I personally will follow the law when it is... actually the law.
I won't.
There are too many laws that infringe on my liberty. And your liberty, too. I ignore those laws. If I get caught and end up in trouble, so be it. I am at least following my conscience.
It is time we started defending the soul of our country-- no matter what country you call home. We live in a time where the governments of the world see a power vacuum left by an apathetic populace, by a world of fewer enemies. The US has to manufacture its enemies these days, like some vast enemy-making assembly line: drugs, Iraq, liberals... it's like a great big marketting campaign to make us think we have enemies, other than those in charge.
Fuck 'em. I am a free man, no matter what they say. I may die in prison, with pictures of Pvt. Englund holding my leash while dogs fuck me in the ass, but I will be free.
The solution is not more representation in government, but less government and less governmental authority.
That's what we started with. We need to figure out a way to get back to that. That's why I have formed the "Minimalist Party." It emphasizes a major diet for the federal government, redistribution of power back to the states, personal liberty, and a reversion of corporations back to being chartered entities that are free to do business as they wish, but as soon as there's any shenanigans, they get a choice: either they their charter yanked; or round up the shareholders, rank them in descending order of shares, select enough of them to represent greater than 50% of the shares, and either fine them or throw them in jail. The owners of a bad dog can face fines or jailtime (if the dogs rip up and kill a woman in the halls of her apartment building). The owners of a company gone bad should face consequences as well.
Yeah, I know. It's kind of simplistic and idealistic. That's why I call it the Minimalist Party. Oh, and I also call it that because there's only one member, and he's running for President. That'd be me. The party probably won't get the Presidency, but our candidate will most likely get 100% of the party votes. Our members are just that loyal.
Yeah. Like Bill Hicks said, two puppets with one puppetmaster.
I'm declaring the next election day "Opposite day." The person with the *fewest* votes wins. They'd be almost guaranteed to run the country better than the last handful of presidents.
We ain't had a president to be proud of since. . . well, a really long time. And this last one is the worst president I can think of, not knowing a buttload of history.
If I made a voice controlled bomb then saying the command to have it go off would also get me arrested, not for the words themselves but for what they caused (or may have caused if my bomb was a dud).
Okay, just a quibble, but you would not be arrested for your hypothetical words to set the bomb off. You would be arrested for creating the bomb in the first place, and attempting to use it in the second place.
But then your bomb wouldn't go off when you told it, anyway, because it would get all philosophical and start thinking about the meaning of life, and carrying on long rambling conversations about the meaning of creation, and then go off with the words, "Let there be light," all because you had to make a bomb that would understand the command to go off in the first place, DIDN'T you?
There is a simple definition of computer literacy: the ability to independently cope with a new situation. For instance, learning MS-Office by wrote is not literacy. Knowing the purpose of a word processor, and using that knowledge to learn a new word processor is literacy.
If a user can't figure out OpenOffice, they ain't word-processor literate.
Just as one can be generally literate in the English language but still not be able to read and comprehend complex material, there are different levels of literacy. I am substantially more literate in computers than most people in my family, for instance.
But, in general, the ability to learn new software based on general understanding is a vital hallmark of literacy.
If you are a journalist and you publish a secret document, you are party to a crime. You don't have the right to break the law, even if its an unpopular one.
You are correct. You don't have the right.
You have the duty.
Swearing to keep secrets does not mean being complicit in other crimes, like wiretapping US citizens without warrants, or lying to the citizens you have sworn to protect, lied to take them into a war that did not need fighting.
Our "leaders" do not have the right to do these things. It is our duty as citizens to keep the government honest. Yes, we must protect the legitimate secrets of the government. But the lies and corruption that is revealed by the current leaks is true patriotism.
Even the government cannot legally expect its employees to keep secrets about broken laws and moral corruption.
Or should they start off coding in assembly or even machine code?
Yes.
Hell, yes.
Hell, fuckin' A yes.
The last thing the world needs is a bunch of little code monkeys. We've got enough "computer experts" in the world who's only qualification is the ability to do a mail merge in MS-Word. If you want to learn to program, then learn to program. Don't fuck around teaching object-oriented programming to beginners. Most professional coders I know fuck up C++ and Java already, simply because they never got a good programming foundation.
Java and Python and the like are the modern BASIC. Learning them as a first language doesn't necessarily destroy your chances at being a good programmer, but it's a serious detriment.
I have learned a lot from the various languages I have learned, but I learned the most from assembly on the 6502, and later on the 8088, and eventually on an aging PDP-11. I learned about the workings of the machine. More importantly, I learned how the machine can be different from implementation to implementation, and how also I learned the ways in which they are not different.
Am I a good coder? Maybe, maybe not. But I do know that starting a student out in an IDE is seriously fucking with their chances of ever being a decent coder. Just like I wouldn't take my car to a mechanic who doesn't understand how an internal combustion engine works, I'd never trust a coder who doesn't understand their tools, from the hardware on up.
(This isn't to say a mechanic should know all about the first law of thermodynamics. But I'd place bets a mechanic who does is probably better-than-average.)
RIAA can't control what gets downloaded/played. And this is all about controlling what the public hears.
It's much better for the RIAA's members if only a few top-selling artists are made each year, instead of a bunch of mediocre-selling ones. Never mind that the top-selling artists usually suck fish ass (yeah, I'm talking about you, Mary J. Blige), and the good ones hardly sell at all. The music producers want maximum selling potential with minimum work. Never mind I have to bust my ass to get my $3.50/hr (speaking of which-- do you want fries with that?), and they get to screw the mediocre-selling artists royally.
Finally, the digital medium kind of cuts out the middleman, and they are the middleman. Up 'til now, they've been able to control the distribution channels. Now they can't do that. They see a bleak, bleak future, without Sony and WB deciding what people can hear.
And you know what I say? Line 'em up and fuck 'em. The RIAA is dying. Netcraft's list of top lawsuits proves it. Those commercial pap-pushers are on their last gasp, and I will laugh like a maniac at a firestorm when they are finally gone. The world will be a better place with them dead and in the grave (the companies, I mean).
I think it is much simpler than that. The leftists that read site are in denial of the fact that mainstream America is willing to give President Bush the tools he needs to fight terror.
Nice rationale, but this argument hasn't held water for a long time. First, President Bush has lied to the populace to lead the country (and world) into a war that didn't need faught. Secondly, he wasn't even prepared to deal with the consequences of that war; witness the chaos that is Iraq. Thirdly, he hasn't been fighting terrorism! I don't think there's many people naive enough left to even believe it anymore.
The threat of terrorism on US soil is almost nothing. Hell, more people die from cigarette smoking than from terrorist attacks in the US; but will the US government spend 100 billion dollars to combat cigarette smoking?
Americans are fucking pussies. First, to think that a lying son-of-a-bitch like Bush can (or even will) protect us from terrorists is like thinking a 19th century barber is going to cure you by bleeding out the demons. Then to think that we even need protection from terrorists is like thinking we need protection from alligators. Sure, the occassional person will get their arms ripped off and pulled into a swamp, but it's terribly, terribly rare here in the States.
Finally, to think these are tools that are necessary for fighting terrorism is insane. The government can't cope with the amount of intelligence it gets as it is. Witness the 20-20 hindsight with the whole 9/11 attack-- we had the intelligence to stop it, but we didn't know how to correlate the information. More information is going to hurt, not help.
And finally, Bush has proven he's more than willing to take Lady Liberty, push her face-down on that big desk in the oval office, and fuck her in the ass. Then, as she lies there bleeding, he'll tell her that was the best sexual experience she's ever had.
Yeah, that's right. The US has a co-dependent relationship with our President. He's like the abusive drunk boyfriend who stops by after hanging out with his business buddies to ass-rape us, and he doesn't even give a reach-around.
I do wish Americans would stop being pussies. It's time to grow up, be men, recognize that the world is a dangerous place. Sure it is. But we can still maintain our dignity.
Oh, well. I guess it doesn't matter. If you wish to give up your liberties, feel free. But you sure as fuck don't have permission to give away my liberties.
The same Boomers who want war whenever possible, because it makes them think they're as strong and good as their ancestors fighting WWII . ..
I'm not big on arm-chair psychology, but:
Oh. My. Fucking. Elders. Of. Eddore.
Is this the reason so many seemingly-reasonable people support our war in Iraq? Because we've had one relatively-honorable war in the last 150 years? Because we want to get in a pissing contest with our fathers (or grandfathers)?
You have said something that sounds true. I distrust it, because of that, but I can't find flaw. And, as Steven Colbert recently said, "These things are super-depressing!"
I hope you are wrong. I hope we are not as shallow as that. I hope our accomplishments make us men (and women, for those of the female gender, or transgender), rather than our ability to destroy as much as possible. I hope we don't have to whip out our dicks every time we elect a new president just because every era needs a Hitler.
You, Sir, are more cynical than I. And so, you are probably correct.
Also, we receive only one side of the story: the one the US government sees fit for us to see. They conveniently forget to mention it was the CIA who trained him and his original followers to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the Reagan years. They also don't bother mentioning that we've spent an order of magnitude more money in Iraq than we have trying to find bin Laden.
The NSA is part of the government. The government is supposed to follow things like "due process," and whatnot. Yes, this is a condemnation of the power of corporations, as well; the abuse of their position is rampant, and adds to the problem, but that does not make the NSA innocent.
If corporations were still maintained by charter, it would be time to consider revoking their charters; unfortunately, corporations have the same status as a person.
. . . liberals are also very intolerant of people who don't behave/act like they do. For example, anti-smoking laws, hate speech laws, and they seem to have a bias against people they don't deem to be as smart as them (comments about "dumb americans"), and thus seem to be designing some elitist utopian society.
Hold up there, Sunny Jim. I'm one of those "liberals," and although I am against smoking laws, especially those against pot. There's no such thing as "hate speech," just hate, and you can't legislate that away, any more than you can legislate away stupidity (though I'd legislate away stupidity if I could).
Americans are dumb. You know how dumb the average person is? Well, by definition, half are dumber than that. (Yeah, I know, it should be "median person," not "average," but it's not as funny that way.)
We're not "designing" an elitist, utopian society; we're living in an elitist, dystopian society, in which holier-than-thou born-again hypocrites run the government, and claim to be Republican, but sure the fuck aren't. If they are shining examples of the mass of people they represent, we're in bigger fucking trouble than we thought.
I believe in personal liberty, but not group liberties. I believe corporations should be controlled, which is probably the only thing that sets me apart from most libertarians. Well, that and my belief that we should help those who need help (that is, social programs) because that's what Jesus would want. I mean, if I believed in Jesus.
I do like a lot of the ideals of Christianity, especially those being ignored by most self-proclaimed Christians-- like, charity, for instance. Humility is another oldy-but-goody. Kindness, and pacificism: two other good ones.
There may be a few liberals who push stupid, anti-rights agendas. (Yeah, I'm looking at you, California. Quit electing fucking actors as governors. First, Reagan, now ARNIE? What the fuck are you guys smoking out there? And why don't I have any?) But, on the whole, I don't think there's a lot of difference between "liberals" and "conservatives."
I think it's like an artificial gang war. I think they do this to keep us divided, so we don't notice the fact that we get exactly the same fucking government no matter who's in charge.
As I'm on a Bill Hicks kick lately, there's always this:
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'"
Any time there's money to be had, people are going to intimidate other people. There are too many greedy fucks in the world, and Microsoft does not have a monopoly on greedy fucks.
American's also make this mistake, but the ability of the government to force it upon anyone is limited by the Constitution (when it is obeyed).
Great post.
The powers of the American government are limited not by the Constitution, but by the willingness of the people of the US to defend the Constitution. Unfortunately, there aren't many people who seem to be willing to defend the Constitution, and so the US government seems to have almost limitless power, especially the executive branch.
Oh, well. So it goes. The US population has become ball-less sheep feeding at the trough of corporatism.
. . . but I also like my XP box full of Visual Studio and Dotnet yumminess.
Aww, Heck. You have *got* to be fucking kidding.
I've been in.Net hell for the last two months. Visual studio fucking blows (you have to learn how to work like VS works; there's no way to make it work the way you want it to work)..Net has some serious issues, like with one of the major features (delegates) not being truly thread-safe, for stupid reasons.
I mean, if this isn't safe, but is the best way to do it:
WTF? C# (and by extension,.Net) has some seriously good ideas, but so much of it is poorly-thought-out, it's almost laughable. I *like* delegates, don't get me wrong. It just could have been done better, like many other features.
VS pisses me off way too much to be a good dev environment, and.Net is simultaneously too simple, too complex, and too inflexible to be really useful.
Personally, the Vista delay means nothing to me, other than proof that Microsoft is quickly losing relevence. Sure, their market domination will help them survive, but where I was once disturbed that they might be able to completely fuck up computing, I think they've merely succeeded in setting us back a decade.
And let me guess . . . these same levies somehow were stronger during Clinton's terms in office?
Well, yes, they were. Things decay over time, and require routine maintenance.
The army corps of engineers determined the levies required maintenance. There was money in the federal budget to work on those levies. The money was taken out of the budget and redirected to a war in Iraq.
Now, I'm not saying they money should have been there in the first place. Personally, I believe we should have a small federal government, and stronger state governments, and even stronger municipal governments. But I'd rather see my tax money going to reenforce levies in New Orleans than spending it on the destruction of Iraq.
Quite a few people believe it is our duty to support our President, even if he's a lying, cheating, murdering, egg-sucking, goose-fucking prick (and he is, too). Many even think that "freedom of speech" goes too far, and that the government should approve news stories (it seems it is these days). These same people have perverted the meaning of patriotism.
Patriotism is standing up for liberty. Patriotism is battling against tyranny, even if that tyranny is home-grown. Patriotism is putting the rights of the people before the rights of the government, and before the rights of corporations.
There is no just world right now. But, if we fight for it, if we struggle for it, we might be able to make it just, make it fair, make it right. We are creatures of creation-- we life to create more than we live to destroy. If that weren't the truth, we wouldn't have civilisation, or buildings, or Apple ][ computers, or cans of soda.
We live to create, even more than we live to destroy. If this weren't true, there would be no "weapons of mass destruction," because we would have used them all. The Beatles wouldn't have given us great music. Jimi Hendrix destroyed himself, but left behind an astounding creative legacy.
We can make this world just, if we want. But it takes all of us, not just one or two.
Of course he's still alive. Can you imagine Bush doing what he does if bin Laden were captured? He'd never get away with it. The public wouldn't let him.
As long as bin Laden is free, Bush is free to rule however he wants.
Slashdot Mirror
What does it say about our AG that he supports torture and has a collection of child porn which he shows to people?
That he's a self-important, selfish, fascist, sick fuck?
But we already knew that.
I personally will follow the law when it is... actually the law.
I won't.
There are too many laws that infringe on my liberty. And your liberty, too. I ignore those laws. If I get caught and end up in trouble, so be it. I am at least following my conscience.
It is time we started defending the soul of our country-- no matter what country you call home. We live in a time where the governments of the world see a power vacuum left by an apathetic populace, by a world of fewer enemies. The US has to manufacture its enemies these days, like some vast enemy-making assembly line: drugs, Iraq, liberals... it's like a great big marketting campaign to make us think we have enemies, other than those in charge.
Fuck 'em. I am a free man, no matter what they say. I may die in prison, with pictures of Pvt. Englund holding my leash while dogs fuck me in the ass, but I will be free.
The solution is not more representation in government, but less government and less governmental authority.
That's what we started with. We need to figure out a way to get back to that. That's why I have formed the "Minimalist Party." It emphasizes a major diet for the federal government, redistribution of power back to the states, personal liberty, and a reversion of corporations back to being chartered entities that are free to do business as they wish, but as soon as there's any shenanigans, they get a choice: either they their charter yanked; or round up the shareholders, rank them in descending order of shares, select enough of them to represent greater than 50% of the shares, and either fine them or throw them in jail. The owners of a bad dog can face fines or jailtime (if the dogs rip up and kill a woman in the halls of her apartment building). The owners of a company gone bad should face consequences as well.
Yeah, I know. It's kind of simplistic and idealistic. That's why I call it the Minimalist Party. Oh, and I also call it that because there's only one member, and he's running for President. That'd be me. The party probably won't get the Presidency, but our candidate will most likely get 100% of the party votes. Our members are just that loyal.
Yeah. Like Bill Hicks said, two puppets with one puppetmaster.
I'm declaring the next election day "Opposite day." The person with the *fewest* votes wins. They'd be almost guaranteed to run the country better than the last handful of presidents.
We ain't had a president to be proud of since. . . well, a really long time. And this last one is the worst president I can think of, not knowing a buttload of history.
If I made a voice controlled bomb then saying the command to have it go off would also get me arrested, not for the words themselves but for what they caused (or may have caused if my bomb was a dud).
Okay, just a quibble, but you would not be arrested for your hypothetical words to set the bomb off. You would be arrested for creating the bomb in the first place, and attempting to use it in the second place.
But then your bomb wouldn't go off when you told it, anyway, because it would get all philosophical and start thinking about the meaning of life, and carrying on long rambling conversations about the meaning of creation, and then go off with the words, "Let there be light," all because you had to make a bomb that would understand the command to go off in the first place, DIDN'T you?
There is a simple definition of computer literacy: the ability to independently cope with a new situation. For instance, learning MS-Office by wrote is not literacy. Knowing the purpose of a word processor, and using that knowledge to learn a new word processor is literacy.
If a user can't figure out OpenOffice, they ain't word-processor literate.
Just as one can be generally literate in the English language but still not be able to read and comprehend complex material, there are different levels of literacy. I am substantially more literate in computers than most people in my family, for instance.
But, in general, the ability to learn new software based on general understanding is a vital hallmark of literacy.
If you are a journalist and you publish a secret document, you are party to a crime. You don't have the right to break the law, even if its an unpopular one.
You are correct. You don't have the right.
You have the duty.
Swearing to keep secrets does not mean being complicit in other crimes, like wiretapping US citizens without warrants, or lying to the citizens you have sworn to protect, lied to take them into a war that did not need fighting.
Our "leaders" do not have the right to do these things. It is our duty as citizens to keep the government honest. Yes, we must protect the legitimate secrets of the government. But the lies and corruption that is revealed by the current leaks is true patriotism.
Even the government cannot legally expect its employees to keep secrets about broken laws and moral corruption.
Or should they start off coding in assembly or even machine code?
Yes.
Hell, yes.
Hell, fuckin' A yes.
The last thing the world needs is a bunch of little code monkeys. We've got enough "computer experts" in the world who's only qualification is the ability to do a mail merge in MS-Word. If you want to learn to program, then learn to program. Don't fuck around teaching object-oriented programming to beginners. Most professional coders I know fuck up C++ and Java already, simply because they never got a good programming foundation.
Java and Python and the like are the modern BASIC. Learning them as a first language doesn't necessarily destroy your chances at being a good programmer, but it's a serious detriment.
I have learned a lot from the various languages I have learned, but I learned the most from assembly on the 6502, and later on the 8088, and eventually on an aging PDP-11. I learned about the workings of the machine. More importantly, I learned how the machine can be different from implementation to implementation, and how also I learned the ways in which they are not different.
Am I a good coder? Maybe, maybe not. But I do know that starting a student out in an IDE is seriously fucking with their chances of ever being a decent coder. Just like I wouldn't take my car to a mechanic who doesn't understand how an internal combustion engine works, I'd never trust a coder who doesn't understand their tools, from the hardware on up.
(This isn't to say a mechanic should know all about the first law of thermodynamics. But I'd place bets a mechanic who does is probably better-than-average.)
Yeah, see, here's the problem:
RIAA can't control what gets downloaded/played. And this is all about controlling what the public hears.
It's much better for the RIAA's members if only a few top-selling artists are made each year, instead of a bunch of mediocre-selling ones. Never mind that the top-selling artists usually suck fish ass (yeah, I'm talking about you, Mary J. Blige), and the good ones hardly sell at all. The music producers want maximum selling potential with minimum work. Never mind I have to bust my ass to get my $3.50/hr (speaking of which-- do you want fries with that?), and they get to screw the mediocre-selling artists royally.
Finally, the digital medium kind of cuts out the middleman, and they are the middleman. Up 'til now, they've been able to control the distribution channels. Now they can't do that. They see a bleak, bleak future, without Sony and WB deciding what people can hear.
And you know what I say? Line 'em up and fuck 'em. The RIAA is dying. Netcraft's list of top lawsuits proves it. Those commercial pap-pushers are on their last gasp, and I will laugh like a maniac at a firestorm when they are finally gone. The world will be a better place with them dead and in the grave (the companies, I mean).
So, fuck 'em gently with a chainsaw.
I think it is much simpler than that. The leftists that read site are in denial of the fact that mainstream America is willing to give President Bush the tools he needs to fight terror.
Nice rationale, but this argument hasn't held water for a long time. First, President Bush has lied to the populace to lead the country (and world) into a war that didn't need faught. Secondly, he wasn't even prepared to deal with the consequences of that war; witness the chaos that is Iraq. Thirdly, he hasn't been fighting terrorism! I don't think there's many people naive enough left to even believe it anymore.
The threat of terrorism on US soil is almost nothing. Hell, more people die from cigarette smoking than from terrorist attacks in the US; but will the US government spend 100 billion dollars to combat cigarette smoking?
Americans are fucking pussies. First, to think that a lying son-of-a-bitch like Bush can (or even will) protect us from terrorists is like thinking a 19th century barber is going to cure you by bleeding out the demons. Then to think that we even need protection from terrorists is like thinking we need protection from alligators. Sure, the occassional person will get their arms ripped off and pulled into a swamp, but it's terribly, terribly rare here in the States.
Finally, to think these are tools that are necessary for fighting terrorism is insane. The government can't cope with the amount of intelligence it gets as it is. Witness the 20-20 hindsight with the whole 9/11 attack-- we had the intelligence to stop it, but we didn't know how to correlate the information. More information is going to hurt, not help.
And finally, Bush has proven he's more than willing to take Lady Liberty, push her face-down on that big desk in the oval office, and fuck her in the ass. Then, as she lies there bleeding, he'll tell her that was the best sexual experience she's ever had.
Yeah, that's right. The US has a co-dependent relationship with our President. He's like the abusive drunk boyfriend who stops by after hanging out with his business buddies to ass-rape us, and he doesn't even give a reach-around.
I do wish Americans would stop being pussies. It's time to grow up, be men, recognize that the world is a dangerous place. Sure it is. But we can still maintain our dignity.
Oh, well. I guess it doesn't matter. If you wish to give up your liberties, feel free. But you sure as fuck don't have permission to give away my liberties.
The same Boomers who want war whenever possible, because it makes them think they're as strong and good as their ancestors fighting WWII . . .
I'm not big on arm-chair psychology, but:
Oh. My. Fucking. Elders. Of. Eddore.
Is this the reason so many seemingly-reasonable people support our war in Iraq? Because we've had one relatively-honorable war in the last 150 years? Because we want to get in a pissing contest with our fathers (or grandfathers)?
You have said something that sounds true. I distrust it, because of that, but I can't find flaw. And, as Steven Colbert recently said, "These things are super-depressing!"
I hope you are wrong. I hope we are not as shallow as that. I hope our accomplishments make us men (and women, for those of the female gender, or transgender), rather than our ability to destroy as much as possible. I hope we don't have to whip out our dicks every time we elect a new president just because every era needs a Hitler.
You, Sir, are more cynical than I. And so, you are probably correct.
Just one question:
Are we really that fucking shallow?
Also, we receive only one side of the story: the one the US government sees fit for us to see. They conveniently forget to mention it was the CIA who trained him and his original followers to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the Reagan years. They also don't bother mentioning that we've spent an order of magnitude more money in Iraq than we have trying to find bin Laden.
Which one had something to do with 9/11 again?
The NSA is part of the government. The government is supposed to follow things like "due process," and whatnot. Yes, this is a condemnation of the power of corporations, as well; the abuse of their position is rampant, and adds to the problem, but that does not make the NSA innocent.
If corporations were still maintained by charter, it would be time to consider revoking their charters; unfortunately, corporations have the same status as a person.
So we should put them on death row, instead.
. . . liberals are also very intolerant of people who don't behave/act like they do. For example, anti-smoking laws, hate speech laws, and they seem to have a bias against people they don't deem to be as smart as them (comments about "dumb americans"), and thus seem to be designing some elitist utopian society.
Hold up there, Sunny Jim. I'm one of those "liberals," and although I am against smoking laws, especially those against pot. There's no such thing as "hate speech," just hate, and you can't legislate that away, any more than you can legislate away stupidity (though I'd legislate away stupidity if I could).
Americans are dumb. You know how dumb the average person is? Well, by definition, half are dumber than that. (Yeah, I know, it should be "median person," not "average," but it's not as funny that way.)
We're not "designing" an elitist, utopian society; we're living in an elitist, dystopian society, in which holier-than-thou born-again hypocrites run the government, and claim to be Republican, but sure the fuck aren't. If they are shining examples of the mass of people they represent, we're in bigger fucking trouble than we thought.
I believe in personal liberty, but not group liberties. I believe corporations should be controlled, which is probably the only thing that sets me apart from most libertarians. Well, that and my belief that we should help those who need help (that is, social programs) because that's what Jesus would want. I mean, if I believed in Jesus.
I do like a lot of the ideals of Christianity, especially those being ignored by most self-proclaimed Christians-- like, charity, for instance. Humility is another oldy-but-goody. Kindness, and pacificism: two other good ones.
There may be a few liberals who push stupid, anti-rights agendas. (Yeah, I'm looking at you, California. Quit electing fucking actors as governors. First, Reagan, now ARNIE? What the fuck are you guys smoking out there? And why don't I have any?) But, on the whole, I don't think there's a lot of difference between "liberals" and "conservatives."
I think it's like an artificial gang war. I think they do this to keep us divided, so we don't notice the fact that we get exactly the same fucking government no matter who's in charge.
As I'm on a Bill Hicks kick lately, there's always this:
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'"
Thanks for letting me rant.
. . . used car salesmen.
Any time there's money to be had, people are going to intimidate other people. There are too many greedy fucks in the world, and Microsoft does not have a monopoly on greedy fucks.
American's also make this mistake, but the ability of the government to force it upon anyone is limited by the Constitution (when it is obeyed).
Great post.
The powers of the American government are limited not by the Constitution, but by the willingness of the people of the US to defend the Constitution. Unfortunately, there aren't many people who seem to be willing to defend the Constitution, and so the US government seems to have almost limitless power, especially the executive branch.
Oh, well. So it goes. The US population has become ball-less sheep feeding at the trough of corporatism.
Gregory Benford talked about this back in 2000. Somebody must've read it recently.
The Supreme Court of the United States is unelected, as well. Yet we seem to put great faith in them.
Unelected is not necessarily bad.
Aww, Heck. You have *got* to be fucking kidding.
I've been in
I mean, if this isn't safe, but is the best way to do it:WTF? C# (and by extension,
VS pisses me off way too much to be a good dev environment, and
Personally, the Vista delay means nothing to me, other than proof that Microsoft is quickly losing relevence. Sure, their market domination will help them survive, but where I was once disturbed that they might be able to completely fuck up computing, I think they've merely succeeded in setting us back a decade.
Oh, well, YMMV.
And let me guess . . . these same levies somehow were stronger during Clinton's terms in office?
Well, yes, they were. Things decay over time, and require routine maintenance.
The army corps of engineers determined the levies required maintenance. There was money in the federal budget to work on those levies. The money was taken out of the budget and redirected to a war in Iraq.
Now, I'm not saying they money should have been there in the first place. Personally, I believe we should have a small federal government, and stronger state governments, and even stronger municipal governments. But I'd rather see my tax money going to reenforce levies in New Orleans than spending it on the destruction of Iraq.
Quite a few people believe it is our duty to support our President, even if he's a lying, cheating, murdering, egg-sucking, goose-fucking prick (and he is, too). Many even think that "freedom of speech" goes too far, and that the government should approve news stories (it seems it is these days). These same people have perverted the meaning of patriotism.
Patriotism is standing up for liberty. Patriotism is battling against tyranny, even if that tyranny is home-grown. Patriotism is putting the rights of the people before the rights of the government, and before the rights of corporations.
There is no such thing as a just world.
There is no just world right now. But, if we fight for it, if we struggle for it, we might be able to make it just, make it fair, make it right. We are creatures of creation-- we life to create more than we live to destroy. If that weren't the truth, we wouldn't have civilisation, or buildings, or Apple ][ computers, or cans of soda.
We live to create, even more than we live to destroy. If this weren't true, there would be no "weapons of mass destruction," because we would have used them all. The Beatles wouldn't have given us great music. Jimi Hendrix destroyed himself, but left behind an astounding creative legacy.
We can make this world just, if we want. But it takes all of us, not just one or two.
. . .what "secrets" does the State actually have...
If I told you, they wouldn't be secrets, now, would they?
And after all this Osama is still alive.
Of course he's still alive. Can you imagine Bush doing what he does if bin Laden were captured? He'd never get away with it. The public wouldn't let him.
As long as bin Laden is free, Bush is free to rule however he wants.
. . . or maybe that was just a reality tv show I saw once.
Yeah, it was a reality TV show. They called it, "Watergate." And it was nowhere *near* this bad.