In the last two election there was a statistically significant variance between exit polling and actual vote. In any other election, in any other country this would be a sign of voter fraud. In america nobody even cared.
Let's face it you could out and out rig the machines and nobody would care. This is america only 35% of people eligable for voting even care enough to stop by the polling place on the way from work.
What I don't understand is why they are waiting around for a vendor? Take the money you would have given diebold, pool it with all other states that would have done the same thing, hire people, get it done.
You can also create a private company and buy a significant percentage of shares in it and sell the system to other states or countries. There are all sorts of govt-private partnerships all over the world like this.
The USSS is technically under the treasury but doesn't really get involved with low level fraud like somebody paying off a 6K debt.
Once again homeland security has no real jurisdiction over some average american paying off some debt in one shot. This is not money destined for arabs, it's not arabs, the company getting paid is not associated with arabs. For all practical purposes the job of the Homeland security dept is to harrass arabs, people who critize the war, people who critise the president, and to control the borders. They really messed up in this case unless the poor shmuck was a well known or vocal liberal.
"Because they're the new shiney branch of the executive branch with the money to actually look into these sorts of things."
Well good to know the FBI, IRS, and local authorities have all run out of money to do their jobs. I guess homeland security will be taking over all law enforcement from now on.
"also, correct me if I'm wrong (anyone) but I believe that the FBI is now a part of the DHS."
You can always vote and more importantly get active, join or form a organization dedicated to voting this bastard out of office. Get people registered to vote. Give rides to people on voting day. Make up some flyers and hand them out.
You know, get off your ass, go outside, talk to people and do something.
I too have programmed in VB from the old days and I can tell you emphatically that any VB2 application you had was using VBX controls and will no longer work. Furthermore you can no longer find VBX controls nor get the ones you were using upgraded.
The migration from VBX to OCX cost me over two thousand dollars as I replaced all the controls I was used to using. I paid the money because I had to, I didn't enjoy it and I tried my best to pass the cost on to my customers who ended up with the shaft.
By the way if any "enterprise" is using VB.NET now they are run by idiots and won't be business long. Most clueful enterprises are adopting either C# or Java. The only ones using VB.NET are the ones trying to extend the life of some VB apps. VB.NET is the COBOL of our generation. It won't ever go away but it will slowly fade into the background.
I think it's telling that the first thing you think of is "run away" and not "lets get rid of the bastard" or "let's organize some sort of a civil disobedience".
I know you were joking but still it strikes me as somehow indicative of just how passive we have become as a country.
"Did I miss some crucial thing that OOo does? It's a nice product and all, but, the truth is, it doesn't match the hype."
What OO does is scare MS. All those other things? MS doesn't give a fuck about. OO scares them because it threatens to cut off their other monopoly, to cut off their air supply.
We are now in the "then they laugh at you" phase of the trip now. It won't be long.
While I can appreciate your gushing review of office you didn't really address his main point. His point was that he really didn't see any reason to upgrade from office 97 and that if OO offered the same functionality then it was good enough for him
So perhaps you can tell us exactly how ms office is leaps and bounds ahead and is a compelling upgrade from 97.
"One of the strongest, most evolved characteristics of the human species is our desire to stay motivated. We must "obtain" and "control". In capitalism this usually equates to directing our primal desires towards that which helps ensure our personal security and enjoyment in life: cash. Take greed and money away, and that same uncontrollable desire gets directed towards each other, other races, and opposing religions. Now which is really better?"
Well according to christ anyway that motivation should come from love of god and the desire to do good, not to accumulate wealth.
"In America, an "evil" product of pure capitalism is a CEO of an energy company that puts the screws to an elderly lady on a fixed income making it harder to pay her bills. In Iraq, an "evil" product of religion are hooded fundamentalists that decapitate infidels and barely make the news. Give me a greedy, wealthy society anyday."
To be fair, we also have tortured and killed lots of people. Sure we don't decapitate people, our prefered way of killing is to drop bombs on them. We are way more efficient though, while they have decapitated maybe a hundred or less people we have namaged to kill hundreds of thousands of humans in the last few years with our bombs.
I honestly don't know if killing people via bombs makes us morally superior to killing them by cutting their heads off. You seem convinced of that. Maybe you can explain why you think it's morally superior to kill people with bombs then knives or swords.
I used to live in a town which held a small apocoplypic cult. I knew some of the people in this cult, they were otherwise smart and nice people. Every once in a while the leader of the cult would announce that the world was going to end on some date. He would be very specific, for example he would say the world is going to end may 10 this year. The whole cult would then prepare for the end times. They would do things like empty their shelves so theings won't break in the earthquakes and put mattresses over them to protect from tornadoes and such.
Needless to say the world never ended. The cult leader always had a great expalation though. Haven't been in the services I don't know what they all were but I was told that one of them was "we prevented it by praying and performing other rituals".
I never understood why otherwise smart people would fall for this but then again there are lots of smart people who believe strange stuff.
Actually free market fundamentalism advocates that greed is a virtue and that love of money should be main engine driving society.
That pretty much makes it about anti-christian as you can get. In Christianity greed is a deadly sin and love of money is the root of all evil.
Come to think of it usury is a sin (interest), pride is a sin, covetousness is a sin, gluttony is a sin it goes on and on. Take away all that you destroy capitalism.
"I will put point 5 in an american context. Assume Southern Baptists have the same power as CoE. The Southern Baptists decide to start enforcing blasphemy laws in their courts. Then they would have the right to arrest non Southern Baptists, try them before SB courts sentence them and have say the State of Georgia enforce their ruling with jail or death. That right would only exist for Southern Baptists, Catholic courts would have no force in law. How is that equal rights? If one religion has the power to make laws and the other doesn't that ain't equal."
But nothing like that is happening either in the US or in england. However things like this ARE happening in israel. In israel on the other hand one religion does have the power to make laws and other ain't equal.
"Further... All Israeli citizens have equal rights before the law. All of them. The 3.5 million people you talk about have rejected citizenship."
All of them? All were offered citizenship? When was that? I certainly don't recall anything like that.
I think it's shameful that there are 3.5 million people living inside Israeli borders who have no rights whatsoever. None.
"Further... All Israeli citizens have equal rights before the law. All of them. The 3.5 million people you talk about have rejected citizenship."
Well it belongs ot Israel. israel won that land in a war. It just chooses to torture people that were living there before it invaded.
"Israel has not touched the Syrian Palestinian community since the 1950s (when they stopped attacking Israel). Israel has not attacked the Jordanian Palestinian community since the early 1970s (they stopped attacking in the early 1970s)."
Not true. Both both syria and lebanon have been bombed by israel numerous times in the last couple of years.
"Israel has a long track record of stopping violence when the attacks stop."
No it doesn't.
"The Russians in Chechnya are killing in the hundreds of thousand and millions per year in similar circumstances. When a group of people claimed to have sovereignty over US territory and rejected US government claims of authority openly declared their disloyalty the US government attacked them. They were far more brutal than the Israelis have been."
Agreed. both US and Russia (as well as china) are more brutal then Israel. Israel is not the most brutal country in the world. It's in the top five though.
I especially love the "Windows XP and office 2003 just worked" line. That's a rich one. Anybody who has actually worked with those technologies knows how much effort it takes to make them "just work".
I do think you have point about the incompatibilities of the office formats with other software. It's a well known fact that MS products use office formats to undermine other software. I think that people are finally wising up to this and pushing for ODF. Even MS has tried to make the default office format XML based so I think this problem will go away very soon.
What's interesting to me is how different office 12 looks from office 2003 (who the fuck came up with that versioning scheme?). It will be much easier to re-train employees from office 2003 to open office (which looks very similar) then to retrain employees to migrate from 2003 to 12. Office 12 looks and acts radically different then what people are used to.
Anybody who has access to the MS code is not allowed to reveal anything about it. Even if Mainsoft or a university discovered something in windows they would not tell anybody about it because they could be destroyed financially.
") The King is required to belong to the Church. This means that an Englishmen who is not CoE (church of England) can never be King. Further it is a crime to try and make any Catholic King. The CoE must approve of the King."
And yet muslims, jews, budhists all have the exact same rights as christians. As for being king, it's not an elected position. It's hereditary.
I don't see what the king or the church of england has anything to do with the fact that people of all religions enjoy the same rights as citizens in england.
I must have missed the part where you proved that israel is not occupying 3.5 million people, does not have state supported torture, does not kill a couple of thousand palestenians every year, does not round up palestenians without charges or lawyers, does not launch missiles into crowded cities etc.
YOu have disproved nothing.
Go ahead I am waiting for that proof.
I am very curious about zionism. Your(?) post indicated that zionist are very kind to each other and yet they are so brutal towards everybody else. I am genuinely curious about this phenomena. Zionism has always struck me as especially weird form of religion (admitedly all religions are pretty weird). I guess being gods chosen people effects how you interact with other people who are not gods favorites.
WOW, what tremendous insight! I am awed by your genious my friend. You have posed some questions no scientist in the world has thought to ask or answer.
I will from now on completely ignore any and all climatologist, geologist, meteorologist or pysysicsts. You have proven to me that they are all stupid incompetent fools who haven't even managed to notice that the earth has been warming up since the last ice age.
In england people who are not christians are considered citizens and have full rights as all other citizens. England does not state that it is a christian state. No politician in England has declared that god promised them the land they are living on. England does not occupy 3.5 million people. England does not have a state policy of torture, mass arrests, incarasation without trials or representation. England does not kill a couple of thousand of it's neighbors every year. England does not target journalists of other countries, does not destroy television stations of it's neigbors, does not on occasion roll tanks through the neighborhoods of people and fire away. England does not destroy the houses of criminals (oddly enough england seems to think that you need to try people too).
In other words England is a modern civilized nation who tries to recognize international treaties, borders, and diplomacy. The same thing can't be said of Israel.
Before you say it. If you are still waging war against the palestenians then all the palestenians you capture are prisoners of war and every time israel kills a civillians it's committing war crimes.
ISure my wife has male friends. I also have female friends. BUt guess what, neither one of us goes away on trips with one of those friends as a couple in a foursome.
What the hell? You guys voted for an actor with zero experience in doing anything but living the high life and groping women for the highest of your state. It should not take this act to show you how idiotic your fellow californians are.
So you think going to work with female co-workers is the same as going to some isolated spot as two couples (you and some other woman) is the same thing?
Slashdot Mirror
In the last two election there was a statistically significant variance between exit polling and actual vote. In any other election, in any other country this would be a sign of voter fraud. In america nobody even cared.
Let's face it you could out and out rig the machines and nobody would care. This is america only 35% of people eligable for voting even care enough to stop by the polling place on the way from work.
What I don't understand is why they are waiting around for a vendor? Take the money you would have given diebold, pool it with all other states that would have done the same thing, hire people, get it done.
You can also create a private company and buy a significant percentage of shares in it and sell the system to other states or countries. There are all sorts of govt-private partnerships all over the world like this.
The USSS is technically under the treasury but doesn't really get involved with low level fraud like somebody paying off a 6K debt.
Once again homeland security has no real jurisdiction over some average american paying off some debt in one shot. This is not money destined for arabs, it's not arabs, the company getting paid is not associated with arabs. For all practical purposes the job of the Homeland security dept is to harrass arabs, people who critize the war, people who critise the president, and to control the borders. They really messed up in this case unless the poor shmuck was a well known or vocal liberal.
"Because they're the new shiney branch of the executive branch with the money to actually look into these sorts of things."
Well good to know the FBI, IRS, and local authorities have all run out of money to do their jobs. I guess homeland security will be taking over all law enforcement from now on.
"also, correct me if I'm wrong (anyone) but I believe that the FBI is now a part of the DHS."
Consider yourself corrected.
The FBI and the CIA are not a part of the homeland security dept.
You can always vote and more importantly get active, join or form a organization dedicated to voting this bastard out of office. Get people registered to vote. Give rides to people on voting day. Make up some flyers and hand them out.
You know, get off your ass, go outside, talk to people and do something.
I call bullshit.
I too have programmed in VB from the old days and I can tell you emphatically that any VB2 application you had was using VBX controls and will no longer work. Furthermore you can no longer find VBX controls nor get the ones you were using upgraded.
The migration from VBX to OCX cost me over two thousand dollars as I replaced all the controls I was used to using. I paid the money because I had to, I didn't enjoy it and I tried my best to pass the cost on to my customers who ended up with the shaft.
By the way if any "enterprise" is using VB.NET now they are run by idiots and won't be business long. Most clueful enterprises are adopting either C# or Java. The only ones using VB.NET are the ones trying to extend the life of some VB apps. VB.NET is the COBOL of our generation. It won't ever go away but it will slowly fade into the background.
So why is homeland security investigating this then? Why not IRS, or even the FBI. Why homeland security?
I think it's telling that the first thing you think of is "run away" and not "lets get rid of the bastard" or "let's organize some sort of a civil disobedience".
I know you were joking but still it strikes me as somehow indicative of just how passive we have become as a country.
"Did I miss some crucial thing that OOo does? It's a nice product and all, but, the truth is, it doesn't match the hype."
What OO does is scare MS. All those other things? MS doesn't give a fuck about. OO scares them because it threatens to cut off their other monopoly, to cut off their air supply.
We are now in the "then they laugh at you" phase of the trip now. It won't be long.
While I can appreciate your gushing review of office you didn't really address his main point. His point was that he really didn't see any reason to upgrade from office 97 and that if OO offered the same functionality then it was good enough for him
So perhaps you can tell us exactly how ms office is leaps and bounds ahead and is a compelling upgrade from 97.
"One of the strongest, most evolved characteristics of the human species is our desire to stay motivated. We must "obtain" and "control". In capitalism this usually equates to directing our primal desires towards that which helps ensure our personal security and enjoyment in life: cash. Take greed and money away, and that same uncontrollable desire gets directed towards each other, other races, and opposing religions. Now which is really better?"
Well according to christ anyway that motivation should come from love of god and the desire to do good, not to accumulate wealth.
"In America, an "evil" product of pure capitalism is a CEO of an energy company that puts the screws to an elderly lady on a fixed income making it harder to pay her bills. In Iraq, an "evil" product of religion are hooded fundamentalists that decapitate infidels and barely make the news. Give me a greedy, wealthy society anyday."
To be fair, we also have tortured and killed lots of people. Sure we don't decapitate people, our prefered way of killing is to drop bombs on them. We are way more efficient though, while they have decapitated maybe a hundred or less people we have namaged to kill hundreds of thousands of humans in the last few years with our bombs.
I honestly don't know if killing people via bombs makes us morally superior to killing them by cutting their heads off. You seem convinced of that. Maybe you can explain why you think it's morally superior to kill people with bombs then knives or swords.
the following is 100% true. I swear.
I used to live in a town which held a small apocoplypic cult. I knew some of the people in this cult, they were otherwise smart and nice people. Every once in a while the leader of the cult would announce that the world was going to end on some date. He would be very specific, for example he would say the world is going to end may 10 this year. The whole cult would then prepare for the end times. They would do things like empty their shelves so theings won't break in the earthquakes and put mattresses over them to protect from tornadoes and such.
Needless to say the world never ended. The cult leader always had a great expalation though. Haven't been in the services I don't know what they all were but I was told that one of them was "we prevented it by praying and performing other rituals".
I never understood why otherwise smart people would fall for this but then again there are lots of smart people who believe strange stuff.
Actually free market fundamentalism advocates that greed is a virtue and that love of money should be main engine driving society.
That pretty much makes it about anti-christian as you can get. In Christianity greed is a deadly sin and love of money is the root of all evil.
Come to think of it usury is a sin (interest), pride is a sin, covetousness is a sin, gluttony is a sin it goes on and on. Take away all that you destroy capitalism.
"I will put point 5 in an american context. Assume Southern Baptists have the same power as CoE. The Southern Baptists decide to start enforcing blasphemy laws in their courts. Then they would have the right to arrest non Southern Baptists, try them before SB courts sentence them and have say the State of Georgia enforce their ruling with jail or death. That right would only exist for Southern Baptists, Catholic courts would have no force in law. How is that equal rights? If one religion has the power to make laws and the other doesn't that ain't equal."
But nothing like that is happening either in the US or in england. However things like this ARE happening in israel. In israel on the other hand one religion does have the power to make laws and other ain't equal.
"Further... All Israeli citizens have equal rights before the law. All of them. The 3.5 million people you talk about have rejected citizenship."
All of them? All were offered citizenship? When was that? I certainly don't recall anything like that.
I think it's shameful that there are 3.5 million people living inside Israeli borders who have no rights whatsoever. None.
"Further... All Israeli citizens have equal rights before the law. All of them. The 3.5 million people you talk about have rejected citizenship."
Well it belongs ot Israel. israel won that land in a war. It just chooses to torture people that were living there before it invaded.
"Israel has not touched the Syrian Palestinian community since the 1950s (when they stopped attacking Israel). Israel has not attacked the Jordanian Palestinian community since the early 1970s (they stopped attacking in the early 1970s)."
Not true. Both both syria and lebanon have been bombed by israel numerous times in the last couple of years.
"Israel has a long track record of stopping violence when the attacks stop."
No it doesn't.
"The Russians in Chechnya are killing in the hundreds of thousand and millions per year in similar circumstances. When a group of people claimed to have sovereignty over US territory and rejected US government claims of authority openly declared their disloyalty the US government attacked them. They were far more brutal than the Israelis have been."
Agreed. both US and Russia (as well as china) are more brutal then Israel. Israel is not the most brutal country in the world. It's in the top five though.
Well the expected FUD mobile shows up again.
I especially love the "Windows XP and office 2003 just worked" line. That's a rich one. Anybody who has actually worked with those technologies knows how much effort it takes to make them "just work".
I do think you have point about the incompatibilities of the office formats with other software. It's a well known fact that MS products use office formats to undermine other software. I think that people are finally wising up to this and pushing for ODF. Even MS has tried to make the default office format XML based so I think this problem will go away very soon.
What's interesting to me is how different office 12 looks from office 2003 (who the fuck came up with that versioning scheme?). It will be much easier to re-train employees from office 2003 to open office (which looks very similar) then to retrain employees to migrate from 2003 to 12. Office 12 looks and acts radically different then what people are used to.
Anybody who has access to the MS code is not allowed to reveal anything about it. Even if Mainsoft or a university discovered something in windows they would not tell anybody about it because they could be destroyed financially.
") The King is required to belong to the Church. This means that an Englishmen who is not CoE (church of England) can never be King. Further it is a crime to try and make any Catholic King. The CoE must approve of the King."
And yet muslims, jews, budhists all have the exact same rights as christians. As for being king, it's not an elected position. It's hereditary.
I don't see what the king or the church of england has anything to do with the fact that people of all religions enjoy the same rights as citizens in england.
I must have missed the part where you proved that israel is not occupying 3.5 million people, does not have state supported torture, does not kill a couple of thousand palestenians every year, does not round up palestenians without charges or lawyers, does not launch missiles into crowded cities etc.
YOu have disproved nothing.
Go ahead I am waiting for that proof.
I am very curious about zionism. Your(?) post indicated that zionist are very kind to each other and yet they are so brutal towards everybody else. I am genuinely curious about this phenomena. Zionism has always struck me as especially weird form of religion (admitedly all religions are pretty weird). I guess being gods chosen people effects how you interact with other people who are not gods favorites.
more ice melting also means decreased salinity for the oceans and decreased albedo for the planet.
Do you think those might have adverse effects?
WOW, what tremendous insight! I am awed by your genious my friend. You have posed some questions no scientist in the world has thought to ask or answer.
I will from now on completely ignore any and all climatologist, geologist, meteorologist or pysysicsts. You have proven to me that they are all stupid incompetent fools who haven't even managed to notice that the earth has been warming up since the last ice age.
Can I have your autograph?
In england people who are not christians are considered citizens and have full rights as all other citizens. England does not state that it is a christian state. No politician in England has declared that god promised them the land they are living on. England does not occupy 3.5 million people. England does not have a state policy of torture, mass arrests, incarasation without trials or representation. England does not kill a couple of thousand of it's neighbors every year. England does not target journalists of other countries, does not destroy television stations of it's neigbors, does not on occasion roll tanks through the neighborhoods of people and fire away. England does not destroy the houses of criminals (oddly enough england seems to think that you need to try people too).
In other words England is a modern civilized nation who tries to recognize international treaties, borders, and diplomacy. The same thing can't be said of Israel.
Before you say it. If you are still waging war against the palestenians then all the palestenians you capture are prisoners of war and every time israel kills a civillians it's committing war crimes.
ISure my wife has male friends. I also have female friends. BUt guess what, neither one of us goes away on trips with one of those friends as a couple in a foursome.
Nope, we don't.
What the hell? You guys voted for an actor with zero experience in doing anything but living the high life and groping women for the highest of your state. It should not take this act to show you how idiotic your fellow californians are.
So you think going to work with female co-workers is the same as going to some isolated spot as two couples (you and some other woman) is the same thing?
"Firstly, Bush is promoting world economics, not just U.S. economics. "
Why? He is the president of the United States. He should be more concerned about the people in the US then people in China or India.