"The suggestion that the dems can just "cut off the funding" and everything will be just fine is naive at best."
I didn't say everything would be fine. The only thing that would be sure to happen is America would be out of it and the Arab wont have the U.S. to blame on a day to day basis. Sure America made the mess but at least it would be up to Arabs to come to a resolution.
Everything in Iraq is not going to be fine whether we stay or go. About all we are doing at the moment is postponing the all out civil war at great cost to America in blood and treasure. All things considered it would be better to just let it happen and let Iraqi's and their neighbors pick up the pieces. The U.S. is NEVER going to FIX Iraq. The people in the region have to do that. One of the more common ways to end a civil war for both sides to let blood and when they get sick of the killing they will develop the desire to make peace and live with each other.
The Shia Iraq government is convinced America's rapprochement with the Sunni's in Anbar is a case of America and the Saudi's, having
realized how much of a problem Shia Iraq is, trying to undo the damage by allying with and arming the Sunni's for the coming civil war.
"Bullshit. America voted Bush in AGAIN in 2004. After everything, after the war."
The war in Iraq hadn't really gone bad by the time of the 2004 election and the Bush/FOX propaganda machine still had everyone snowed. They sill had everyone conned it was going to be a success, they just had to have elections(remember all the Republicans at the state of the Union with the goofy purple fingers), they just had to catch Saddam, etc. etc. Its wasn't until 2006 the American people finally figured out what a smoldering wreck Iraq was, ethnic cleansing in full swing, more American's were dieing than died during the invasion, and the government Bush helped install was pro Iranian, sectarian and incompetent. It was also about that time American's realized that rather than costing us $60-80 billion Iraq has cost use $600-800 billion and climbing and its causing serious damage to our economy. If if the surge works and Iraq stabilizes there is still pretty much nothing positive about what happened there. Iran's strength in the region is dramatically increased since Saddam was the only check on them. Iran now has a friendly Shia regime in Iraq and Shia's control a huge percentage of the world's oil. George W.'s dad left Saddam where he was because he new a Shia Iraq was all things considered worse than Saddam's Iraq. George W. being the ignoramus he is didn't grok this simple fact.
Note to American's for future elections...it is actually important to elect President's who actually know something about how the world works instead of faith based Presidents, who never travelled outside the U.S., who pray to God and then do enormously stupid things.
"after theyve voted him in twice"
Dude he wasn't voted in the first time but for a quirk in the electoral college, a highly disputed election in Florida, and a spineless Supreme court that just wanted to end the controversy. He barely managed to get re-elected in 2004 and that was running against one of the worst candidates the Democrats could have possibly found.
I think the congressional Democrat's numbers are low because they have completely failed to rein in the Bush administration, which is what the Democrats were put in power to do. They were installed to get America out of Iraq, instead there are more troops there now than there were during the election with no end in sight. The Democrats cry they don't have the votes to override a veto which is B.S. All the Democrats have to do is not allocate funds for Iraq which takes a simple majority and then the troops come home. That's why the founding fathers gave them the power of the purse.
Impeaching Cheney would have done nothing but improve the approval rating of Congressional Democrats. He is widely despised throughout the nation for having suckered the nation in to Iraq, and for promoting the use of torture which has turned America in to an outlaw nation.
Impeaching him for Iraq and Iran is off the mark. He should be impeached for:
A. single handedly pushing authorization for torture which was done entirely by his office and his aides B. single handedly pushing authorization of illegal spying on American citizens without a warrant also lead out of his office
Those are both slam dunk grounds for impeachment because they are both clearly illegal, unpopular, unnecessary and were just plain stupid.
"Because "liberal" people believe in freedom to experiment, so long as noone is being hurt by that experimentation."
I think the word you are looking for is "Libertarian" not "liberal". What you are saying might apply to social liberals, in contrast to social conservatives who tend to want to tell everyone else how to live. But in the broader sense of the term liberal they are usually associated with creating nanny states.
"Liberals" acquired this well deserved reputation by advocating and passing laws which allow government to intervene in and interfere with peoples lives. Liberals frequently view government as a solution to every problem, while Libertarians view government as a solution to a very limited number of problems.
For instance liberals are usually concerned about the welfare of the poor, so they pass Welfare and Medicaid to make sure they are fed, housed and cared for. People then notice they can get a free ride if they can qualify for Welfare so they avoid working or at least working where the income is visible to the government and you end up with a bunch of able bodied deadbeats freeloading on the nanny state and hard working people taxed by it.
The nanny state doling out the welfare also takes upon itself the role of trying to straighten out and manage the lives of people on welfare and really becomes their nanny. You also end up with massive redistribution as hard working people are taxed in to the ground to pay for all those able bodied deadbeats, on top of the really needy who really need help. Income redistribution in nanny states is maybe an OK thing when you are taking money from rich fat cats who make bundles of money just because they have money and don't really work for it. Unfortunately they also tax hard working people who don't have much to spare to give deadbeats a free ride. They also create really nasty stratifications where, for example in the U.S., a complete deadbeat geta government funded health care while some hard working soul who makes just a little to much to qualify for Medicare gets no health care and dies or gets health care that breaks them.
You gotta be kidding if you think "writing your Congressman" is going to make any difference on any thing of substance.
If you can round up thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from you and your friends, then yes he might take some action for you, assuming someone on the other side of the issue didn't give him more money. The more you want, and the harder it is for him to do, the more money you are going to have to give him. Oh and if you want something really hard you are going to have to give money to a bunch of his colleagues so there will be cosponsors on the bill, and you might have to buy some more of his colleagues to get the votes you need to pass it. If its something easy and insignificant and on an issue no one but you cares about he might do it for you just to garner the good will of a voter. If you can get a HUGE number of people to write him on the same issue he might listen but that isn't that likely to happen. Chances are he will just look at a poll on the issue, its a lot easier and more accurate. Letter writing campaigns are always skewed and don't reflect the actual sentiment on the issue among the people whose votes he has to win.
There is a reason the pharmaceutical industry can buy legislation, like Medicare-D which was wholesale corruption, and you as an individual can't. Big business and their lobbyists can line the pockets of a enough politicians to actually get something passed. Unless you join an organization like the NRA or AARP you, as an individual simple cant. The problem with organizations like the NRA and the AARP is they have their agendas which may not necessarily be your agenda. AARP in particular has turned in to a giant corporation profiting off gullible seniors and they are more likely to lobby for thinks that will profit them than for things really in the best interest of most seniors these days.
That's not the same thing. The Democrat and the Republican are in the same runoff, only the top two candidates make the cut and its a near certainty they are always Republicans or Democrats. What I'm talking about is a system that would seek to compel one independent, the most electable one, to always make it to the general election so there is always a third option. The other point is you want to eliminate the fragmentation of 20 different independent and third party candidates early before they face the Democrat and Republican.
"At least here in Germany there are public protests against these laws. Latest one got 15000 attendants."
Not sure its a great idea for the 15,000 of you to all stand out in public so they can catalog you all and put you at the top of the list to get the next round of Trojans. You are kind of saying here we are, we are all the troublemakers...we need to be watched.
"Voting doesn't matter, with the possible exception of the party primaries (since the parties function as kingmakers)."
The simple solution to this, though hard to achieve, is independents in each state need to unite and compel their states to allow independents to have their own primary. Basically any independent or third party should be able to get on the independent primary ballot. You would want a low but achievable bar, some thousands of dollars or thousands of petition signatures, to get on the ballot, just to weed out frivolous candidates.
The current system in most states completely sucks since Independents are either completely disenfranchised in the primaries or forced to vote as spoilers in the two party primaries. They seldom get a say in the people who get on the ballot who will probably win.
If you created a system where all independents and third parties could unite to run one candidate against the two parties you might have a chance to break the two party monopoly. There are so many independents, Democrats and Republicans completely fed up with the two parties, you just need to give them a place to channel their anger. A key reason more people aren't independent is simply because they get shut out of the primaries and any say in the process if they are in many states. If you create a viable Independent slate I wager people will leave the two bankrupt parties in droves.
The two big challenges:
A. Getting good candidates with broad, common sense appeal to run in the primary, and not a bunch of unelectable fringe candidates.
B. The two parties will fight this tooth and nail in every state and since they control all the power they will succeed in killing it unless you can get it voted in with a referendum they can't block.
The fact they will fight it to death is the most ringing endorsement of what a great idea it is.
"In other words, I'm right and you can't refute me."
The only place you seem to be right about anything SIIHP is in your own mind.
You can have the last word because its obvious you are going to keep trolling indefinitely. You aren't worth the bandwidth since you aren't even saying anything interesting enough to argue with.
You are just a troll SIIHP. You live to provoke response with your stupid trolls. You should be grateful I wasted the bandwidth giving you the attention you so desperately crave.
"Upset about living in your mom's basement I see."
This is what you call an ad hominem attack SIIHP. It is the last resort of a fool and a troll who can't carry an argument on an intelligent basis. If you disagree with what I said tell me why I'm wrong preferably with support....or shut up. Stupid ad hominem attacks just flaunt your lameness and that you don't have anything intelligent to say.
I didn't spell it out but the speaking engagements are how all his rich friends will pay him off. Unfortunately speaking fees are often a form of payola. People who got favors while the politician was in office and couldn't take bribes invite him for a 15 minute speech and give him an ex post facto $100K bribe.
There is very little an ex President is going to actually say that is worth the kind of money they are getting for speeches.
You are funny SIIHP. We haven't had any really good trolls around here since Twirlip Of The Mists gave up and left because all of Slashdot hated him and because he was being modded in to the ground. You fill his shoes nicely. Looking at your post history you are also very successful at getting modded in to the basement. I miss ole Twirlip.
Welcome to Slashdot. People like you add a lot of color and entertainment. I fear you wont last long though with your completely over the top trolling, and because you seem to have no clue what your saying or how to intelligently carry an argument. That does make you a tempting target. You are either a master troll or a complete idiot.
He is modestly wealthy at best and its not due to anything he really ever did to earn it. His oil business was a complete and utter disaster. Most of his wealth came from rich family friends that installed him as a part owner in the Texas Rangers, not because he really deserved it, it was just to line his pockets and make sure he was set for life. As I recall he was successful at conning Texas tax payers in to subsidizing a new stadium for his baseball team, and when they did he cashed out. There is irony that much of his wealth is thanks to subsidies given to him by taxpayers in Texas...so much for his belief in free markets and cutting taxes.
George W. was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, people like that deserve nothing resembling respect. If he was a self made man and he had earned what he has it would be different but he didn't. Everything he has was handed to him on a silver platter.
I'm sure he will be set for life. There are 1000's of the super rich that will reward him handsomely when he leaves the White House, because he saved them a small fortune with his tax cuts for the rich. Now I'm all for tax cuts but A. only if you still balance your budget and B. if they are equitably distributed. George W. failed on both counts.
George W. has done more damage to the United States in the last 6 years than just about any President in history with the possible exception of Lincoln and that was just because he presided during the Civil War. He might rival Hoover another free market Republican whose term ended in the Great Depression.
You are confusing "smart" with "powerful". George W. is certainly "powerful" mostly because he, or more probably Karl Rove, was "smart" at getting elected.
You can be powerful and dumb, especially thanks to the increasing stupidity and susceptibility to manipulation of the American voter.
All in all I would take my life over George W's any time, because I'm not responsible for killing hundred's of thousands of people for no particularly good reason. I haven't poured $800 billion down a rat hole in Iraq, I also haven't created trillions in dollars of national debt, nor have I helped drive the U.S. dollar in to the toilet. He's managed to make pretty much the entire planet hate him in particular and America in general and that was after the whole planet was on our side after 9/11.
"So, while I appreciate your totally partisan attack"
Not sure you could call it a "partisan" attack. That would imply I'm in a party, presumably the opposition party, in the first place. That wasn't a partisan attack, that was just calling a spade a spade. The alternative the Democrats are offering in the Congress at the moment isn't really any better than George W.gives us in the White House. I seriously doubt Hillary will be an improvement unless she let's her husband run things behind the curtain. As reviled as Bill Clinton was the country was in a whole lot better shape under him, compared to the shambles its in thanks to the nitwit in charge now. Bill Clinton was indisputably smart and curious.
For proof, you need to look no further than Alan Greenspan's recent biography. He has worked with both George W. and Clinton for an extended period and he pretty much said exactly what I said. By any measure George W. is not smart or curious. If you want to call Greenspan's attack Partisan..... well.... he is a Republican. He is not alone, a lot of life long Republican's are equally disgusted with President Bush.
There isn't anything George W's done in the last seven years I can think of that history will call a success.
I think its pretty clear by now Icaza has an unnatural fondness for trying to introduce Microsoft technology in to open source computing, whether it be Mono (.NET), Moonlight(Silverlight) and now Microsoft's document standard.
Now why he has this bent is certainly anyone's guess, only he knows for sure. Maybe he just likes the technology Microsoft is producing, or maybe he is a flagrant Microsoft mole. Its certainly within the realm of possibility Microsoft is bankrolling him and using him to fracture the Linux desktop and inject as much Microsoft technology as possible in to it, which they will use as a weapon later. One problem with open source is there is nothing stopping people with ulterior motives from working on it too.
I'm pretty sure GTK and GNOME was conceived to set UI technology in the open source community back ten years.
"who are almost by definition smart, personable people)"
LOL. Three words. George W. Bush. He sure is personable but there is almost no way anyone would call him "smart" at this point. You might retort that he must be smart to graduate Yale and Harvard Business school but I imagine he used and abused his family's name, power and connections to accomplish that, much the same way he ducked Vietnam, a court martial for shirking his national guard duty, and a felony conviction for whatever he was arrested for in Texas that his family got turned in to community service(probably drug possession but who knows for sure).
Of course there are different kinds of "smart". Maybe he is "smart" in terms of "street smart" and being a "smart" politician and "smart" at getting elected, but it is indisputable that he he extremely dumb in every arena necessary to be a good President like economics, history, diplomacy, military tactics and strategy. Its also widely reported he is one of the least curious and inquiring people on the planet and thirst for knowledge is a basic staple of being really smart.
As nice as the idea sounds, there is pretty much zero chance a bunch of politicians in the middle of frantic campaigning are going to "study" science. They would be fools to do this and take time away from all the things they need to do to actually win votes and get elected. You may not have noticed but the scientifically literate or even concerned are a tiny percentage of voters.
There is also almost zero chance any of the candidates who are actual contenders would even show up for such a debate because it would be a great opportunity for them to be made to look foolish, and create a bunch of sound bites that would haunt them rest of the campaign. Good candidates are good risk managers and they only take risks if there is a worthwhile payoff.
"If you patent flash memory technology, you shouldn't have the right to stop all other companies from making similar products"
So you think a better system would be some company spend millions or billions of dollars developing a better way to do something, and then someone can spend a small amount of money reverse engineering and cloning it and then undersell the original developer because they spend next to nothing on R&D because they ripped it off. The Chinese are particularly adept at reverse engineering things and then killing the original developer by undercutting them on price using their own design.
Patents in hardware are a totally good and legitimate thing. If you don't have them R&D is going to crater because people wont be able to recoup their R&D investment.
Now patents on software techniques and business methods tend to be complete B.S. since they will quickly make it impossible to do just about everything. There might be a case for software patents on really complex and difficult algorithms that are non obvious and take a lot of time, money and brains to develop, but simple and obvious things like the 1 click Amazon patent are pretty crazy.
"Dick Cheney and the neocon's long-held goal of dismantling the post-Nixon restrictions placed on the Presidency and overthrowing Saddam Hussein (to open up lucrative oil development contracts that American oil companies were prevented from accepting under Saddam)."
I see today the Bush administration enacted sweeping new sanctions against Iran, the Tevolutionary Guards, the Kuds Force and 3-4 Iranian banks. How un-American it would be to do business with those devils in Iran.
I wonder if Halliburton has ever stopped doing business in Iran. They've had an off shore subsidiary they created specifically so they could keep providing oil field services to Iran while the U.S. government was sanctioning and boycotting them. You would be hard pressed to find more hypocrisy than in Hallibuton, being run by Cheney, doing business in Iran, and then when he is in the Bush administration leading the propaganda campaign and the rush to war against them.
"Ask someone who is on the losing end of a payday loan with an APR of 390%"
If the company that gave it to you somehow managed to deceive you about the APR you were going to pay this would be fraud and actionable.
If you are stupid enough to borrow money at this rate and its obvious from the loan agreement that this is the rate you are paying its not the government's role to save you from your own stupidity. There is natural selection in the world. If you are dumb enough to think you are going to borrow money at high interest rates and not end up even more broke in the end...well....a fool and his money are soon parted. Its no one's responsibility to save you from yourself.
If you want to get rid of userous loan sharks and credit card companies the only correct solution is everyone needs to stop being idiots and stop taking loans from them. The same goes for all those people who signed up for subprime mortages with teaser rates that skyrocketed later.
Not something I can comment on, only having seen U.S. and Canadian systems and not being a researcher in global education.
One point about universal education in the U.S., when it first started the U.S. was a much more agrarian nation than it is now, and fast transportation(i.e. cars and buses) weren't the norm. Much of that education was done in small one room school houses out of necessity with small classes and individualized teaching. I could be wrong but I wager it worked a lot better than the large warehouses most public schools are today. You can bet that when you have 1000 kids in a school the negative social factors are a lot worse than they are in a 10 kid school.
One wonders if the educational concepts outlined in Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age might be the solution with mobile computers connected to far away individualized tutors returning us to individualized education. This seems to be a rapidly rising norm with American kids training via computer with low cost tutors sitting in India.
One of the more devastating factors in American education is teachers are underpaid and heavily unionized which doesn't attract the best people or get them to perform well.
There are 30+ nuclear power plants working their way through early design and regulatory paperwork in the U.S. It remains to be seen how many actually get built. The energy bill passed a year or two ago dangled 2 billion in government backed loans to build nuclear power plants. The nuke industry wants that to be upped to $60 billion. The big nuke companies, GE and the big power companies, are liking the idea but they want the American tax payer to give them all the capital to build them for basically nothing.
China is also starting on a nuclear building binge. You can be sure that when nuclear power plants reach frenzy stage some corners are going to be cut and the risk is going to go up.
With the current nuke frenzy a key issue is the price of Uranium is starting to sky rocket and all the players are going to be fighting hard to gain control over the large amounts they need, and they need a lot to enrich it for power plant use.
The other problem is the U.S. doesn't exactly have a permanent place to dump all the nuclear waste already in temporary storage unless Yucca Mountain gets going. There is already 77,000 tons of spent fuel in temporary storage, all of which has to be shipped to Yucca mountain.
Slashdot Mirror
"The suggestion that the dems can just "cut off the funding" and everything will be just fine is naive at best."
I didn't say everything would be fine. The only thing that would be sure to happen is America would be out of it and the Arab wont have the U.S. to blame on a day to day basis. Sure America made the mess but at least it would be up to Arabs to come to a resolution.
Everything in Iraq is not going to be fine whether we stay or go. About all we are doing at the moment is postponing the all out civil war at great cost to America in blood and treasure. All things considered it would be better to just let it happen and let Iraqi's and their neighbors pick up the pieces. The U.S. is NEVER going to FIX Iraq. The people in the region have to do that. One of the more common ways to end a civil war for both sides to let blood and when they get sick of the killing they will develop the desire to make peace and live with each other.
The Shia Iraq government is convinced America's rapprochement with the Sunni's in Anbar is a case of America and the Saudi's, having
realized how much of a problem Shia Iraq is, trying to undo the damage by allying with and arming the Sunni's for the coming civil war.
"Bullshit. America voted Bush in AGAIN in 2004. After everything, after the war."
The war in Iraq hadn't really gone bad by the time of the 2004 election and the Bush/FOX propaganda machine still had everyone snowed. They sill had everyone conned it was going to be a success, they just had to have elections(remember all the Republicans at the state of the Union with the goofy purple fingers), they just had to catch Saddam, etc. etc. Its wasn't until 2006 the American people finally figured out what a smoldering wreck Iraq was, ethnic cleansing in full swing, more American's were dieing than died during the invasion, and the government Bush helped install was pro Iranian, sectarian and incompetent. It was also about that time American's realized that rather than costing us $60-80 billion Iraq has cost use $600-800 billion and climbing and its causing serious damage to our economy. If if the surge works and Iraq stabilizes there is still pretty much nothing positive about what happened there. Iran's strength in the region is dramatically increased since Saddam was the only check on them. Iran now has a friendly Shia regime in Iraq and Shia's control a huge percentage of the world's oil. George W.'s dad left Saddam where he was because he new a Shia Iraq was all things considered worse than Saddam's Iraq. George W. being the ignoramus he is didn't grok this simple fact.
Note to American's for future elections...it is actually important to elect President's who actually know something about how the world works instead of faith based Presidents, who never travelled outside the U.S., who pray to God and then do enormously stupid things.
"after theyve voted him in twice"
Dude he wasn't voted in the first time but for a quirk in the electoral college, a highly disputed election in Florida, and a spineless Supreme court that just wanted to end the controversy. He barely managed to get re-elected in 2004 and that was running against one of the worst candidates the Democrats could have possibly found.
I think the congressional Democrat's numbers are low because they have completely failed to rein in the Bush administration, which is what the Democrats were put in power to do. They were installed to get America out of Iraq, instead there are more troops there now than there were during the election with no end in sight. The Democrats cry they don't have the votes to override a veto which is B.S. All the Democrats have to do is not allocate funds for Iraq which takes a simple majority and then the troops come home. That's why the founding fathers gave them the power of the purse.
Impeaching Cheney would have done nothing but improve the approval rating of Congressional Democrats. He is widely despised throughout the nation for having suckered the nation in to Iraq, and for promoting the use of torture which has turned America in to an outlaw nation.
Impeaching him for Iraq and Iran is off the mark. He should be impeached for:
A. single handedly pushing authorization for torture which was done entirely by his office and his aides
B. single handedly pushing authorization of illegal spying on American citizens without a warrant also lead out of his office
Those are both slam dunk grounds for impeachment because they are both clearly illegal, unpopular, unnecessary and were just plain stupid.
"Because "liberal" people believe in freedom to experiment, so long as noone is being hurt by that experimentation."
I think the word you are looking for is "Libertarian" not "liberal". What you are saying might apply to social liberals, in contrast to social conservatives who tend to want to tell everyone else how to live. But in the broader sense of the term liberal they are usually associated with creating nanny states.
"Liberals" acquired this well deserved reputation by advocating and passing laws which allow government to intervene in and interfere with peoples lives. Liberals frequently view government as a solution to every problem, while Libertarians view government as a solution to a very limited number of problems.
For instance liberals are usually concerned about the welfare of the poor, so they pass Welfare and Medicaid to make sure they are fed, housed and cared for. People then notice they can get a free ride if they can qualify for Welfare so they avoid working or at least working where the income is visible to the government and you end up with a bunch of able bodied deadbeats freeloading on the nanny state and hard working people taxed by it.
The nanny state doling out the welfare also takes upon itself the role of trying to straighten out and manage the lives of people on welfare and really becomes their nanny. You also end up with massive redistribution as hard working people are taxed in to the ground to pay for all those able bodied deadbeats, on top of the really needy who really need help. Income redistribution in nanny states is maybe an OK thing when you are taking money from rich fat cats who make bundles of money just because they have money and don't really work for it. Unfortunately they also tax hard working people who don't have much to spare to give deadbeats a free ride. They also create really nasty stratifications where, for example in the U.S., a complete deadbeat geta government funded health care while some hard working soul who makes just a little to much to qualify for Medicare gets no health care and dies or gets health care that breaks them.
You gotta be kidding if you think "writing your Congressman" is going to make any difference on any thing of substance.
If you can round up thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from you and your friends, then yes he might take some action for you, assuming someone on the other side of the issue didn't give him more money. The more you want, and the harder it is for him to do, the more money you are going to have to give him. Oh and if you want something really hard you are going to have to give money to a bunch of his colleagues so there will be cosponsors on the bill, and you might have to buy some more of his colleagues to get the votes you need to pass it. If its something easy and insignificant and on an issue no one but you cares about he might do it for you just to garner the good will of a voter. If you can get a HUGE number of people to write him on the same issue he might listen but that isn't that likely to happen. Chances are he will just look at a poll on the issue, its a lot easier and more accurate. Letter writing campaigns are always skewed and don't reflect the actual sentiment on the issue among the people whose votes he has to win.
There is a reason the pharmaceutical industry can buy legislation, like Medicare-D which was wholesale corruption, and you as an individual can't. Big business and their lobbyists can line the pockets of a enough politicians to actually get something passed. Unless you join an organization like the NRA or AARP you, as an individual simple cant. The problem with organizations like the NRA and the AARP is they have their agendas which may not necessarily be your agenda. AARP in particular has turned in to a giant corporation profiting off gullible seniors and they are more likely to lobby for thinks that will profit them than for things really in the best interest of most seniors these days.
Good job
That's not the same thing. The Democrat and the Republican are in the same runoff, only the top two candidates make the cut and its a near certainty they are always Republicans or Democrats. What I'm talking about is a system that would seek to compel one independent, the most electable one, to always make it to the general election so there is always a third option. The other point is you want to eliminate the fragmentation of 20 different independent and third party candidates early before they face the Democrat and Republican.
"At least here in Germany there are public protests against these laws. Latest one got 15000 attendants."
Not sure its a great idea for the 15,000 of you to all stand out in public so they can catalog you all and put you at the top of the list to get the next round of Trojans. You are kind of saying here we are, we are all the troublemakers...we need to be watched.
"Voting doesn't matter, with the possible exception of the party primaries (since the parties function as kingmakers)."
The simple solution to this, though hard to achieve, is independents in each state need to unite and compel their states to allow independents to have their own primary. Basically any independent or third party should be able to get on the independent primary ballot. You would want a low but achievable bar, some thousands of dollars or thousands of petition signatures, to get on the ballot, just to weed out frivolous candidates.
The current system in most states completely sucks since Independents are either completely disenfranchised in the primaries or forced to vote as spoilers in the two party primaries. They seldom get a say in the people who get on the ballot who will probably win.
If you created a system where all independents and third parties could unite to run one candidate against the two parties you might have a chance to break the two party monopoly. There are so many independents, Democrats and Republicans completely fed up with the two parties, you just need to give them a place to channel their anger. A key reason more people aren't independent is simply because they get shut out of the primaries and any say in the process if they are in many states. If you create a viable Independent slate I wager people will leave the two bankrupt parties in droves.
The two big challenges:
A. Getting good candidates with broad, common sense appeal to run in the primary, and not a bunch of unelectable fringe candidates.
B. The two parties will fight this tooth and nail in every state and since they control all the power they will succeed in killing it unless you can get it voted in with a referendum they can't block.
The fact they will fight it to death is the most ringing endorsement of what a great idea it is.
"In other words, I'm right and you can't refute me."
The only place you seem to be right about anything SIIHP is in your own mind.
You can have the last word because its obvious you are going to keep trolling indefinitely. You aren't worth the bandwidth since you aren't even saying anything interesting enough to argue with.
You are just a troll SIIHP. You live to provoke response with your stupid trolls. You should be grateful I wasted the bandwidth giving you the attention you so desperately crave.
"Upset about living in your mom's basement I see."
This is what you call an ad hominem attack SIIHP. It is the last resort of a fool and a troll who can't carry an argument on an intelligent basis. If you disagree with what I said tell me why I'm wrong preferably with support....or shut up. Stupid ad hominem attacks just flaunt your lameness and that you don't have anything intelligent to say.
I didn't spell it out but the speaking engagements are how all his rich friends will pay him off. Unfortunately speaking fees are often a form of payola. People who got favors while the politician was in office and couldn't take bribes invite him for a 15 minute speech and give him an ex post facto $100K bribe.
There is very little an ex President is going to actually say that is worth the kind of money they are getting for speeches.
You are funny SIIHP. We haven't had any really good trolls around here since Twirlip Of The Mists gave up and left because all of Slashdot hated him and because he was being modded in to the ground. You fill his shoes nicely. Looking at your post history you are also very successful at getting modded in to the basement. I miss ole Twirlip.
Welcome to Slashdot. People like you add a lot of color and entertainment. I fear you wont last long though with your completely over the top trolling, and because you seem to have no clue what your saying or how to intelligently carry an argument. That does make you a tempting target. You are either a master troll or a complete idiot.
"In addition to being incredibly wealthy."
He is modestly wealthy at best and its not due to anything he really ever did to earn it. His oil business was a complete and utter disaster. Most of his wealth came from rich family friends that installed him as a part owner in the Texas Rangers, not because he really deserved it, it was just to line his pockets and make sure he was set for life. As I recall he was successful at conning Texas tax payers in to subsidizing a new stadium for his baseball team, and when they did he cashed out. There is irony that much of his wealth is thanks to subsidies given to him by taxpayers in Texas...so much for his belief in free markets and cutting taxes.
George W. was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, people like that deserve nothing resembling respect. If he was a self made man and he had earned what he has it would be different but he didn't. Everything he has was handed to him on a silver platter.
I'm sure he will be set for life. There are 1000's of the super rich that will reward him handsomely when he leaves the White House, because he saved them a small fortune with his tax cuts for the rich. Now I'm all for tax cuts but A. only if you still balance your budget and B. if they are equitably distributed. George W. failed on both counts.
George W. has done more damage to the United States in the last 6 years than just about any President in history with the possible exception of Lincoln and that was just because he presided during the Civil War. He might rival Hoover another free market Republican whose term ended in the Great Depression.
..... well .... he is a Republican. He is not alone, a lot of life long Republican's are equally disgusted with President Bush.
You are confusing "smart" with "powerful". George W. is certainly "powerful" mostly because he, or more probably Karl Rove, was "smart" at getting elected.
You can be powerful and dumb, especially thanks to the increasing stupidity and susceptibility to manipulation of the American voter.
All in all I would take my life over George W's any time, because I'm not responsible for killing hundred's of thousands of people for no particularly good reason. I haven't poured $800 billion down a rat hole in Iraq, I also haven't created trillions in dollars of national debt, nor have I helped drive the U.S. dollar in to the toilet. He's managed to make pretty much the entire planet hate him in particular and America in general and that was after the whole planet was on our side after 9/11.
"So, while I appreciate your totally partisan attack"
Not sure you could call it a "partisan" attack. That would imply I'm in a party, presumably the opposition party, in the first place. That wasn't a partisan attack, that was just calling a spade a spade. The alternative the Democrats are offering in the Congress at the moment isn't really any better than George W.gives us in the White House. I seriously doubt Hillary will be an improvement unless she let's her husband run things behind the curtain. As reviled as Bill Clinton was the country was in a whole lot better shape under him, compared to the shambles its in thanks to the nitwit in charge now. Bill Clinton was indisputably smart and curious.
For proof, you need to look no further than Alan Greenspan's recent biography. He has worked with both George W. and Clinton for an extended period and he pretty much said exactly what I said. By any measure George W. is not smart or curious. If you want to call Greenspan's attack Partisan
There isn't anything George W's done in the last seven years I can think of that history will call a success.
J. Dzhugashvili ... is it just coincidence that every submission from you is steering traffic to "The Tech Report"?
Not that there is anything wrong with that as long as the articles have something useful to say.....
"3) Icaza was bought off"
I think its pretty clear by now Icaza has an unnatural fondness for trying to introduce Microsoft technology in to open source computing, whether it be Mono (.NET), Moonlight(Silverlight) and now Microsoft's document standard.
Now why he has this bent is certainly anyone's guess, only he knows for sure. Maybe he just likes the technology Microsoft is producing, or maybe he is a flagrant Microsoft mole. Its certainly within the realm of possibility Microsoft is bankrolling him and using him to fracture the Linux desktop and inject as much Microsoft technology as possible in to it, which they will use as a weapon later. One problem with open source is there is nothing stopping people with ulterior motives from working on it too.
I'm pretty sure GTK and GNOME was conceived to set UI technology in the open source community back ten years.
"who are almost by definition smart, personable people)"
LOL. Three words. George W. Bush. He sure is personable but there is almost no way anyone would call him "smart" at this point. You might retort that he must be smart to graduate Yale and Harvard Business school but I imagine he used and abused his family's name, power and connections to accomplish that, much the same way he ducked Vietnam, a court martial for shirking his national guard duty, and a felony conviction for whatever he was arrested for in Texas that his family got turned in to community service(probably drug possession but who knows for sure).
Of course there are different kinds of "smart". Maybe he is "smart" in terms of "street smart" and being a "smart" politician and "smart" at getting elected, but it is indisputable that he he extremely dumb in every arena necessary to be a good President like economics, history, diplomacy, military tactics and strategy. Its also widely reported he is one of the least curious and inquiring people on the planet and thirst for knowledge is a basic staple of being really smart.
As nice as the idea sounds, there is pretty much zero chance a bunch of politicians in the middle of frantic campaigning are going to "study" science. They would be fools to do this and take time away from all the things they need to do to actually win votes and get elected. You may not have noticed but the scientifically literate or even concerned are a tiny percentage of voters.
There is also almost zero chance any of the candidates who are actual contenders would even show up for such a debate because it would be a great opportunity for them to be made to look foolish, and create a bunch of sound bites that would haunt them rest of the campaign. Good candidates are good risk managers and they only take risks if there is a worthwhile payoff.
"If you patent flash memory technology, you shouldn't have the right to stop all other companies from making similar products"
So you think a better system would be some company spend millions or billions of dollars developing a better way to do something, and then someone can spend a small amount of money reverse engineering and cloning it and then undersell the original developer because they spend next to nothing on R&D because they ripped it off. The Chinese are particularly adept at reverse engineering things and then killing the original developer by undercutting them on price using their own design.
Patents in hardware are a totally good and legitimate thing. If you don't have them R&D is going to crater because people wont be able to recoup their R&D investment.
Now patents on software techniques and business methods tend to be complete B.S. since they will quickly make it impossible to do just about everything. There might be a case for software patents on really complex and difficult algorithms that are non obvious and take a lot of time, money and brains to develop, but simple and obvious things like the 1 click Amazon patent are pretty crazy.
"Dick Cheney and the neocon's long-held goal of dismantling the post-Nixon restrictions placed on the Presidency and overthrowing Saddam Hussein (to open up lucrative oil development contracts that American oil companies were prevented from accepting under Saddam)."
I see today the Bush administration enacted sweeping new sanctions against Iran, the Tevolutionary Guards, the Kuds Force and 3-4 Iranian banks. How un-American it would be to do business with those devils in Iran.
I wonder if Halliburton has ever stopped doing business in Iran. They've had an off shore subsidiary they created specifically so they could keep providing oil field services to Iran while the U.S. government was sanctioning and boycotting them. You would be hard pressed to find more hypocrisy than in Hallibuton, being run by Cheney, doing business in Iran, and then when he is in the Bush administration leading the propaganda campaign and the rush to war against them.
"Ask someone who is on the losing end of a payday loan with an APR of 390%"
If the company that gave it to you somehow managed to deceive you about the APR you were going to pay this would be fraud and actionable.
If you are stupid enough to borrow money at this rate and its obvious from the loan agreement that this is the rate you are paying its not the government's role to save you from your own stupidity. There is natural selection in the world. If you are dumb enough to think you are going to borrow money at high interest rates and not end up even more broke in the end...well....a fool and his money are soon parted. Its no one's responsibility to save you from yourself.
If you want to get rid of userous loan sharks and credit card companies the only correct solution is everyone needs to stop being idiots and stop taking loans from them. The same goes for all those people who signed up for subprime mortages with teaser rates that skyrocketed later.
Not something I can comment on, only having seen U.S. and Canadian systems and not being a researcher in global education.
One point about universal education in the U.S., when it first started the U.S. was a much more agrarian nation than it is now, and fast transportation(i.e. cars and buses) weren't the norm. Much of that education was done in small one room school houses out of necessity with small classes and individualized teaching. I could be wrong but I wager it worked a lot better than the large warehouses most public schools are today. You can bet that when you have 1000 kids in a school the negative social factors are a lot worse than they are in a 10 kid school.
One wonders if the educational concepts outlined in Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age might be the solution with mobile computers connected to far away individualized tutors returning us to individualized education. This seems to be a rapidly rising norm with American kids training via computer with low cost tutors sitting in India.
One of the more devastating factors in American education is teachers are underpaid and heavily unionized which doesn't attract the best people or get them to perform well.
There are 30+ nuclear power plants working their way through early design and regulatory paperwork in the U.S. It remains to be seen how many actually get built. The energy bill passed a year or two ago dangled 2 billion in government backed loans to build nuclear power plants. The nuke industry wants that to be upped to $60 billion. The big nuke companies, GE and the big power companies, are liking the idea but they want the American tax payer to give them all the capital to build them for basically nothing.
China is also starting on a nuclear building binge. You can be sure that when nuclear power plants reach frenzy stage some corners are going to be cut and the risk is going to go up.
With the current nuke frenzy a key issue is the price of Uranium is starting to sky rocket and all the players are going to be fighting hard to gain control over the large amounts they need, and they need a lot to enrich it for power plant use.
The other problem is the U.S. doesn't exactly have a permanent place to dump all the nuclear waste already in temporary storage unless Yucca Mountain gets going. There is already 77,000 tons of spent fuel in temporary storage, all of which has to be shipped to Yucca mountain.