A lot of Slashdotters believe this, but none are able to offer any evidence other than a gut feeling, and gut feelings won't convince Congress to amend the Patent Act.
I believe it's a little more than a gut feeling, but you're right we should qualify all our opinions with concrete evidence. So I did a little digging. Back in 1987, I wrote a program that stored pre-printed forms in a searchable database and used that information to generate completed forms that matched the bills of lading provided by various shipping lines (Blank Paper in / Forms indistinguishable from preprinted ones provided by shipping line already filled with customer data out). Apparently if I tried to market such a turnkey solution today I could be sued for violating portions of US Patent 7,978,349 "Apparatus and Method for High Speed Printing of Form and Variable Data" which was filed on April 27, 2006 and granted on July 12, 2011. I think the patent applies more toward the continuous feed printer than the form storage and variable data portion however I would have to budget for a possible legal battle or license agreement. In addition, I could be sued for violating US Patent 4,944,614 "Form Overlay Type Printing Apparatus" filed on Feb 7, 1989 and granted July 31, 1990. This is a liability minefield with more mines being laid every day. WIth the potential customers for this small niche market being small, I'm certain that competitors would use any patent advantage possible to maintain some unfair market advantage (Or better yet what prevents me from doing the same to another person and keep the price of this software artificially high?).
I can probably look at my whole software portfolio and do a "what if I published it today?" scenario and see potential for patent infringements lawsuits in the majority of them. I'm not even considering the patenting of software features within mobile computing operating systems on commodity wireless telephony equipment.
We need to double our efforts to eliminate software patents. These patents are preventing us from reaching our full potential. I remember the good old days when we developed software for fun and profit and took inspiration from other programs and added one more innovative feature to them.
Now we have patents for the most obvious bullshit out there. We need to stop this madness. Every time I see these patents I think back to my calendar program. It had a month and day view and allowed you to enter appointments and let you know if there was a scheduling conflict (this was a big deal in 1982/83). I didn't really plan on publishing it in a magazine but I had a dick of a friend who mailed an early version of my program to an Atari magazine in exchange for a 1200 baud modem. The only thing that consoled my anger towards the little turd was the fact that perhaps someone else was improving on it and possibly showing off their improvements to like minded enthusiasts. My family was poor so I really had no recourse. I did learn a valuable lesson of securing my diskettes.
Anyway despite the way the program entered the public domain, it was how things were done back then. Desktop computing was a very new concept and we gathered together at local computer users groups and showed off what we did and explained how we did it. We were basically learning from each other. I support the GPL since I think it preserves some of the philosophy we had back then. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree that all software should be free but I do think that if I share something with you and you add to it then you should share back. I also believe that software patents are counter productive and slowing our progress.
Now I don't think anybody could make a neat program without the risk of being sued by a patent troll or a corporation that wants to keep a monopoly position in their market segment. This shit has to stop. How do we really expect healthy innovation and competition to continue in the next decade with this escalating patent threat.
I don't understand your point. I could make a device that uses a simple filesystem capable of only using eight characters for the file name plus three characters as an extension to indicate file type. This doesn't mean the device uses DOS.
Not to mention that the apps available for s40 would make the phones more smart than feature. They had an RDP client. Calling Symbian a feature phone OS isn't accurate at all,...
I believe the distinction between a feature phone and a smart phone is its primary use. Feature phones have much smaller screens and often only have the familiar dial pad as its only input device. It is designed mainly for use as a phone with some nice informational apps available.
Smart phones tend to have a larger screen and a more sophisticated input device( qwerty keypad, touch screen, etc). It is designed mainly to run mobile applications and still perform as a phone. Notice the emphasis for apps over phone usage? I believe this is the only real difference between the two types of phones.
I also believe the term "Feature Phone" was a marketing term used by Nokia to differentiate themselves from Blackberry a very long time ago.
I could set up an old joke by stating that technically all phones are smart phones, since I could create a program that could run on it, and the only difference between a feature phone and a smart phone is $200.
...but might have something to do with Nokia running off to join the windows phone vendor ship.
Nokia has been using the term "Feature Phone" for as long as I can remember. Way before Microsoft was in a position to enter the phone market and enter into an agreement with Nokia.
Yes, in the USA, feature phone owners do not use the Internet.
Not totally accurate. I had internet access with my T-Mobile based Ericsson World Phone. I also had unlimited data on the edge network for only $5 a month.
Feature phones normally run a customized variant of Linux.
This is not true. Nokia feature phones run Symbian OS that uses the Symbian kernel designed for the low power single core microcontrollers that these phones usually have. Java ME is the application layer of Symbian OS.
Just clarifying for people who don't know better. You do not realize how often I've heard the amateur radio have unlimited bandwidth argument above X in the past 20 years. Commercial interests have used this argument to justify taking the more usable space away from amateur use.
What you believe is a snarky comment is what I witnessed as a somewhat successful political ploy used by commercial interests.
A teacher can march 20 kids along at the pace of the slowest in the room, a parent can teach as fast as their child can learn.
Teachers tend to march the class along as fast as some arbitrary middle child in the class can keep up, sacrificing the lower students and slowing down the top students.
I've heard this argument before with a lot of anecdotal evidence. One solution has been around for at least 30 years; It's called student paced education. (Some people may have heard of it as "Pace Program"). I took advantage of it while in public school during the very early 80's.
There are problems with public school education, and a $150 eReader isn't what is standing in the way of improving it.
I agree. Funding is one such problem and inefficient teacher's unions is another. Don't even get me started on politicians who know nothing about education and insist on quick fixes for little or no money.
If such an easy fix were possible, there's an easy middle step - have schools buy eReaders - twenty kids plowing through books on thier kindles in a classroom would be a great proof of concept...
So how does this differ from allowing the students to read their traditional text books at a pace they are comfortable with?
In the future predicted by this article, humans will be picking up strange electronic devices that show changing symbols on one of its surfaces... If only we had some sort of institution that could teach us how to interpret these symbols!
1. Those in the near field of your directional antennas.
2. Those in the near field of your target's antennas.
(#1 and #2 are because of the cardoid field pattern a lot of these antennas have, not to mention the numerous minor lobes).
3. Those who are directly behind your antennas.
4. Those who are directly behind your target's antennas.
(#3 and #4 are because the RF doesn't magically stop once it reaches your intended destination).
5. And those who are in between your antennas.
(#5 for obvious reasons.)
I've known people who have "20 years in the business", with resumes and 'experience' to match who are insufferable, incompetent idiots. I know people who have only been working on computers for 10 months (in any practical fashion aside from basic end user stuff) and are more capable and intelligent than said 20-year veterans.
As someone approaching the third decade really quickly, I had the same observations...
I noticed that some post as an AC when they have moderation points. This way they can still comment and moderate the comments that they disagree with. I noticed it recently while replying to an AC. Only the replies to the AC were moderated down and they were sufficiently far down the thread branch to not be of concern to people who are casually reading the comments.
Don't get me wrong - I was not defending Bush per se... just pointing out that the wars weren't really a huge contribution to our current debt problem.
I think I may have muddled my point a little. The problem was introducing the tax cut while financing the war. Truth be told, he'd have to finance the war anyway but offering a tax cut at the same time is irresponsible. Especially when the tax cut increased our debt considerably and showed no evidence of producing jobs or preventing an economic decline. In fact the opposite occurred.
Did I mention this was a "temporary" tax cut? At least that was what the Republicans said to justify the tax cut when we couldn't really afford it. Of course when temporary tax cut came up for renewal, the Republicans justified keeping it because it's a job producer despite millions of jobs were lost during the tax cut period.
So my problem was the financing of the tax cut not necessarily the war. The republicans use the argument that every expenditures should be paid for but conveniently look the other way when it comes time to make up for loss revenue.
Now, on a local level things are different, because an average person CAN get elected, and I think this is the way to go to reconquer your western rich Country.
But other than that, don't delude yourself that your vote (one in millions) does shit.
Yet a man of color (he considers himself multiracial) not only won the Democratic primary but also the presidency with all those single little votes...
You people seem to have plenty of time to occupy various town squares and do jazz hands but don't seem to have the money to actually do anything.
FTFY.
Except you really didn't fix it and contributed nothing of value to the conversation. Sure we needed someone to use the old "FTFY" meme because it's so much easier than actually proving a point.
The Occupy Wall Street movement had what other candidates pay money for which was media attention and a disproportionate amount of it too. Unfortunately they didn't have what even money couldn't buy which is a coherent message...
Ah, yes, the fabled 'Independent'. Let's examine the success of Independents in our Presidential elections
the problem with your representative set is that you assume that the sole reason for their lack luster performance is the established two parties. Let's look at them:
Ross Perot sabotaged his own election campaign in 1996 by quitting then rejoining.
John B. Anderson ran as an independent when it became apparent that Reagan would get the Republican nomination. Anderson was a republican running as an independent. In his hopes to win over some Democrats he associated himself with Ted Kennedy which alienated his republican base and cost him dearly; Prior to that point despite being disadvantaged by the lack of media coverage he had a virtual three-way tie with Carter and Reagan at 22% with 34% undecided.
George Wallace is the same man who yelled "Segregation Forever" at University of Alabama and his only political base was in the deep south.
Strom Thurmond a member of the Dixiecrats, which was segegrationist party, did get over a million votes and 39 electoral votes. Henry Wallace of the Progressive Party, which was a left-wing political party, also got over a million votes but no electoral votes. These two "independents" represented opposing extreme views of the political landscape, but pulled enough votes from both mainstream parties at the time to give Truman a surprise victory over Dewey.
the rest have similar backstories... feel free to google them.
The only way a Third Party candidate stands a chance is if they are able to compete on an equal level financially with the DNC and the GOP. That will never happen, so long as those parties exist. This is why the only way to truly break their stranglehold on our government is to cut them off financially by instituting strict campaign finance reforms and forcing the candidates to run on equal funds from a taxpayer-fed source, such as a general election fund.
I respectfully disagree. With what appears to be a republican win, the "Citizens United" supreme court ruling actually makes it easier for anyone to form a Super PAC and use its money indiscriminately to support their favorite party or candidate as long as the candidate isn't directly involved. Hell even Steven Colbert made one.
Better still I believe the internet makes it easier for someone to formally establish a new political party and seek funding from like minded individuals using the crowd sourcing that we keep hearing about in the news.
The two wars combined over nearly ten years cost 1 trillion. That's about 100 billion per year. In terms of our current deficit, it is only 10%.
Conveniently forgetting about how we already borrowed to fund the budgets prior to the wars or that we were borrowing money to help pay interest on debt that we have already accumulated. If you pretend that we weren't already in debt then taking out a 1 trillion dollar loan don't seem like a bad thing; However when you look at our financial situation prior to committing ourselves in these very expensive wars the thought of proposing a tax cut on top of all this seems down right foolish.
You act like that is the only non-conservative thing Bush did and yes I did go there. I just picked the low hanging fruit. I did use a little discipline and not mention the continued lack of oversight on financial markets through laws that already existed and the resulting bailout because in Bush's words they were too big to fail. Nor did I mention all the pork barrel legislation that was signed into law that were also being funded through borrowing.
I do question why it's "good" to get the nation into deeper debt to fund a war and "bad" to get us in debt for domestic spending.
Oh, they know the importance of voting, they're just too fucking beat and demoralized after working their 2 jobs and taking care of their kids and staring at their delinquent notices that come in the mailbox every day to wait in line for who knows how long to do it. Plus, only having a realistic choice between the guy that will fuck you to death and the guy that will fuck you almost to death, may have a lot to do with it, too.
A little dramatic don't you think? I mean it's not like other countries where you risk your life to vote. I came from meager means and fully understand what's it's like to work 2 jobs and wonder how you are going to keep a roof over your head, yet I always manage to find time to vote on one day out of a year knowing that eventually things will get better. I also know that if I didn't take time to vote then the politicians wouldn't have a need to pander for my vote and none of the issues that I deemed important would ever be brought up.
Nothing important ever comes easily.
They'll never let something like internet voting occur. Never in a million years. Not because of the security concerns, but because the last thing either party wants is everyone voting. Something like 40% of the people in this country live below the poverty line. I assure you, if they had a proportionate voice in our government, things would be a hell of a lot different, and not in a way that would be beneficial at all to the powers that be.
I think security concerns have a huge factor in this. It's not only the politicians that need to trust it but also the populace. I know sitting next to your friends this seems trivial but there is a lot of momentum to overcome before we see internet voting. Another issue is how to make sure the 40% of the people below the poverty line (that you so graciously brought up) isn't disadvantaged by internet voting. Currently everybody has to get to same the voting booth.
Besides, this whole government is just a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy anyway. Every one of our candidates for office, in order to be competitive, has to go through the kingmakers at the DNC or GOP first. They're the real power in this country, not the elected officials. Shit, look at the current hub-bub over the possibility that Ron Paul may win the Iowa primary! The GOP establishment is basically saying "If Ron Paul wins Iowa, ignore him and look at number two and three". They would rather lose the election than allow someone like Ron Paul to win, even though he is a member of their own fucking party.
Yes because no one ever ran as an independent. Believe it or not you can use the internet to form your own political party and raise funds to sponsor a candidate to represent your party's interest. Nothing prevents this from happening... well... except maybe apathy.
Good thing open source governance has absolutely nothing to do with mob rule. And BTW, representative democracy *is* mob rule.
Good thing you remain anonymous; Don't want anybody to know that you don't understand the concept of mob rule. Our representative government is based on checks and balances and has in place laws that are followed which protect minority speech and representation.
The average person is smart enough to not vote because they know it is utterly meaningless. All you get is one chance every four years to chose between two corrupt idiots. If participation in government actually had some meaning, I would expect a lot more people to actually take advantage of it.
The anthem of the apathetic person. Continue to believe this way. That is what the established power wants you to do. Sit back and complain about how the world isn't taking you seriously and wonder why nothing ever changes... good luck with that.
Who the fuck are you talking about? "You people?" I suppose you mean "dirty hippies," right?
So we're getting defensive now. I mean you should be able to comprehend from the context of the comment that I was referring to the apathetic public which I explicitly stated that you are a member hence the "You people". Oh wait, you did the easy thing which is to take something out of context and try to make an off-topic issue with it or do an ad-hominem attack. Please try to put some effort into your comments.
That's a great rhetorical tool: lump all your opponents together and identify them by the worst qualities of each.
I'm sorry I thought that was what you were doing. You seem willing to "throw the baby out with the bath water" and let me remind you that you just made the following comment:
Have a look at how GW Bush managed to start a war in Iraq. He used the power of demagoguery to rile up the mob.
This is the best you can come up with? You completely ignored all the good qualities of our representative government (like equal rights, equal protections, free and protected speech, the ability to sleep without fear that your local leader will kill you for your beliefs, etc.). Believe it or not, I'm sure G.W.Bush did some good things in office too.
I know reality sometimes run counter to your political beliefs but do try to keep in mind that despite the current economic downturn as a nation the U.S. has a higher standard of living than most of the other nations. There may be a few that seem to have it better than the U.S. but they have to pay higher taxes, don't exactly enjoy the same freedoms we do, have a much lower population and/or smaller geographic size, or on the verge of economic and political meltdown because they can no longer afford their social programs that were artificially propping them up.
Seriously, you can't think of anything better than representative democracy?
To be honest I can't. I don't trust mob rule. You may think you can but I'm actually old enough to remember what happens when the mob has its way. Sorry but your competing with real life experience, so you're just wasting your time trying to convince me otherwise.
We have this internet thingy now. It allows people to convene and collaborate without requiring that we have a politician to guide and protect us from ourselves.*
Right. Because it wasn't like people didn't actually go to a town hall and organized prior to the internet. How did we survive as a nation without the internet?
* Note: it is utterly idiotic to expect that "leaders" protect us from the horrors of mob rule. Who protects us from the horrors of the leaders? Are you honestly saying that Rick Perry is smarter than a group of average people?
Maybe. At least Rick Perry actually put the effort into running for office to promote his party's and his own interests. The average person don't even show up to vote. The US has the lowest percentage of people who actually put forth the effort to vote. If the average person isn't smart enough to know the importance of voting than how do we expect our choice in leaders to be any better?
I know it sounds like a novel idea but you actually leave your basement and go to a polling place to cast your vote on who you'd think would be a better leader. Don't like the two party system then form another party that represents your views. You people seem to have plenty of time to occupy various town squares and do jazz hands but don't seem to have the focus to actually do anything.
Don't like the current state of our electoral process? The existence of Super PACs? Then use it against them. Nothing prevents you from forming your own super PAC and collecting money to generate commercials to the public that promotes your political ideology.
Sorry for the rant... I just hate it when people blame the system for their own apathy.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe it's a little more than a gut feeling, but you're right we should qualify all our opinions with concrete evidence. So I did a little digging. Back in 1987, I wrote a program that stored pre-printed forms in a searchable database and used that information to generate completed forms that matched the bills of lading provided by various shipping lines (Blank Paper in / Forms indistinguishable from preprinted ones provided by shipping line already filled with customer data out). Apparently if I tried to market such a turnkey solution today I could be sued for violating portions of US Patent 7,978,349 "Apparatus and Method for High Speed Printing of Form and Variable Data" which was filed on April 27, 2006 and granted on July 12, 2011. I think the patent applies more toward the continuous feed printer than the form storage and variable data portion however I would have to budget for a possible legal battle or license agreement. In addition, I could be sued for violating US Patent 4,944,614 "Form Overlay Type Printing Apparatus" filed on Feb 7, 1989 and granted July 31, 1990. This is a liability minefield with more mines being laid every day. WIth the potential customers for this small niche market being small, I'm certain that competitors would use any patent advantage possible to maintain some unfair market advantage (Or better yet what prevents me from doing the same to another person and keep the price of this software artificially high?).
I can probably look at my whole software portfolio and do a "what if I published it today?" scenario and see potential for patent infringements lawsuits in the majority of them. I'm not even considering the patenting of software features within mobile computing operating systems on commodity wireless telephony equipment.
We need to double our efforts to eliminate software patents. These patents are preventing us from reaching our full potential. I remember the good old days when we developed software for fun and profit and took inspiration from other programs and added one more innovative feature to them.
Now we have patents for the most obvious bullshit out there. We need to stop this madness. Every time I see these patents I think back to my calendar program. It had a month and day view and allowed you to enter appointments and let you know if there was a scheduling conflict (this was a big deal in 1982/83). I didn't really plan on publishing it in a magazine but I had a dick of a friend who mailed an early version of my program to an Atari magazine in exchange for a 1200 baud modem. The only thing that consoled my anger towards the little turd was the fact that perhaps someone else was improving on it and possibly showing off their improvements to like minded enthusiasts. My family was poor so I really had no recourse. I did learn a valuable lesson of securing my diskettes.
Anyway despite the way the program entered the public domain, it was how things were done back then. Desktop computing was a very new concept and we gathered together at local computer users groups and showed off what we did and explained how we did it. We were basically learning from each other. I support the GPL since I think it preserves some of the philosophy we had back then. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree that all software should be free but I do think that if I share something with you and you add to it then you should share back. I also believe that software patents are counter productive and slowing our progress.
Now I don't think anybody could make a neat program without the risk of being sued by a patent troll or a corporation that wants to keep a monopoly position in their market segment. This shit has to stop. How do we really expect healthy innovation and competition to continue in the next decade with this escalating patent threat.
My rambling rant is over... sigh.
http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/Series_40_Filesystem
I don't understand your point. I could make a device that uses a simple filesystem capable of only using eight characters for the file name plus three characters as an extension to indicate file type. This doesn't mean the device uses DOS.
I believe the distinction between a feature phone and a smart phone is its primary use. Feature phones have much smaller screens and often only have the familiar dial pad as its only input device. It is designed mainly for use as a phone with some nice informational apps available.
Smart phones tend to have a larger screen and a more sophisticated input device( qwerty keypad, touch screen, etc). It is designed mainly to run mobile applications and still perform as a phone. Notice the emphasis for apps over phone usage? I believe this is the only real difference between the two types of phones.
I also believe the term "Feature Phone" was a marketing term used by Nokia to differentiate themselves from Blackberry a very long time ago.
I could set up an old joke by stating that technically all phones are smart phones, since I could create a program that could run on it, and the only difference between a feature phone and a smart phone is $200.
Nokia has been using the term "Feature Phone" for as long as I can remember. Way before Microsoft was in a position to enter the phone market and enter into an agreement with Nokia.
Yep your correct. Evidently the holidays made my mind a little foggy since I confused Symbian with Series. Good catch. Happy New Year.
Not totally accurate. I had internet access with my T-Mobile based Ericsson World Phone. I also had unlimited data on the edge network for only $5 a month.
This is not true. Nokia feature phones run Symbian OS that uses the Symbian kernel designed for the low power single core microcontrollers that these phones usually have. Java ME is the application layer of Symbian OS.
Just clarifying for people who don't know better. You do not realize how often I've heard the amateur radio have unlimited bandwidth argument above X in the past 20 years. Commercial interests have used this argument to justify taking the more usable space away from amateur use.
What you believe is a snarky comment is what I witnessed as a somewhat successful political ploy used by commercial interests.
I've heard this argument before with a lot of anecdotal evidence. One solution has been around for at least 30 years; It's called student paced education. (Some people may have heard of it as "Pace Program"). I took advantage of it while in public school during the very early 80's.
I agree. Funding is one such problem and inefficient teacher's unions is another. Don't even get me started on politicians who know nothing about education and insist on quick fixes for little or no money.
So how does this differ from allowing the students to read their traditional text books at a pace they are comfortable with?
In the future predicted by this article, humans will be picking up strange electronic devices that show changing symbols on one of its surfaces... If only we had some sort of institution that could teach us how to interpret these symbols!
What? Haven't these people heard of doppler radio direction finding?
Sure there is no caller ID, but this is radio not telephone.
Of which currently only a small portion are of practical use.
1. Those in the near field of your directional antennas.
2. Those in the near field of your target's antennas.
(#1 and #2 are because of the cardoid field pattern a lot of these antennas have, not to mention the numerous minor lobes).
3. Those who are directly behind your antennas.
4. Those who are directly behind your target's antennas.
(#3 and #4 are because the RF doesn't magically stop once it reaches your intended destination).
5. And those who are in between your antennas.
(#5 for obvious reasons.)
True but you'll have to admit that swinging your old Kaypro computer around will make you more intimidating. :P
As someone approaching the third decade really quickly, I had the same observations...
I noticed that some post as an AC when they have moderation points. This way they can still comment and moderate the comments that they disagree with. I noticed it recently while replying to an AC. Only the replies to the AC were moderated down and they were sufficiently far down the thread branch to not be of concern to people who are casually reading the comments.
I think I may have muddled my point a little. The problem was introducing the tax cut while financing the war. Truth be told, he'd have to finance the war anyway but offering a tax cut at the same time is irresponsible. Especially when the tax cut increased our debt considerably and showed no evidence of producing jobs or preventing an economic decline. In fact the opposite occurred.
Did I mention this was a "temporary" tax cut? At least that was what the Republicans said to justify the tax cut when we couldn't really afford it. Of course when temporary tax cut came up for renewal, the Republicans justified keeping it because it's a job producer despite millions of jobs were lost during the tax cut period.
So my problem was the financing of the tax cut not necessarily the war. The republicans use the argument that every expenditures should be paid for but conveniently look the other way when it comes time to make up for loss revenue.
Yet a man of color (he considers himself multiracial) not only won the Democratic primary but also the presidency with all those single little votes...
Except you really didn't fix it and contributed nothing of value to the conversation. Sure we needed someone to use the old "FTFY" meme because it's so much easier than actually proving a point.
The Occupy Wall Street movement had what other candidates pay money for which was media attention and a disproportionate amount of it too. Unfortunately they didn't have what even money couldn't buy which is a coherent message...
Let me introduce you to the Steven Colbert Super PAC http://www.colbertsuperpac.com/
the problem with your representative set is that you assume that the sole reason for their lack luster performance is the established two parties. Let's look at them:
Ross Perot sabotaged his own election campaign in 1996 by quitting then rejoining.
John B. Anderson ran as an independent when it became apparent that Reagan would get the Republican nomination. Anderson was a republican running as an independent. In his hopes to win over some Democrats he associated himself with Ted Kennedy which alienated his republican base and cost him dearly; Prior to that point despite being disadvantaged by the lack of media coverage he had a virtual three-way tie with Carter and Reagan at 22% with 34% undecided.
George Wallace is the same man who yelled "Segregation Forever" at University of Alabama and his only political base was in the deep south.
Strom Thurmond a member of the Dixiecrats, which was segegrationist party, did get over a million votes and 39 electoral votes. Henry Wallace of the Progressive Party, which was a left-wing political party, also got over a million votes but no electoral votes. These two "independents" represented opposing extreme views of the political landscape, but pulled enough votes from both mainstream parties at the time to give Truman a surprise victory over Dewey.
the rest have similar backstories... feel free to google them.
I respectfully disagree. With what appears to be a republican win, the "Citizens United" supreme court ruling actually makes it easier for anyone to form a Super PAC and use its money indiscriminately to support their favorite party or candidate as long as the candidate isn't directly involved. Hell even Steven Colbert made one.
Better still I believe the internet makes it easier for someone to formally establish a new political party and seek funding from like minded individuals using the crowd sourcing that we keep hearing about in the news.
Conveniently forgetting about how we already borrowed to fund the budgets prior to the wars or that we were borrowing money to help pay interest on debt that we have already accumulated. If you pretend that we weren't already in debt then taking out a 1 trillion dollar loan don't seem like a bad thing; However when you look at our financial situation prior to committing ourselves in these very expensive wars the thought of proposing a tax cut on top of all this seems down right foolish.
You act like that is the only non-conservative thing Bush did and yes I did go there. I just picked the low hanging fruit. I did use a little discipline and not mention the continued lack of oversight on financial markets through laws that already existed and the resulting bailout because in Bush's words they were too big to fail. Nor did I mention all the pork barrel legislation that was signed into law that were also being funded through borrowing.
I do question why it's "good" to get the nation into deeper debt to fund a war and "bad" to get us in debt for domestic spending.
A little dramatic don't you think? I mean it's not like other countries where you risk your life to vote. I came from meager means and fully understand what's it's like to work 2 jobs and wonder how you are going to keep a roof over your head, yet I always manage to find time to vote on one day out of a year knowing that eventually things will get better. I also know that if I didn't take time to vote then the politicians wouldn't have a need to pander for my vote and none of the issues that I deemed important would ever be brought up.
Nothing important ever comes easily.
I think security concerns have a huge factor in this. It's not only the politicians that need to trust it but also the populace. I know sitting next to your friends this seems trivial but there is a lot of momentum to overcome before we see internet voting. Another issue is how to make sure the 40% of the people below the poverty line (that you so graciously brought up) isn't disadvantaged by internet voting. Currently everybody has to get to same the voting booth.
Yes because no one ever ran as an independent. Believe it or not you can use the internet to form your own political party and raise funds to sponsor a candidate to represent your party's interest. Nothing prevents this from happening... well... except maybe apathy.
Good thing you remain anonymous; Don't want anybody to know that you don't understand the concept of mob rule. Our representative government is based on checks and balances and has in place laws that are followed which protect minority speech and representation.
The anthem of the apathetic person. Continue to believe this way. That is what the established power wants you to do. Sit back and complain about how the world isn't taking you seriously and wonder why nothing ever changes... good luck with that.
So we're getting defensive now. I mean you should be able to comprehend from the context of the comment that I was referring to the apathetic public which I explicitly stated that you are a member hence the "You people". Oh wait, you did the easy thing which is to take something out of context and try to make an off-topic issue with it or do an ad-hominem attack. Please try to put some effort into your comments.
I'm sorry I thought that was what you were doing. You seem willing to "throw the baby out with the bath water" and let me remind you that you just made the following comment:
This is the best you can come up with? You completely ignored all the good qualities of our representative government (like equal rights, equal protections, free and protected speech, the ability to sleep without fear that your local leader will kill you for your beliefs, etc.). Believe it or not, I'm sure G.W.Bush did some good things in office too.
I know reality sometimes run counter to your political beliefs but do try to keep in mind that despite the current economic downturn as a nation the U.S. has a higher standard of living than most of the other nations. There may be a few that seem to have it better than the U.S. but they have to pay higher taxes, don't exactly enjoy the same freedoms we do, have a much lower population and/or smaller geographic size, or on the verge of economic and political meltdown because they can no longer afford their social programs that were artificially propping them up.
How so? Care to elaborate?
To be honest I can't. I don't trust mob rule. You may think you can but I'm actually old enough to remember what happens when the mob has its way. Sorry but your competing with real life experience, so you're just wasting your time trying to convince me otherwise.
Right. Because it wasn't like people didn't actually go to a town hall and organized prior to the internet. How did we survive as a nation without the internet?
Maybe. At least Rick Perry actually put the effort into running for office to promote his party's and his own interests. The average person don't even show up to vote. The US has the lowest percentage of people who actually put forth the effort to vote. If the average person isn't smart enough to know the importance of voting than how do we expect our choice in leaders to be any better?
I know it sounds like a novel idea but you actually leave your basement and go to a polling place to cast your vote on who you'd think would be a better leader. Don't like the two party system then form another party that represents your views. You people seem to have plenty of time to occupy various town squares and do jazz hands but don't seem to have the focus to actually do anything.
Don't like the current state of our electoral process? The existence of Super PACs? Then use it against them. Nothing prevents you from forming your own super PAC and collecting money to generate commercials to the public that promotes your political ideology.
Sorry for the rant... I just hate it when people blame the system for their own apathy.