This is always such a poor argument, are we really going to compare life in the US and find that it's not so bad compared to Sudan? Really?
I can understand it at a thought exercise, but at some point it's like telling someone who just got shot in the leg "at least it wasn't in the stomach, that hurts much worse."
We are a rediculously wealthy country with fantastic resources and yet we argue about whether it's important for kids to get a school lunch? Or maybe a roof over their heads?
Being poor here is arguably better than being poor somewhere else, I agree, but I think we can do a lot better than congratulate ourselves on being better than Somalia.
The fact is that this country has not had a major terror attack since 9/11. All the credit for this FACT goes to President Bush and the Republicans, none of it goes to the Kos/Kerry/Dean moonbat Democrats.
But, has OBL or others actually tried to attack the US in the last 4 years? Or has the war in Afghanistan broken the back of Al Qaeda while the Iraq war distracts the rest? Or, are we five days from a massive attack?
Also, is the current administration, including DHS, ready for another attack or will their emergency response be the same kind of cock-up the post-Katrina response was? Wouldn't the 'moonbat Democrats' after coming into power after November 2004 enjoy the same kind of benefits and thus could make the same pronouncements?
The Ports Deal was a great example of our two party system completely unable to deal with reality: one kept asking 'what me worry' while the other went into a bombastic diatribe against an ally, and yet both were completely able to ignore the fact that our ports remain unsecured regardless of who's signing the paperwork.
Using the perjorative 'moonbat' must make you feel pretty good, but it bothers me because while you play Ditto-head our government is now run by idiots who couldn't protect a ham sandwhich much less our complex democracy.
European Christandom enjoyed not only a technological advantage, but also had several turns of fate that protected the culture from the rest of the world. The failure of the Turks to quickly seize Constaninople, the retreat of the Mongols after the death of the Khan from Vienna, the intentional mothballing of the Chinese Ming fleet by its leaders, the destruction of the great Kazakhstan valley by the Mongols and well as the destruction of the Caliphate in Baghdad, all helped Christandom was it was vulnerable.
The modern European Christian owes his current position in the first world to lucky breaks, geography, population, accidental biological warfare, and a smidgen of technological advantages, not because his culture was better, his mind was quicker, or his religion better.
I wasn't taking your joke personally, I thought it was just badly told, but what I thought needed comment was your follow-up which was a long "the liberals are oppressing me" bleat. Both comments were trolls or "disrupting the conversation" but they were also funny, but I can't stand it when people whine about comments, especially with some psuedo-political complaint as if the labels "liberal" and "conservative" meant anything.
Get this through your head, the joke was poorly told, that's why you got a troll. But, hopefully you can stop whining like a little bitch because you now have +4 funny as of this writing.
Conservatives feel that Spore will open the way to fully immersing our youth into the Intelligent Design movement. This is funny.
Liberals hope that Spore will open the way to fully immersing our youth into bi-transsexual organisms with no morals or values.
This is not. And it's not funny because you take the funny part: "bi-transexual organisms" and push it too far with the "no morals or values." You're not being funny, you're attacking.
As for your second comment, this is just typical "I'm being oppressed" from someone who doesn't like getting modded down for being an asshole while trying and failing to set up a joke.
Just think of it this way, someone marking you troll is just another joke, and you can take a joke right?
They also seem to spend more time covering the suffering of the common man in other countries and pointing an accusatory finger back at US policy than they do outlining bad behavior of foreign governments and individuals.
Wow, that's quite the slant, if a news agency spent more time covering the suffering of the common man I'd almost think they were doing their job. As for illegal immigration, I've always noticed that NPR notices the complexity of the border, the American need for illegals, the problems inherent in their crossings, and the dangers that these people face in order to find better work. I think NPR covers the issue quite well without a specific slant, except for a certain humanism.
You're really going to have to do better than that, and if that's the worst accusation you can bring to bear, I think you should rethink a few things. Fox News has a smidgen of news that is swallowed up by opinion and partisan rambling and has the usual Crossfire pretenses.
You should have written the title of your post as "I don't like iPods, so I will bash them on an old point that has been rapidly disproved over and over again on Slashdot as well as a 30-second Google search."
You could say this is still bad design, making one remove the case--and possibly damaging the iPod--to replace a battery, but you cannot say it's not possible. Apple either didn't realize this was going to be a problem, or understood the problem but took time to forge a solution so as not to scare away early adopters by exposing the possibility that the battery would fail after prolonged use.
As for iPod killers, I think it would be a waste of time for any company to try to compete with them, the market is beginning to settle around the iPod/iTunes and to really 'kill' the iPod would require a completely new device that trumps the iPod with completely new features, making another media player in the shape of a bean just isn't going to cut it anymore.
A standard interface would do wonders for iRiver, etc. but they have allowed the iPod to gain so much inertia in mind-share, accessories, interface, and capabilities, that only a really major shift is going to make a difference.
I knew the minute I saw NPR someone was going to say this and then compare NPR to Fox News. First, I find the assertion that NPR is somehow the 'left' equivalent of Fox News to be bizarre at best. They're nothing alike, and while I would admit the NPR has a certain 'bias' it is does not have the same practices that Fox News has, specifically the conflation of opinion and journalism. Fox News doesn't seem to recognize the difference between Bill O'Reilly's blathering and actual news and thus most of its viewers don't either. NPR has, in contrast, a very good way of defining its opinion versus news, and is much more balanced and truly interested in balance--rather than using it was a clever slogan.
People are always hoping for an end-all be-all solution, but you're absolutely right a laptop in one kid's hands is a powerful versitle tool, in another kid's grasp it's just a very large calculator, an expensive notebook, and a collection of prodigious time-wasters.
Yes. A wonderful speech, but I have a feeling it's as likely to happen under Bush as the Mars project. We need action, we need legislation. It would be nice to know who Cheney spoke to when developing our energy policy, and it would be nice to know that rather than drill in ANWR, we simply spend the money somewhere else. Bush's words were good to hear, but I don't think he believes them. And I certaintly don't think he's going to act on them with the vigor necessary to make it a reality.
Exactly. We don't know a lot of things, there are a lot of variables, but there are a few things to keep in mind:
1. Oil is a finite resource.
2. India and China will want more of it if they follow our economic models and the price will rise dramatically.
3. The burning of fossil fuels creates local problems, including acid rain, high-rates of asthma, not to mention the problems related to oil spills.
4. Oil props up the dangerous and unstable governments and create situations in which real change is impossible.
5. To find more oil we're going to have to strip-mine Canada, dig up ANWR, or sink more oil rigs in the North Atlantic.
6. The first country to figure out an alternate method to make energy, without fossil fuels, is going to have a very good manufacturing push to build and sell this technology to the rest of the world. The first country and companies to get there will see amazing benefits.
I think the benefits to gradually abandoning fossil fuels already exist, and that's while pretending that the climate isn't affected and won't change because of our actions. We shouldn't run around like chicken littles, but we also need leadership who understands that we can't use the same energy production that would have made sense in 1900.
I bitch about this every time a new iPod comes out using Apple's iTunes feedback because it's irritating. However, there is a fix, you can rip the entire album as one track and then rip it again into multiple tracks. When you want gapless playback you play the first, and when you want to select a specific song you play the second version. Granted this wastes space, but it does band-aid the problem.
Is the 'de-authorize' on the client or the server system?
On the server system.
Also, are you saying that the guy who claimed to have lost his music because the iPod died, and the Mac was sold, was lying?
It's possible he didn't understand that when he sold the Mac he should have de-authorized it from one of his 5 computers and didn't contact Apple letting them know what he did; they can deauthorize a computer for you by phone. However, if your Mac's hard-drive and your iPod are both erased you are totally screwed--unless Apple decides to allow you to re-download everything.
You're right in that one licenses songs from iTMS and this distinction isn't made clear and most consumers wouldn't even if you put it on the front page of the store. Consumers don't understand the licensing in DVDs either, nor the restrictions in paperback books.
The licensing aspect of digital music is problematic and not very well understood by most consumers, however this isn't specific to iTunes, but to the most of the digital download industry. I'd suggest eMusic.com or your neighborhood used record store if DRM bothers you.
If you RTFA you will see that while speeds of 4 to 5Ghz are possible the chips also run hotter therefore the switch to Intel, especially for small form factor machines like the laptops, no to mention the Mac Mini, was still a step up from the G4 without the heat issues of the G5. The Power6 architecture might be great for a PowerMac however.
And the Cell processor is almost as pie in the sky, until there's some real information about the Cell everything is just conjecture and hope.
This is very easy to say when you are the majority in every possible way, but think of a world where red hair was considered the utmost sign of evil. A redhead walking down the street would be yelled at and cursed and told: 'if you want to fit in this society, color your hair blonde, brown or black.' This same person would, under your terms, not only need to color their hair, but couldn't complain because the majority finds red hair 'morally wrong.'
Frankly, it's just simply easier to treat people as people.
So, you're saying that there are practical limits to belief? What logical construct is this based on? Would a voodoo guild be acknowledged? How about a Moonie guild? Each of these are distinct "choices." You're saying that there are practical limits of belief and I want to know how this system works. Can I believe in Santa Claus but not the Easter Bunny? Or maybe it's between Satan and djin.
Frankly, if Blizzard is allowing guilds based on religious preferences than a guild can be created under any other group indentification, including racial, ethnic, or sexual preferences and this may not be what is good for the community.
Yes. Poor President Bush, why he never done nothin' to get those old Democrats fired up. Why, he was just a mindin' his own bis'ness and they just a come whompin' on his door.
Face it, Bush isn't just some wandering naif, he plays ideological hardball with the religious right as his relief pitcher. He doesn't get attacked because he's Christian, but because he makes stupid policy decisions while trying to stay in the religious right's good graces. He also gets attacked because he's a thoughtless, awkward speaker, a hypocrite of the first order, lies, launches major wars and then declares "Mission Accomplished" before it's over all the while dressed as a soldier, which the civilian leader of the armed forces should never do. I attack Bush because he pretends Christianity while his new budget hurts the poor to help the rich, because he promises environmental legislation and never delivers, and because he pretends he's a Texan, when he was born in Connecticut and went to Harvard and Yale.
Not because of (really, more despite) the positions inspired by relgiosity (which I abhor), but because of at least a stronger inclination towards a more hands-off functioning of the markets, businesses, and personal lives. Yes, both parties love spending tax dollars... but at least the red-staters are at least a little more squeamish about it than their more lefty-socialist counterparts.
You realize the whole red/blue state thing is only an expression of electoral college votes, and really the whole country is more of a blotchy purple. Also, what's interesting is how "red states" vote Republican even though they absorb most of the nations tax dollars in various governmental programs while "blue states" are the ones that primarily pay for them. This makes sense, as "blue states" are New York and California which produce lots of money, and "red states" exist on huge farm subsidies.
As for the "our own truth" this is just the equivalent of "Jesus said so" that comes from the far-right, you don't pay attention to either.
I was cut off in traffic and given the finger by a guy with a 'Hate Is not the Answer' bumper sticker.
Always be wary of people with lots of bumper-stickers, they usually judgemental idiots. I can understand your frustration.
2. You say you're 'heavily right-wing' this would make you a facsist, that's how the whole left-wing versus right-wing paradigm works.
3. Voting for Bush is a vote for Bush, trying to justify this poor vote by parroting the party-line that Kerry didn't know where he stood while Bush is consistent constitutes a fundamentally poor grasp of the 2004 election it borders on climinal shallowness.
4. Bush is bad at spending money and he's a poor speaker and he's had a wide number of failures and scandals under his watch. Why did you vote for the man?
5. The Democratic choice for President has yet to be confirmed, so I think assuming it's going to be Hillary is premature at best.
I'm offended by your assertion that somehow because I think the NSA wiretapping is dangerous and anti-democratic I'm immediately some Michael Moore syncophant. I think the NSA wiretapping is wrong, whether Clinton did it--a fine defense by the way--or whether Bush did it. Your list of warrantless searches just shows how much Democracy we've lost and rather than demanding our 4th and 5th Ammendment rights back, not to mention our 1st, you keep implying some political bias as if the word liberal means anything but a prejorative to you. The checks and balances in our government are obviously failing if even the rubber-stamp method of FISA is somehow unnecessary and I would argue that this is an extension of Executive powers far and above what it should be.
Lastly, you're response contains no specific sources or links, and you don't know any of the people involved in either this administration or the previous and except for two quotes--using your same standard for truth--you have the same apparent problem I do.
Now, I haven't called you ignorant or stupid and I would expect the same thing in return. I'm going to read the decisions, the quotes and think very hard about this, but as it stands, this program appears dangerous and possibly illegal and Gonzalez's testimony flirted with perjury which is at best problematic. But the political rhetoric and party affliations aside and ask yourself if this is right, if it is necessary, and if it even works. Stop making assumptions about the people you're replying to and take that goddamned chip of your shoulder, I'm willing to listen, but not if you lace poison among your ideas.
Please provide even a hint of evidence that any of these claims is true. Because I'm betting that you can't...here's a hint: Just because you read it on the internet doesn't make it true.
And shoving your fingers deep into your ears and singing lalala doesn't make anything not true, so thanks for that nugget of information.
My previous statement had two salient points: 1. The NSA tapped or datamined information for possibly thousands of people and inundated the FBI with this information, according to the NYTimes. 2. Noted journalist Christopher Hitchens, a pro-Iraq war writer, has joined the case against the NSA along with the ACLU and EFF.
Further reports indicate that not only Hitchens, but also Christine Amanpour a CNN reporter as well as many others also had their phone tapped. This program was far-reaching, did not follow the FISA requirements, and was lied about by current Attorney General Gonzales while under oath and by President Bush during a press conference.
This program did not merely focus on "immigrants" but on many more people and included domestic calls within the United States.
Finally, these are internet links so I guess they can't be true since the seem to put some rent into your well-defined reality.
Doesn't this procedure fall under probable cause? They had cause to believe these imagrants, who weren't even US Citizens, had ties to terrorism. Isn't that enough?
They didn't just tap the phones of immigrants? but of US citizens who were communicating with people abroad. This includes noted journalists, politicians, and others. The taps invaded the privacy of thousands of people.
Such a wide ranging net would be the equivalent of raiding an entire subdivision because one guy might have a bag of dope in his house.
Slashdot Mirror
I can understand it at a thought exercise, but at some point it's like telling someone who just got shot in the leg "at least it wasn't in the stomach, that hurts much worse."
We are a rediculously wealthy country with fantastic resources and yet we argue about whether it's important for kids to get a school lunch? Or maybe a roof over their heads?
Being poor here is arguably better than being poor somewhere else, I agree, but I think we can do a lot better than congratulate ourselves on being better than Somalia.
But, has OBL or others actually tried to attack the US in the last 4 years? Or has the war in Afghanistan broken the back of Al Qaeda while the Iraq war distracts the rest? Or, are we five days from a massive attack?
Also, is the current administration, including DHS, ready for another attack or will their emergency response be the same kind of cock-up the post-Katrina response was? Wouldn't the 'moonbat Democrats' after coming into power after November 2004 enjoy the same kind of benefits and thus could make the same pronouncements?
The Ports Deal was a great example of our two party system completely unable to deal with reality: one kept asking 'what me worry' while the other went into a bombastic diatribe against an ally, and yet both were completely able to ignore the fact that our ports remain unsecured regardless of who's signing the paperwork.
Using the perjorative 'moonbat' must make you feel pretty good, but it bothers me because while you play Ditto-head our government is now run by idiots who couldn't protect a ham sandwhich much less our complex democracy.
The modern European Christian owes his current position in the first world to lucky breaks, geography, population, accidental biological warfare, and a smidgen of technological advantages, not because his culture was better, his mind was quicker, or his religion better.
Get this through your head, the joke was poorly told, that's why you got a troll. But, hopefully you can stop whining like a little bitch because you now have +4 funny as of this writing.
Conservatives feel that Spore will open the way to fully immersing our youth into the Intelligent Design movement.
This is funny.
Liberals hope that Spore will open the way to fully immersing our youth into bi-transsexual organisms with no morals or values.
This is not. And it's not funny because you take the funny part: "bi-transexual organisms" and push it too far with the "no morals or values." You're not being funny, you're attacking.
As for your second comment, this is just typical "I'm being oppressed" from someone who doesn't like getting modded down for being an asshole while trying and failing to set up a joke.
Just think of it this way, someone marking you troll is just another joke, and you can take a joke right?
Wow, that's quite the slant, if a news agency spent more time covering the suffering of the common man I'd almost think they were doing their job. As for illegal immigration, I've always noticed that NPR notices the complexity of the border, the American need for illegals, the problems inherent in their crossings, and the dangers that these people face in order to find better work. I think NPR covers the issue quite well without a specific slant, except for a certain humanism.
You're really going to have to do better than that, and if that's the worst accusation you can bring to bear, I think you should rethink a few things. Fox News has a smidgen of news that is swallowed up by opinion and partisan rambling and has the usual Crossfire pretenses.
You could say this is still bad design, making one remove the case--and possibly damaging the iPod--to replace a battery, but you cannot say it's not possible. Apple either didn't realize this was going to be a problem, or understood the problem but took time to forge a solution so as not to scare away early adopters by exposing the possibility that the battery would fail after prolonged use.
As for iPod killers, I think it would be a waste of time for any company to try to compete with them, the market is beginning to settle around the iPod/iTunes and to really 'kill' the iPod would require a completely new device that trumps the iPod with completely new features, making another media player in the shape of a bean just isn't going to cut it anymore.
A standard interface would do wonders for iRiver, etc. but they have allowed the iPod to gain so much inertia in mind-share, accessories, interface, and capabilities, that only a really major shift is going to make a difference.
People are always hoping for an end-all be-all solution, but you're absolutely right a laptop in one kid's hands is a powerful versitle tool, in another kid's grasp it's just a very large calculator, an expensive notebook, and a collection of prodigious time-wasters.
Al Qaeda was not so much 'created' as influenced, supported and armed by the US, specifically the CIA. Al Qaeda and Osama are our own golem.
Yes. A wonderful speech, but I have a feeling it's as likely to happen under Bush as the Mars project. We need action, we need legislation. It would be nice to know who Cheney spoke to when developing our energy policy, and it would be nice to know that rather than drill in ANWR, we simply spend the money somewhere else. Bush's words were good to hear, but I don't think he believes them. And I certaintly don't think he's going to act on them with the vigor necessary to make it a reality.
1. Oil is a finite resource.
2. India and China will want more of it if they follow our economic models and the price will rise dramatically.
3. The burning of fossil fuels creates local problems, including acid rain, high-rates of asthma, not to mention the problems related to oil spills.
4. Oil props up the dangerous and unstable governments and create situations in which real change is impossible.
5. To find more oil we're going to have to strip-mine Canada, dig up ANWR, or sink more oil rigs in the North Atlantic.
6. The first country to figure out an alternate method to make energy, without fossil fuels, is going to have a very good manufacturing push to build and sell this technology to the rest of the world. The first country and companies to get there will see amazing benefits.
I think the benefits to gradually abandoning fossil fuels already exist, and that's while pretending that the climate isn't affected and won't change because of our actions. We shouldn't run around like chicken littles, but we also need leadership who understands that we can't use the same energy production that would have made sense in 1900.
I bitch about this every time a new iPod comes out using Apple's iTunes feedback because it's irritating. However, there is a fix, you can rip the entire album as one track and then rip it again into multiple tracks. When you want gapless playback you play the first, and when you want to select a specific song you play the second version. Granted this wastes space, but it does band-aid the problem.
On the server system.
Also, are you saying that the guy who claimed to have lost his music because the iPod died, and the Mac was sold, was lying?
It's possible he didn't understand that when he sold the Mac he should have de-authorized it from one of his 5 computers and didn't contact Apple letting them know what he did; they can deauthorize a computer for you by phone. However, if your Mac's hard-drive and your iPod are both erased you are totally screwed--unless Apple decides to allow you to re-download everything.
You're right in that one licenses songs from iTMS and this distinction isn't made clear and most consumers wouldn't even if you put it on the front page of the store. Consumers don't understand the licensing in DVDs either, nor the restrictions in paperback books.
The licensing aspect of digital music is problematic and not very well understood by most consumers, however this isn't specific to iTunes, but to the most of the digital download industry. I'd suggest eMusic.com or your neighborhood used record store if DRM bothers you.
Maybe I'm stupid, but how would you create a playlist based on audio? By beats per minute?
And the Cell processor is almost as pie in the sky, until there's some real information about the Cell everything is just conjecture and hope.
Frankly, it's just simply easier to treat people as people.
Frankly, if Blizzard is allowing guilds based on religious preferences than a guild can be created under any other group indentification, including racial, ethnic, or sexual preferences and this may not be what is good for the community.
Face it, Bush isn't just some wandering naif, he plays ideological hardball with the religious right as his relief pitcher. He doesn't get attacked because he's Christian, but because he makes stupid policy decisions while trying to stay in the religious right's good graces. He also gets attacked because he's a thoughtless, awkward speaker, a hypocrite of the first order, lies, launches major wars and then declares "Mission Accomplished" before it's over all the while dressed as a soldier, which the civilian leader of the armed forces should never do. I attack Bush because he pretends Christianity while his new budget hurts the poor to help the rich, because he promises environmental legislation and never delivers, and because he pretends he's a Texan, when he was born in Connecticut and went to Harvard and Yale.
You realize the whole red/blue state thing is only an expression of electoral college votes, and really the whole country is more of a blotchy purple. Also, what's interesting is how "red states" vote Republican even though they absorb most of the nations tax dollars in various governmental programs while "blue states" are the ones that primarily pay for them. This makes sense, as "blue states" are New York and California which produce lots of money, and "red states" exist on huge farm subsidies.
As for the "our own truth" this is just the equivalent of "Jesus said so" that comes from the far-right, you don't pay attention to either.
I was cut off in traffic and given the finger by a guy with a 'Hate Is not the Answer' bumper sticker.
Always be wary of people with lots of bumper-stickers, they usually judgemental idiots. I can understand your frustration.
1. It's FYI (For Your Information.)
2. You say you're 'heavily right-wing' this would make you a facsist, that's how the whole left-wing versus right-wing paradigm works.
3. Voting for Bush is a vote for Bush, trying to justify this poor vote by parroting the party-line that Kerry didn't know where he stood while Bush is consistent constitutes a fundamentally poor grasp of the 2004 election it borders on climinal shallowness.
4. Bush is bad at spending money and he's a poor speaker and he's had a wide number of failures and scandals under his watch. Why did you vote for the man?
5. The Democratic choice for President has yet to be confirmed, so I think assuming it's going to be Hillary is premature at best.
Lastly, you're response contains no specific sources or links, and you don't know any of the people involved in either this administration or the previous and except for two quotes--using your same standard for truth--you have the same apparent problem I do.
Now, I haven't called you ignorant or stupid and I would expect the same thing in return. I'm going to read the decisions, the quotes and think very hard about this, but as it stands, this program appears dangerous and possibly illegal and Gonzalez's testimony flirted with perjury which is at best problematic. But the political rhetoric and party affliations aside and ask yourself if this is right, if it is necessary, and if it even works. Stop making assumptions about the people you're replying to and take that goddamned chip of your shoulder, I'm willing to listen, but not if you lace poison among your ideas.
And shoving your fingers deep into your ears and singing lalala doesn't make anything not true, so thanks for that nugget of information.
My previous statement had two salient points: 1. The NSA tapped or datamined information for possibly thousands of people and inundated the FBI with this information, according to the NYTimes. 2. Noted journalist Christopher Hitchens, a pro-Iraq war writer, has joined the case against the NSA along with the ACLU and EFF.
Further reports indicate that not only Hitchens, but also Christine Amanpour a CNN reporter as well as many others also had their phone tapped. This program was far-reaching, did not follow the FISA requirements, and was lied about by current Attorney General Gonzales while under oath and by President Bush during a press conference.
This program did not merely focus on "immigrants" but on many more people and included domestic calls within the United States.
Finally, these are internet links so I guess they can't be true since the seem to put some rent into your well-defined reality.
They didn't just tap the phones of immigrants? but of US citizens who were communicating with people abroad. This includes noted journalists, politicians, and others. The taps invaded the privacy of thousands of people.
Such a wide ranging net would be the equivalent of raiding an entire subdivision because one guy might have a bag of dope in his house.
Then you haven't read a single article on the subject, obviously if it were international calls only, there would not be a Constitutional issue.
The president was granted this power by congress and congress knew all along about it.
This is a nice talking point, but utter bullshit.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Good to see that you care so much for the Constitution.
Why am I answering such an obvious troll?