals, and warped statistics than I can count on every finger and toe in this house.
Maybe if you stopped gleaning all of your "information" from one-sided sources that simply fuel your biased, but obviously uninformed, opinion, you'd actually be capable of arguing your position instead of coming off as some fringe lunatic pushing a looney tunes agenda.
No, it's not a FACT.
I say this is not FACT because the link you didn't bother to put in an anchor tag is broken. So I went to the root site. Needless to say, I wouldn't consider it an unbiased source for such information, much less a source of any reliable FACTS on the matter.
The FACT is probably this:
Poll: 75% of totally unaccountable people who responded to this poll support Haifa restaurant attack
I put as much stock in your FACT as I put in those idiotic call in polls that MSNBC and CNN run.
If you don't agree with it, you should confront it, not try to hide it.
This coming from an individual who has apparently gone out and actively sought "evidence" to support a decision they already made.
The only FACT is that you've got a bunch of Jewish folks running around claiming they own this that and everything else and making constant, aggresive incursions into territory that DOESN'T belong to them. On the other side, you've got fanatical loons blowing themselves and innocent people to smithereens in the name of "justice" and "martyrdom". On both sides, you have the large numbers of people who just want it all to stop so they can pick up their broken lives and try to move on.
Therefore, the only FACT is that a group of Jewish and Palestinian fanatics are making life miserable for everybody else and until they're all dealt with on BOTH sides of the coin, it won't stop.
Being stupid doesn't afflict just Palestinineans or Jews - there's plenty of stupid people on both sides of the border. But, of course, you'd prefer to believe, I suppose, that somehow the Palestineans' fanatical idiots are "worse" than the invading - yes, invading - Jews that keep pushing new settlements into territory they claim some idiotic "divine right" to. Nope - sorry, that's just as stupid. If you don't want a war, you don't engage in acts of war in the first place.
Point taken. Imagine that... an understanding reached on Slashdot!
Well, I don't really feel the need to justify my use of adjectives...
I hate when people say they don't feel the need to justify something. Then don't. You're under no obligation to respond to my charges. You have no obligation to justify ANY of your opinions to me.
The point of justifying your position when someone challenges you is because you don't want other people to come along and agree with the challenger just because you didn't bother responding. If you think the challenger is way off base and other people won't agree - just ignore him/her. If you feel that other people might side with the challenge - respond and defend your position. Blah... left over pent-up anger from the "I don't need to justify my car purchase to you!" people.
Anyway, you missed the point. You're slinging the term "left" around indiscriminantly. "oh - the left hates Bush, the leftists would find fault no matter what, blah blah". Yet, at the same time, you're saying you dislike partisan politics. Something doesn't add up here. LOTS of people hate Bush. I don't call myself liberal or left or whatever, and I think that he's off his rocker at this point. I also think that immediately post-9/11 and during the Afghan campaign, he did an excellent job after utter mediocrity during the time leading up 9/11/01 (remember when the biggest news about the guy was that he choked on a pretzel?). My very existence destroys your blanket statements even before you consider that HUGE numbers of people from all political affiliations dislike him when it comes down to SOMETHING. In general, he's well liked by many, not so much by others, some people think he's a total loon. Like anytime before in history, these opinions cross party and philosophical lines indiscriminantly. There's always the exception of stupid people who automatically tow a political line without thinking on their own, but they're idiots and, frankly, nobody should listen to them.
And what would your take be on this, incidentally? I've been called liberal AND conservative within 25 minutes of each other for stating my view on Bush's Iraq war. The view was that he needs to present the evidence of WMD he claims to have and he needs to make a stronger case to the rest of the world before we go to war (this was back when the blathering first began). Apparently, I was liberal for suggesting that we shouldn't just charge right in, but conservative for saying that the war could even be justified. WTF? I think this highlights the problem of slinging blanket labels quite well, don't you?
Partisan politics sucks.
If you get filled with any more shit your head's gonna pop. Partisan politics sucks, but you throw the meaningless term "left" around like it was going out of style? You know, your head DOES contain a brain, it's not just ornamental. You could always just ignore people who insist on taking a party line on every issue since debating things with them is fruitless anyway. At the same time, you could have intelligent debates with people who think about each issue independant of what a particular political affiliation thinks of it. The first step is to realize the anyone who takes a party stance on every issue automatically is an idiot and isn't worth listening to or arguing with. The second step is to realize that anyone who uses meaningless terms like "left" or "right" or "liberal", etc. as a political insult is part of the "party-line idiot grouping" mentioned previously.