I say my previous hose analogies stand. And you don't have a retort to them do you?
I don't need one. You're comparing a technology that doesn't need IP addresses to work with one that does. What you're NOT doing is finding a way to tap-dance around the tact that you're splitting semantic hairs to avoid the real issue: you think it's OK to rip off a service that your neighbor is paying for. In order to not say, "Yes, you're right," to that, you're resorting to apples/oranges over the physical manifestation of the service, and pretending that turnining a faucet handle (and becoming the ONLY user of that pipe) is any less of a protocol than using your computer to turn on the other kind. The person paying for their broadband and for their water isn't feeling the need to put up a sign that says, "ask first," but in the interests of defending your urge to lay claim to his broadband, you're willing to say, "I don't have to ask first if I can heist his services without leaving footprints in his grass."
And if you don't want them to, secure your damn network!
This is my all time favorite bit of shrill, sophomoric foot-stamping. If people don't want their lawn furniture stolen, they should chain it to the house! If they don't want the gasoline syphoned out of their car when it's parked at the mall, they should hire armed guards! Never a mention that neither would be an issue without someone doing the stealing. You'd rather have an arms race than simply acknowledge the eons old utility of a sense of decency among neighbors. You'd rather apologize for stealing if you get busted than simply ask permission you're likely to get anyway. Um, except you seem like the sort that would apologize for stealing the water, but not for stealing the bandwidth. And it's that hole in your value system - the blindspot you've developed just because it's a computer through which the theft occurs - that we're actually talking about, here. And now, you will again try to explain how ethics have nothing to do with it, because RF is involved, and it's only rude if you have to physically touch something. Would you feel the same if you were comparing stealing cash off his kitchen table to hacking his PayPal account? There's no difference ethically, just as their no difference between his broadband, his water, and his electricity.
Well, that can't really undermine my point seeing as that *is* my point.
OK, so your point is that there is no such thing as an objective, reason-based value - the foundation of ethics/morals - that can be said to be more appropriate or better than another. You are willing to actually talk about codes of conduct, the ripping off of people's work, etc., while stipulating that there is no such thing as one value system that is, on its face and at its roots, more rational than another? How do you even know what groceries to buy? If you're that willing to twist in the wind, and allow others to twist you in the wind because you consider every value system equally valid, then why not just kill yourself? I'm sure somebody, somewhere, will consider your killing yourself to be an important, and valuable manifestation of their world view and value system. Or is it that you're willing to actually exercise some judgement on whether or not one position is actually rational, and another is not? If so, are you willing to suspend reason when it's inconvenient (say, when you're too cheap to pay for a movie)? Which is it? If your values are not absolute, then you have none.
Trespassing onto someone's private property to steal goods is very different from accessing a wireless signal that has been transmitted to your home and that you have used your laptop to ask permission for a DHCP lease. It's more analogous to asking your neighbor (authorization control) if you can use their hose
No, it's more like owning the same make and model of wireless phone system, and using it to get a dialtone on your neighbor's landline, and making long distance calls. If the base station lets the handset establish that two directional path, why, that's just an invitation, isn't it? Give me a break.
If I can stand on the sidewalk (public property) and reach the end of the hose that someone has watering their garden at the end of the yard, and some of that water is running out onto the sidewalk (broadcasting, see?), is that an invitation, as far as you're concerned, to bend over, grab the end of hose, and use it to start washing your car? WiFi bandwidth is consumed, like water. Your lame attempt to treat it like listening to the radio is a classic misdirection, and only works on children and the technically clueless. If you're really that clueless yourself, then I recommend actually reading up on how it works.
I am not saying that there is any right to steal from them, but I'm saying I don't have a problem with it, MS are a bunch of morons and the more their company is damaged the better off the world would be
Here's an idea... get your ethics straight. Situational ethics and moral relativism are the height of craven hypocrisy. Don't like Microsoft as a company? Then walk away. Why not spend the time you spend helping people to rip them off sending them, instead, to an open source or competing product? As people here are so fond of pointing out, there are plenty of ways to edit a.DOC file or play wiht spreadhsheets. All you're doing is making any feeble grasp you have on righteousness about pirating some of your music that much more transparently disengenuous. Ripping people off is ripping people off, period.
You need to actively open up your network these days.
I set up my brother-in-law's Linksys box, nice and tight, right down to a MAC list. Well over a year ago. Everything's been great, the kids next door can't get to it, etc.
Big thunderstorm. Power gets wonky. Internet connectivity seems to have gone away. Had him power-cycle the devices (cable modem and router). The router came back up in ready-for-the-anonymous Linksys mode. Just like that. Would it have done that with the latest firmware? Hard to say. Haven't gotten over there to check, yet. Has he suddenly decided that it's OK for his neighbor's kids to surf pr0n over his pipe? Has anything, ethically, changed about the nature of leeching, because of a reset? How hardware behaves "these days" doesn't change the physical platforms that are already, in the millions, deployed all over the country.
No one would assume that they are authorized to use someone's electricity, water, etc. There is no fucking DHCP server assigning you fucking hoses when you physically trespass into their yard. Sorry, bucko. You lose.
Yeah, it's almost like you don't need DHCP to reach over to the wall of a townhouse from a sidewalk and turn on a faucet. That particular protocol involves... water flowing as soon as you engage with the device. And all you have to do is look at it, right there in front of you, to see that it's "available." So, the only thing that stops you from using it is... the knowledge that it's not yours to use, even though there's no sign on it saying "this isn't your water to use."
Classic, though... pretending that it's the protocol that makes the ethical difference, not the fact that you're leeching, regardless of what service you're leeching.
Other than your sense that you are entitled to determine whether and to what degree your actions impact someone else, even as you make use of their equipment and services, likely putting them in violation of the ToS from their ISP. Your ethics provide for your cozy comfort as you deny that choice to the person who is paying for what you want to use. It is the height of sleazy, patronizing elitism.
"No harm comes of it" that you know of. You have no way of knowing whether you're on a metered pipe (especially since you're not "snooping" around the network infrastructure on which you're intruding). You have no way of knowing if outbound DNS lookups are being cached, and will get someone in some sort of hot water, just because you click a link on a slashdot page.
If you feel "violated" by this, I, not to mince words, don't really care
So, someone who has a thousand dollars in their wallet won't, in your superior judgement, miss one of those dollars - especially since you are the wise person who will be putting it to better use, and have judged to what degree it won't be missed. How about $10? $100? I mean you have no sense of entitlement, other than you claim on being the authority on how much of people's possesions and services should be up for grabs, or used by you.
Your insistance that your claim on someone else's stuff is superior to their own claim on it certainly does define "your" ethics, that's for sure. Hypocritical, condescending, faux-holier-than-thou, situationally convenient, leeching prig ethics, basically. Leeching is one thing... but stating that you, rather than the person who has purchased the gas for the ride on which you're going to stow away, are the best judge of who should get and use what... amazing. Do you even hear yourself?
So, should everyone, including people with laptops choked with malware primed to become a kiddie porn dealing bot server on someone else's IP address, be able to use the neighbor's bandwidth as long as their judgement is that they're not really hurting anything? Or are you saying that the ethics tilt your direction because you're just too smart and sophisticated, and thus subject to different ethical standards? What a strange view of the world you must have. I think I know how you vote, too. Whatever you do, don't let the peasants make their own decisions! But, it's OK to stop by once in a while and milk one of their cows for your latte, right?
I think the majority of the above discussion amounts to appreciating open networks, but respecting closed networks. It seems to me that you understand that sentiment... but it makes you angry. I admit that I am kind of confused by your stance - perhaps you could clarify?
This is about people who are technically savvy enough to spend time reading and posting on slashdot, but who pretend that they can't tell the difference between a router that someone has not bolted down vs. one that someone has labeled as free for all to use.
What makes me mad? People who say that it's the dumb person's fault if they can't be bothered to lock down their wifi... but at the same time they play dumb and say tha their Mac's default setting - which, just like the router, can be easily changed - is to latch onto anybody's pipe that it can find. So, rather than change their OWN computer so that it isn't a cruise-control leecher of other people's bandwidth, they'll prefer to say anything named "linksys" is a deliberately advertiesed, publicly-intended service, just like the owner's garden hose, which perhaps they can also reach from the sidewalk.
I don't buy it. It's completely disengenuous. It's a thinly veiled attempt to keep simple ethics out discussions about computer and network use. It's a lame argument intended to make it sound like they're idiot savants who can get debian to run on their laptop, but can't use a child's common sense to know when it's appropriate to download porn and run bittorrent on someone else's paid-for ISP account, and find - despite being able to compile their own OS, can't "figure out" how to make their own machine ask if it should jump on someone's router.
Those who say they'd never, EVER jack into someone's electricity or use water from their outside tap (because, gosh, that just wouldn't be right!), but who blame the homeowner for shrewdly luring them into using their household router... complete BS. They know it, and everyone else knows it. This is about staking out an absurd position in hopes of normalizing the notion that smart tech people are entitled, culturally, to use other people's stuff. It shows in how they feel entitled to free entertainment because they know how to get it with somewhat reduced odds of getting caught, and it shows in how they prefer to spin their use of a neighbor's broadband. Same damaged moral compass in both cases. This has NOTHING to do with people who actively label their router as free for use. All of the analogies about unlocked doors in safe neighborhoods are pefectly apt - it's the ethically damaged people here who are twisting themselves in knots to explain how a default hardware protocol is, in their minds, an actual invitation from the person who bought the router at Best Buy, for them to use it as they see fit. It makes these theoretically smart, technically astute people look EXACTLY like the untrustworthy, sneaky, "hacker" types that are so stereotyped in the wider culture.
Since accessing open WiFi does not involve depriving someone of physical property (neither permanent nor temporary), it is neither theft nor burglary.
Nonsense. It's theft of services. That bandwidth IS now gone, forever. The owner of that pipe may have been at a remote location transferring files, and was slowed down. The ISP providing the pipe may meter the bandwidth. That you're so anxious to split hairs and use semantics to dodge the fact that leeching someone's paid-for services isn't any different, ethically, than leeching water out of their hose says a lot about your agenda. Set up all the free wifi you want. Put up a sign that says people are free to use it. Do you welcome people to recharge their batteries from your outdoor outlets? Who cares about the technical protocols involved. A leech is a leech is a leech. You know it, the leech knows it... everyone here knows it. All of the slippery attempts to cravenly hide behind the hardware protocols is practically Clintonian in its oily semantics, and is just a transparent attempt by people to chip away at the larger issue of "information wanting to be free." It's a proxy fight in the larger philosophical battle over whether or not an artist's work should be ripped off without consequence, or whether people who invest in network infrastructure should be able to have a say in how it's used, etc. Some people want a leeching society as the norm, and some people don't. It's as simple as that.
so I may 'steal' your interwebs without having any say in the matter at all
Nonsense. You have the choice. You can change the default configuration on your leeching computer, just like you're implying the the bandwidth provider off of whom you're leeching should change their router.
Shakespeare did not invent the plots of his plays. Sometimes he used old stories (Hamlet, Pericles).
So, in which older tellings of something like Hamlet can you point to prose such as Shakespeare's "To be, or not to be..." passage? It's one thing to write a game with a magic ring quest plot, and it's quite another to say you're doing something original, and it's just a coincidence that you have characters named Frodo and Gandalf.
As a conservative, do you go to anti-abortion sites to explain that violence against abortion doctors is stupid? Or do you secretly like the violence/murders because it discourages abortion doctors from practicing?
The difference is that I don't see marching in the streets and chanting to be anything other than self indulgence and preaching to the choir... and frequently only more galvanizing to your opposition (the "look at those idiots!" effect). As such, I've never found a single topic that I thought would be well served by protesting in the way that the protest culture likes to do it. I believe that most of them do it for social reasons within their own group, like a hobby, more than for any intellectually honest conviction that someone who disagrees with them will actually change their mind about something because they saw a bunch of people shouting and carrying signs and puppets. Because I don't find street theater and public screaming to improve anyone else's perception of my own take on things, I don't take time away from life to go do it. Thus, my ability to communicate has never been hampered by soccer hooligans, anarchists, or anyone else who likes to break things (well, slashdot trolls excepted, of course!).
And yes, I do periodically swing through festering swamps of philosophical nonsense and comment in what I consider to be rational, constructive ways... and expressly seek, most of all, to disarm the religious loons of their twisted take on life. Religion is absurd from the get go, of course, so that's a real uphill battle. On the other hand, many far-left folks act of out equally zealous, equally irrational world views, and it's pretty much the same thing when it comes to getting them to think clearly.
So, the problem here is that some people think that chanting in the street is going to get people who disagree with them to suddenly agree with them. That particular position - and a choice to act on it - opens them up to the distraction of having their chosen venue (by virtue of it being polluted by hooligans and weekend warrior anarchists with designer shoes and iPhones) become part of the problem. They can't separate the idiots from their chanting crowd, and thus they can't separate those idiots from their message either. The chanting protesters choose the venue for their pep rallies, and thus they choose to do so with the understanding that the crazies are going to be a factor. Doesn't have to be that way, but it's their choice. If they really do think that they're doing anything but proving their idealogical opponents right about what they think of them, and that it's worth the embarassment of the anarchist types in order to chant despite them, then they just need to clean up afterwards through good PR work. Of course, if they were good at PR in the first place, they'd probably find better ways to make their point than to block streets and whatnot. Though I maintain that's not what it's all about anyway... mostly, participation in such events is just a way to prove to your fellow believers that you're really one of them.
It's fairly obvious why military vets are a bad choice for the likes of Google. Google depends on independent thinking, on employees questioning everything that they are doing and trying out new things on their own. But military vets have been conditioned to follow orders, period. It's the complete opposite.
I see you've never met any SEALs or their counterparts in the other branches. You'd feel quite the fool describing them that way to their faces.
Well, this country doesn't have a representative democracy
Well, sure. It's a republic, after all. The electoral college may have its place still, or may not. But that would be a big one to change.
it's more a "winner takes all"
Well, not really. But by boiling it down into fewer political camps, you avoid the sort of paralysis that recently impacted Germany, and also avoid having a parliment of sorts where the strongest party has... 10% of the seats. That pretty much precludes any notion of a mandate for anything that will make anyone happy. Sometimes that's good (there's nothing better than an idle congress, most of the time), but it can be a real show-stopper, even on simple stuff that needs to get done. Too many chefs in the kitchen.
My taxes ARE set by a government over which I have no voice
So, start locally. City, county, and state taxes (including sales taxes, fees, etc) are a big part of everyone's budget. They're also set by the very groups that are the most sensitive to even small groups of voters having an opinion and expressing it.
perhaps i am misreading your post and you would indeed sit down with the "platitude-dealing pollyanna" and have a polite and reasonable discourse with them
Indeed I would. Though that rather depends on that person not being the emotionally hyper-reactive sort that you describe.
You're taking a single example of a "bad" person and using it to attack the entire group they belong to
No, I'm saying that I see the same attitude in much of that group. Which is why I used the word "much."
please note that you're criticizing one liberal for having feelings of anger and wanting to be confrontational with the other side while simultaneously criticizing other liberals for not having feelings of anger and not wanting to be confrontational with the other side
I'm not entirely clear on what you mean, there, sorry. Anger, though (which is an emotional response - it's shorthand for a more elaborate description of how something you're presented with can be understood to be a threat or a betrayal) isn't unnatural. It's the instinct to want to lash out against someone's property to dampen that anger that suggests an immature mind. That sort of arrested development shows up across the entire spectrum of idealogies, but it particularly manifests itself, I find, in people for whom a sense of decorum is somehow unfashionable. The people who feel like their giving into The Man by... having some manners... also seem to land on a particular end of that spectrum. And you know exactly who I'm talking about.
how then do you justify Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter?
Justify them? They're entertainers. Just like Colbert, Stewart, and Franken. Sarcasm combined with a sharp wit doesn't tend to wreck people's property. And you don't get the sustained ability to have a national audience for your thoughts unless you can... sustain them. That's why Barbara Streisand doesn't do talk radio... she can't keep it coherent, or entertain in the process. Coulter, Limbaugh, Franken, Stewart... they're all masters of their form. Admit it: if Ann Coulter used her same skills in the service of your own idealogy, you'd think she was hysterical. It's because she is. Really good satire is a rare talent. And there's no need to scrape paint off of a car to use it.
Clinic bombers and doctor snipers? Aberations and crazies, obviously. Conservatives that foam at the mouth when asked about Hillary Clinton? Probably just about as numerous as liberals who do the same, these days. But I haven't met one yet who sees an Obama sticker and talks vandalism. I'm sure they're out there. What I AM talking about is the prevailing tone on the left - as manifested in everything from hip-hop music to late night comedy to the red-carpet ramblings of celebrities and liberal politicians alike - that feels comfortable with a level of flaming vitriol against Bush that they would condemn anyone else for using against their own pet politicians.
you could make a claim to being more pure and innocent
Come now. How about... "level headed." It's a useful frame of mind, and tends to result in fewer vandalism arrests.
There is no perfect way for humans to control their emotions (not yet, anyways) but one of the hallmarks of being civilized is to overcome our emotions and do what we know is right even if it's not what we'd really like to do if we gave in to our feelings.
Nonsense. Emotions (not counting those experienced by people who are actually damaged) are simple expression of a lifetime's building of values. People who don't value animals at all will feel less or no emotion at seeing one killed. People who value the trappings of "service" and dependency will get a nice warm glow when they see high school students made to do community service in order to graduate. You don't control emotions... you control the ethical foundation on which your values are built. Then, in the flash that
I'm serious. Please explain what an average, head-in-the-clouds liberal can do to discourage such criminal elements.
Quit encouraging them. Quit giving them the cover of not complaining about them and not pointing out what asses they are. Saying, as you organize an event, that "we do not encourage any sort of road blocking or property destruction" is NOT the same as putting all of the same effort you do into (for example) elaborately complaining about whatever it is you're protesting (a global economy? use of force to prevent the Taliban from once again being the Afghanistan Department Of Education?) into shaming these clowns.
Quit calling the cops that are there to deal with idiots like that "fascists" and worse. Walk over to the police on the scene and explain who you just saw walk up to the back of the crowd with a duffle bag full of pvc pipe, chains, and gas masks. When these people spend the three weeks following their disruption of such an event having a big ol' YouTube orgy and blogfest showing how cool they were, trashing something, take the time you'd spend on every other post here on slashdot hitting, instead, their own blogs. Explain to them that they're a bunch of spoiled kids who have no idea how lucky they are, and that they're not impressing anybody. Peer pressure. It works.
Tacitly approving of what they do by letting them celebrate having done so without any condemnation from groups that sponsor the events they're making ugly... it's bad for everyone involved. Except for the thugs in question, who LIKE the fact that they're driving the cities where things take place into having to trot out more and more police to deal with it. And the non-thugs secretly like that too, because the result is an image that then contributes to their narrative about Teh Evil Corporatist Fascocracy, etc. Don't fall for it. Shout them down on their blogs while they're organizing what they do, and shame them afterwards for being the cowards that they are.
Liberals like to aim all of their creative writing skills and ability to generate media coverage at conservatives and others they don't like, but they seem mysteriously uninterested in quieting these useful idiots. Maybe it's not actually mysterious after all.
Hint there were no WMDs even Bush will admit that now
There were WMDs. The problem is that no one knows where it all went. The UN inspectors catalogued all sorts of stockpiles, including heaps of VX. It's gone, and Saddam's people wouldn't provide any indication of where it went or whether/if/how it was destroyed. His constant movememnt of trucks and personnel immediately before UN inspectors (until he threw them out entirely) were able to look at the facilities they suspected were part of the reason such weapons were expected to still be sitting right where they had previously been. That, and things like the long-range missles that Saddam was continuing to build - despite his agreement with the coalition forces as he withdrew from his invasion of Kuwait that he would not do so - right up until the invasion that got rid of him. He refused to adhere to any of the agreed-to sanctions, spent years shooting at the coalition aircraft patroling the no-fly zones where he had been slaughtering his own people... and of course, he was starving his own people while bilking the UN's oil for food program out of huge amounts of cash.
Now, will John Kerry, John Edwards, or Hillary Clinton, or any of the rest of people who now complain about Bush also admit there were no WMDs sitting there to be found, despite their loud protestations, previously, about how dangerous Saddam was and the risk of his weapons getting into the hands of terrorists? Fine. But will they concede that the intelligence provided by agencies in the US (consisting of career analysts, not political appointees), and those of similar agencies in France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Jordan, Israel, and many others were the basis for that position?
How about the payments that Saddam was publicly (on television) having presented to the families of suicide bombers? It was part of his hearts-and-minds PR campaign to get the non-secular Arab population to not hate him so much. But there he was, sponsoring terrorism with cashable checks, and making nice speeches about martyrdom, blah blah. Completely insincere, of course, but just pouring more gas (and cash) on the fire.
Saddam had no use for Al Queda
No use for them, directly, but also no problem with having their people in his country getting medical care. And no problem using parked airliners for hijacking training, with his own military holding the classes. Not directly related, in that case, to the 9/11 crowd, but indicative of his regime's interest in having people with those "skills" on hand or beholden to him. Of course, none of that matters compared to the flagrant - hostile, actually - actions on his part in regards to the UN sanctions, including those that provided for the use of force against his regime if he continued to subvert the weapons inspections and attack coalition forces - which he did every week. With actual guns, you know? Surface to air missles, anti-aircraft guns - the works.
Thus any idea that the war on Iraq is tied to U.S. interests or the war on (some) terror is sheer fantasy
And the notion that you have try to say that in order to distract from the fact that there were a myriad other reasons to see his malicious, mass-murdering, weapons-dealing, neighbor-invading regime finally out of the business of screwing with the UN, pumping skimmed cash to North Korea for smuggled missiles, etc - THAT's what's amazing. That little straw man (that he didn't have a role in 9/11, and therefore his regime wasn't also a problem) is completely disengenuous, and you know it. Even though you're busy fabricating casualty figures related to coalition action in Iraq (and can't seem to get your head around the vastly larger number of deaths directly caused by the insurgency and by the attempts from Iran to spark civil war there), you seem strangely comfortable with the millions and millions of deaths that Sadddam directly caused, and was continuing to cause.
His regime was headed for trouble either way, and with the f
Who's talking hardship? I'm talking about the person who is, indeed, one of the most powerful people in the world, having - as part of their job and as part of their role as a citizen of the United States - the ability, indeed the right, to talk privately. We don't get to see a print-out of what the Supreme Court justices say to each other over coffee or in an e-mail between them. We don't get to see what Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi swap in an e-mail while deciding how that want to position themselves on some political subject. It's not a bit different.
To pretend that a president must surrender the same rights that he's been sworn in to protect is just silly.
Right, just like we did in Kuwait. I see. Just out of curiosity, how does the new revenue sharing (between the provinces in Iraq) that's going through the parliment there actually provide for the US to steal the country's oil, exactly? I mean, that little bit of misdirection might actually make some sense if it had any actual basis in fact, which of course it doesn't.
causing a million innocent Iraqis to die horrible painful deaths
I mean, really, what's the point of actually lying, here? Who do you think you're actually persuading, and in what way? People that - despite being connected to the internet and inclined to read slashdot - aren't able to actually use Google?
Wow. Way to judge an entire political party on one guy's callous remark
Well, that would be inconsiderate. But in this case, I find that sort of breathless Bush Derangement Syndrome to be found at almost every turn, coming from the left. Have you ever actually listened, if you can stand it for more that five minutes and can find someone still broadcasting them, to Air America? Ever actually read anything from the Daily Kos or MoveOn.org? You know, MoveOn.org, that says they own the Democratic party and its agenda. That organization simply oozes blind hatred of this type... get your shower running so you can jump right in afterwards, and then spend a little time wandering the related blogs. These are the launching points for much of the party's fundraising and get-out-the-vote hustling. The guy who wants to key the car with a Bush bumper sticker sounds like a paragon of reason and temperment comparatively. That's the stuff that condemns a whole party. Whole churches (like the one that Obama just ran out of like he was - after 20 years - suddenly on fire) actually get together every Sunday and preach these sorts of sentiments. It's really rather astounding. There are loons on the right, too. But this tone (the personal, visceral, seemingly nutso Bush hatred) is a very self-reinforcing bit of team spirit that seems to have sloshed over much of the Democrat party.
So, who does the verifying? Your political opponents, who want to see you defeated in an upcoming election? The editors of a hostile newspaper? Yeah, you'll get lots of thoughtful input from confidants, people with special knowledge on key topics, and quiet cooperation from your rivals what with all of that going on. No problem there.
Where do you draw the line? Should every one of Bill Clinton's convesations with friends while out on a sailboat off of Martha's Vineyard while on vacation be part of that public record? How do you plan on verifying that stuff?
It's the slogan of the mainstream candidate that voted against the war
Ah, so that's what he's going to change. Well, wait... I guess that still doesn't tell me anything, does it? What IS he going to change? Is he going to change how the intelligence analysts work, or is he going to change whether or not he listens to them? Or is he simply not going to be around to do things like police the no-fly zones dictated by the UN in the wake of Saddam being pushed back out of his invasion of Kuwait, so that when guys like Saddam then spend every subsequent year shooting at the patroling aircraft, he won't have to sweat whether or not he'll be called upon to take things like that into account? I guess that's one way of changing. But see? It doesn't really matter what I think, or what you think, because he's not saying what his changes will involve, is he? But as long as we can believe in it, I guess it's a good thing! I mean, he wouldn't say it if it weren't true. And we know he's not one to ever decide later, once people actually start looking at what he does, that perhaps his stated goals and opinions are just plain wrong.
No, he's an immovable rock of principle. He's not going to just dance out of the way of long-held associations and beliefs because the scrutiny is starting to make him look silly. No sirree. Especially when it comes to the religious matters that he says are at the heart of his world view. I mean, what could be more immovable, solid, and re-assuring than that? Why, just ask his pastor!
Yeah, that's the sort of character judgement that couldn't possibly - despite his extensive career experience in military, foreign affairs, and intelligence matters - result in misreading or misunderstanding or over/under-estimating the value of difficult-to-evaluate but critical intelligence. Nah. I mean, a guy like that? Who's been to the middle east as many times as he has, and his hip to all of the issues involved? Well, I guess "once" is close enough to "a lot," anyway. And it's not like anything has changed there in 18 months, anyway.
They take a few sentences and attribute an entire ideology, that could in no way be derived from what the person actually said, and then go on a rant against that ideology when the ideology in fact exists only in their own heads.
Really! And you don't find that to be true of loons on the left, as well? People (on the left) will encounter one aspect of my life (say, my habit of taking dogs and a shotgun out in the field and putting game birds in my freezer for nice dinners) and immediately launch into a first-rate Obama-esque dissertation about my clinging to guns and Jebus, etc.
Now, given the general demographic here, and the poster's rabid hatred for Bush (you'll note that unlike you, there was no context given about stupidity, etc., just blanket hatred), and his disengenuous attempt to sound meek (gosh, he just wouldn't know how to key a car - hysterical!), do you really think it's unreasonable to make a calculated assumption about the idealogical/political bent of the poster? Anyone who's comfortable talking about their urge to vandalize on seeing Bush's name, but who does not feel obligated to provide any context beyond that, is himself making some assumptions about how his position/idealogy will be understood. Since most people on the left who hate him so much are very comfortable just assuming that everyone does (this is my experience, hearing the way such people start such conversations), I think it's safe to say this isn't a disgruntled fiscal conservative talking, or someone who thinks he hasn't been harsh enough the stem cell issue, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
I say my previous hose analogies stand. And you don't have a retort to them do you?
I don't need one. You're comparing a technology that doesn't need IP addresses to work with one that does. What you're NOT doing is finding a way to tap-dance around the tact that you're splitting semantic hairs to avoid the real issue: you think it's OK to rip off a service that your neighbor is paying for. In order to not say, "Yes, you're right," to that, you're resorting to apples/oranges over the physical manifestation of the service, and pretending that turnining a faucet handle (and becoming the ONLY user of that pipe) is any less of a protocol than using your computer to turn on the other kind. The person paying for their broadband and for their water isn't feeling the need to put up a sign that says, "ask first," but in the interests of defending your urge to lay claim to his broadband, you're willing to say, "I don't have to ask first if I can heist his services without leaving footprints in his grass."
And if you don't want them to, secure your damn network!
This is my all time favorite bit of shrill, sophomoric foot-stamping. If people don't want their lawn furniture stolen, they should chain it to the house! If they don't want the gasoline syphoned out of their car when it's parked at the mall, they should hire armed guards! Never a mention that neither would be an issue without someone doing the stealing. You'd rather have an arms race than simply acknowledge the eons old utility of a sense of decency among neighbors. You'd rather apologize for stealing if you get busted than simply ask permission you're likely to get anyway. Um, except you seem like the sort that would apologize for stealing the water, but not for stealing the bandwidth. And it's that hole in your value system - the blindspot you've developed just because it's a computer through which the theft occurs - that we're actually talking about, here. And now, you will again try to explain how ethics have nothing to do with it, because RF is involved, and it's only rude if you have to physically touch something. Would you feel the same if you were comparing stealing cash off his kitchen table to hacking his PayPal account? There's no difference ethically, just as their no difference between his broadband, his water, and his electricity.
Well, that can't really undermine my point seeing as that *is* my point.
OK, so your point is that there is no such thing as an objective, reason-based value - the foundation of ethics/morals - that can be said to be more appropriate or better than another. You are willing to actually talk about codes of conduct, the ripping off of people's work, etc., while stipulating that there is no such thing as one value system that is, on its face and at its roots, more rational than another? How do you even know what groceries to buy? If you're that willing to twist in the wind, and allow others to twist you in the wind because you consider every value system equally valid, then why not just kill yourself? I'm sure somebody, somewhere, will consider your killing yourself to be an important, and valuable manifestation of their world view and value system. Or is it that you're willing to actually exercise some judgement on whether or not one position is actually rational, and another is not? If so, are you willing to suspend reason when it's inconvenient (say, when you're too cheap to pay for a movie)? Which is it? If your values are not absolute, then you have none.
Trespassing onto someone's private property to steal goods is very different from accessing a wireless signal that has been transmitted to your home and that you have used your laptop to ask permission for a DHCP lease. It's more analogous to asking your neighbor (authorization control) if you can use their hose
No, it's more like owning the same make and model of wireless phone system, and using it to get a dialtone on your neighbor's landline, and making long distance calls. If the base station lets the handset establish that two directional path, why, that's just an invitation, isn't it? Give me a break.
If I can stand on the sidewalk (public property) and reach the end of the hose that someone has watering their garden at the end of the yard, and some of that water is running out onto the sidewalk (broadcasting, see?), is that an invitation, as far as you're concerned, to bend over, grab the end of hose, and use it to start washing your car? WiFi bandwidth is consumed, like water. Your lame attempt to treat it like listening to the radio is a classic misdirection, and only works on children and the technically clueless. If you're really that clueless yourself, then I recommend actually reading up on how it works.
When you make broad, sweeping uninsightful philosophical comments you completely undermine your point.
You mean, like saying that broad philosophical statements are bad? That sort of broad, sweeping statement?
I am not saying that there is any right to steal from them, but I'm saying I don't have a problem with it, MS are a bunch of morons and the more their company is damaged the better off the world would be
.DOC file or play wiht spreadhsheets. All you're doing is making any feeble grasp you have on righteousness about pirating some of your music that much more transparently disengenuous. Ripping people off is ripping people off, period.
Here's an idea... get your ethics straight. Situational ethics and moral relativism are the height of craven hypocrisy. Don't like Microsoft as a company? Then walk away. Why not spend the time you spend helping people to rip them off sending them, instead, to an open source or competing product? As people here are so fond of pointing out, there are plenty of ways to edit a
You need to actively open up your network these days.
I set up my brother-in-law's Linksys box, nice and tight, right down to a MAC list. Well over a year ago. Everything's been great, the kids next door can't get to it, etc.
Big thunderstorm. Power gets wonky. Internet connectivity seems to have gone away. Had him power-cycle the devices (cable modem and router). The router came back up in ready-for-the-anonymous Linksys mode. Just like that. Would it have done that with the latest firmware? Hard to say. Haven't gotten over there to check, yet. Has he suddenly decided that it's OK for his neighbor's kids to surf pr0n over his pipe? Has anything, ethically, changed about the nature of leeching, because of a reset? How hardware behaves "these days" doesn't change the physical platforms that are already, in the millions, deployed all over the country.
No one would assume that they are authorized to use someone's electricity, water, etc. There is no fucking DHCP server assigning you fucking hoses when you physically trespass into their yard. Sorry, bucko. You lose.
Yeah, it's almost like you don't need DHCP to reach over to the wall of a townhouse from a sidewalk and turn on a faucet. That particular protocol involves... water flowing as soon as you engage with the device. And all you have to do is look at it, right there in front of you, to see that it's "available." So, the only thing that stops you from using it is... the knowledge that it's not yours to use, even though there's no sign on it saying "this isn't your water to use."
Classic, though... pretending that it's the protocol that makes the ethical difference, not the fact that you're leeching, regardless of what service you're leeching.
I'm a geek, and I have no feeling of entitlement
Other than your sense that you are entitled to determine whether and to what degree your actions impact someone else, even as you make use of their equipment and services, likely putting them in violation of the ToS from their ISP. Your ethics provide for your cozy comfort as you deny that choice to the person who is paying for what you want to use. It is the height of sleazy, patronizing elitism.
"No harm comes of it" that you know of. You have no way of knowing whether you're on a metered pipe (especially since you're not "snooping" around the network infrastructure on which you're intruding). You have no way of knowing if outbound DNS lookups are being cached, and will get someone in some sort of hot water, just because you click a link on a slashdot page.
If you feel "violated" by this, I, not to mince words, don't really care
So, someone who has a thousand dollars in their wallet won't, in your superior judgement, miss one of those dollars - especially since you are the wise person who will be putting it to better use, and have judged to what degree it won't be missed. How about $10? $100? I mean you have no sense of entitlement, other than you claim on being the authority on how much of people's possesions and services should be up for grabs, or used by you.
Your insistance that your claim on someone else's stuff is superior to their own claim on it certainly does define "your" ethics, that's for sure. Hypocritical, condescending, faux-holier-than-thou, situationally convenient, leeching prig ethics, basically. Leeching is one thing... but stating that you, rather than the person who has purchased the gas for the ride on which you're going to stow away, are the best judge of who should get and use what... amazing. Do you even hear yourself?
So, should everyone, including people with laptops choked with malware primed to become a kiddie porn dealing bot server on someone else's IP address, be able to use the neighbor's bandwidth as long as their judgement is that they're not really hurting anything? Or are you saying that the ethics tilt your direction because you're just too smart and sophisticated, and thus subject to different ethical standards? What a strange view of the world you must have. I think I know how you vote, too. Whatever you do, don't let the peasants make their own decisions! But, it's OK to stop by once in a while and milk one of their cows for your latte, right?
I think the majority of the above discussion amounts to appreciating open networks, but respecting closed networks. It seems to me that you understand that sentiment... but it makes you angry. I admit that I am kind of confused by your stance - perhaps you could clarify?
... complete BS. They know it, and everyone else knows it. This is about staking out an absurd position in hopes of normalizing the notion that smart tech people are entitled, culturally, to use other people's stuff. It shows in how they feel entitled to free entertainment because they know how to get it with somewhat reduced odds of getting caught, and it shows in how they prefer to spin their use of a neighbor's broadband. Same damaged moral compass in both cases. This has NOTHING to do with people who actively label their router as free for use. All of the analogies about unlocked doors in safe neighborhoods are pefectly apt - it's the ethically damaged people here who are twisting themselves in knots to explain how a default hardware protocol is, in their minds, an actual invitation from the person who bought the router at Best Buy, for them to use it as they see fit. It makes these theoretically smart, technically astute people look EXACTLY like the untrustworthy, sneaky, "hacker" types that are so stereotyped in the wider culture.
This is about people who are technically savvy enough to spend time reading and posting on slashdot, but who pretend that they can't tell the difference between a router that someone has not bolted down vs. one that someone has labeled as free for all to use.
What makes me mad? People who say that it's the dumb person's fault if they can't be bothered to lock down their wifi... but at the same time they play dumb and say tha their Mac's default setting - which, just like the router, can be easily changed - is to latch onto anybody's pipe that it can find. So, rather than change their OWN computer so that it isn't a cruise-control leecher of other people's bandwidth, they'll prefer to say anything named "linksys" is a deliberately advertiesed, publicly-intended service, just like the owner's garden hose, which perhaps they can also reach from the sidewalk.
I don't buy it. It's completely disengenuous. It's a thinly veiled attempt to keep simple ethics out discussions about computer and network use. It's a lame argument intended to make it sound like they're idiot savants who can get debian to run on their laptop, but can't use a child's common sense to know when it's appropriate to download porn and run bittorrent on someone else's paid-for ISP account, and find - despite being able to compile their own OS, can't "figure out" how to make their own machine ask if it should jump on someone's router.
Those who say they'd never, EVER jack into someone's electricity or use water from their outside tap (because, gosh, that just wouldn't be right!), but who blame the homeowner for shrewdly luring them into using their household router
Since accessing open WiFi does not involve depriving someone of physical property (neither permanent nor temporary), it is neither theft nor burglary.
Nonsense. It's theft of services. That bandwidth IS now gone, forever. The owner of that pipe may have been at a remote location transferring files, and was slowed down. The ISP providing the pipe may meter the bandwidth. That you're so anxious to split hairs and use semantics to dodge the fact that leeching someone's paid-for services isn't any different, ethically, than leeching water out of their hose says a lot about your agenda. Set up all the free wifi you want. Put up a sign that says people are free to use it. Do you welcome people to recharge their batteries from your outdoor outlets? Who cares about the technical protocols involved. A leech is a leech is a leech. You know it, the leech knows it... everyone here knows it. All of the slippery attempts to cravenly hide behind the hardware protocols is practically Clintonian in its oily semantics, and is just a transparent attempt by people to chip away at the larger issue of "information wanting to be free." It's a proxy fight in the larger philosophical battle over whether or not an artist's work should be ripped off without consequence, or whether people who invest in network infrastructure should be able to have a say in how it's used, etc. Some people want a leeching society as the norm, and some people don't. It's as simple as that.
so I may 'steal' your interwebs without having any say in the matter at all
Nonsense. You have the choice. You can change the default configuration on your leeching computer, just like you're implying the the bandwidth provider off of whom you're leeching should change their router.
Shakespeare did not invent the plots of his plays. Sometimes he used old stories (Hamlet, Pericles).
So, in which older tellings of something like Hamlet can you point to prose such as Shakespeare's "To be, or not to be..." passage? It's one thing to write a game with a magic ring quest plot, and it's quite another to say you're doing something original, and it's just a coincidence that you have characters named Frodo and Gandalf.
Read up on derivative works.
As a conservative, do you go to anti-abortion sites to explain that violence against abortion doctors is stupid? Or do you secretly like the violence/murders because it discourages abortion doctors from practicing?
The difference is that I don't see marching in the streets and chanting to be anything other than self indulgence and preaching to the choir... and frequently only more galvanizing to your opposition (the "look at those idiots!" effect). As such, I've never found a single topic that I thought would be well served by protesting in the way that the protest culture likes to do it. I believe that most of them do it for social reasons within their own group, like a hobby, more than for any intellectually honest conviction that someone who disagrees with them will actually change their mind about something because they saw a bunch of people shouting and carrying signs and puppets. Because I don't find street theater and public screaming to improve anyone else's perception of my own take on things, I don't take time away from life to go do it. Thus, my ability to communicate has never been hampered by soccer hooligans, anarchists, or anyone else who likes to break things (well, slashdot trolls excepted, of course!).
And yes, I do periodically swing through festering swamps of philosophical nonsense and comment in what I consider to be rational, constructive ways... and expressly seek, most of all, to disarm the religious loons of their twisted take on life. Religion is absurd from the get go, of course, so that's a real uphill battle. On the other hand, many far-left folks act of out equally zealous, equally irrational world views, and it's pretty much the same thing when it comes to getting them to think clearly.
So, the problem here is that some people think that chanting in the street is going to get people who disagree with them to suddenly agree with them. That particular position - and a choice to act on it - opens them up to the distraction of having their chosen venue (by virtue of it being polluted by hooligans and weekend warrior anarchists with designer shoes and iPhones) become part of the problem. They can't separate the idiots from their chanting crowd, and thus they can't separate those idiots from their message either. The chanting protesters choose the venue for their pep rallies, and thus they choose to do so with the understanding that the crazies are going to be a factor. Doesn't have to be that way, but it's their choice. If they really do think that they're doing anything but proving their idealogical opponents right about what they think of them, and that it's worth the embarassment of the anarchist types in order to chant despite them, then they just need to clean up afterwards through good PR work. Of course, if they were good at PR in the first place, they'd probably find better ways to make their point than to block streets and whatnot. Though I maintain that's not what it's all about anyway... mostly, participation in such events is just a way to prove to your fellow believers that you're really one of them.
It's fairly obvious why military vets are a bad choice for the likes of Google. Google depends on independent thinking, on employees questioning everything that they are doing and trying out new things on their own. But military vets have been conditioned to follow orders, period. It's the complete opposite.
I see you've never met any SEALs or their counterparts in the other branches. You'd feel quite the fool describing them that way to their faces.
Well, this country doesn't have a representative democracy
Well, sure. It's a republic, after all. The electoral college may have its place still, or may not. But that would be a big one to change.
it's more a "winner takes all"
Well, not really. But by boiling it down into fewer political camps, you avoid the sort of paralysis that recently impacted Germany, and also avoid having a parliment of sorts where the strongest party has... 10% of the seats. That pretty much precludes any notion of a mandate for anything that will make anyone happy. Sometimes that's good (there's nothing better than an idle congress, most of the time), but it can be a real show-stopper, even on simple stuff that needs to get done. Too many chefs in the kitchen.
My taxes ARE set by a government over which I have no voice
So, start locally. City, county, and state taxes (including sales taxes, fees, etc) are a big part of everyone's budget. They're also set by the very groups that are the most sensitive to even small groups of voters having an opinion and expressing it.
perhaps i am misreading your post and you would indeed sit down with the "platitude-dealing pollyanna" and have a polite and reasonable discourse with them
... having some manners ... also seem to land on a particular end of that spectrum. And you know exactly who I'm talking about.
... sustain them. That's why Barbara Streisand doesn't do talk radio... she can't keep it coherent, or entertain in the process. Coulter, Limbaugh, Franken, Stewart... they're all masters of their form. Admit it: if Ann Coulter used her same skills in the service of your own idealogy, you'd think she was hysterical. It's because she is. Really good satire is a rare talent. And there's no need to scrape paint off of a car to use it.
Indeed I would. Though that rather depends on that person not being the emotionally hyper-reactive sort that you describe.
You're taking a single example of a "bad" person and using it to attack the entire group they belong to
No, I'm saying that I see the same attitude in much of that group. Which is why I used the word "much."
please note that you're criticizing one liberal for having feelings of anger and wanting to be confrontational with the other side while simultaneously criticizing other liberals for not having feelings of anger and not wanting to be confrontational with the other side
I'm not entirely clear on what you mean, there, sorry. Anger, though (which is an emotional response - it's shorthand for a more elaborate description of how something you're presented with can be understood to be a threat or a betrayal) isn't unnatural. It's the instinct to want to lash out against someone's property to dampen that anger that suggests an immature mind. That sort of arrested development shows up across the entire spectrum of idealogies, but it particularly manifests itself, I find, in people for whom a sense of decorum is somehow unfashionable. The people who feel like their giving into The Man by
how then do you justify Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter?
Justify them? They're entertainers. Just like Colbert, Stewart, and Franken. Sarcasm combined with a sharp wit doesn't tend to wreck people's property. And you don't get the sustained ability to have a national audience for your thoughts unless you can
Clinic bombers and doctor snipers? Aberations and crazies, obviously. Conservatives that foam at the mouth when asked about Hillary Clinton? Probably just about as numerous as liberals who do the same, these days. But I haven't met one yet who sees an Obama sticker and talks vandalism. I'm sure they're out there. What I AM talking about is the prevailing tone on the left - as manifested in everything from hip-hop music to late night comedy to the red-carpet ramblings of celebrities and liberal politicians alike - that feels comfortable with a level of flaming vitriol against Bush that they would condemn anyone else for using against their own pet politicians.
you could make a claim to being more pure and innocent
Come now. How about... "level headed." It's a useful frame of mind, and tends to result in fewer vandalism arrests.
There is no perfect way for humans to control their emotions (not yet, anyways) but one of the hallmarks of being civilized is to overcome our emotions and do what we know is right even if it's not what we'd really like to do if we gave in to our feelings.
Nonsense. Emotions (not counting those experienced by people who are actually damaged) are simple expression of a lifetime's building of values. People who don't value animals at all will feel less or no emotion at seeing one killed. People who value the trappings of "service" and dependency will get a nice warm glow when they see high school students made to do community service in order to graduate. You don't control emotions... you control the ethical foundation on which your values are built. Then, in the flash that
I'm serious. Please explain what an average, head-in-the-clouds liberal can do to discourage such criminal elements.
Quit encouraging them. Quit giving them the cover of not complaining about them and not pointing out what asses they are. Saying, as you organize an event, that "we do not encourage any sort of road blocking or property destruction" is NOT the same as putting all of the same effort you do into (for example) elaborately complaining about whatever it is you're protesting (a global economy? use of force to prevent the Taliban from once again being the Afghanistan Department Of Education?) into shaming these clowns.
Quit calling the cops that are there to deal with idiots like that "fascists" and worse. Walk over to the police on the scene and explain who you just saw walk up to the back of the crowd with a duffle bag full of pvc pipe, chains, and gas masks. When these people spend the three weeks following their disruption of such an event having a big ol' YouTube orgy and blogfest showing how cool they were, trashing something, take the time you'd spend on every other post here on slashdot hitting, instead, their own blogs. Explain to them that they're a bunch of spoiled kids who have no idea how lucky they are, and that they're not impressing anybody. Peer pressure. It works.
Tacitly approving of what they do by letting them celebrate having done so without any condemnation from groups that sponsor the events they're making ugly... it's bad for everyone involved. Except for the thugs in question, who LIKE the fact that they're driving the cities where things take place into having to trot out more and more police to deal with it. And the non-thugs secretly like that too, because the result is an image that then contributes to their narrative about Teh Evil Corporatist Fascocracy, etc. Don't fall for it. Shout them down on their blogs while they're organizing what they do, and shame them afterwards for being the cowards that they are.
Liberals like to aim all of their creative writing skills and ability to generate media coverage at conservatives and others they don't like, but they seem mysteriously uninterested in quieting these useful idiots. Maybe it's not actually mysterious after all.
Hint there were no WMDs even Bush will admit that now
There were WMDs. The problem is that no one knows where it all went. The UN inspectors catalogued all sorts of stockpiles, including heaps of VX. It's gone, and Saddam's people wouldn't provide any indication of where it went or whether/if/how it was destroyed. His constant movememnt of trucks and personnel immediately before UN inspectors (until he threw them out entirely) were able to look at the facilities they suspected were part of the reason such weapons were expected to still be sitting right where they had previously been. That, and things like the long-range missles that Saddam was continuing to build - despite his agreement with the coalition forces as he withdrew from his invasion of Kuwait that he would not do so - right up until the invasion that got rid of him. He refused to adhere to any of the agreed-to sanctions, spent years shooting at the coalition aircraft patroling the no-fly zones where he had been slaughtering his own people... and of course, he was starving his own people while bilking the UN's oil for food program out of huge amounts of cash.
Now, will John Kerry, John Edwards, or Hillary Clinton, or any of the rest of people who now complain about Bush also admit there were no WMDs sitting there to be found, despite their loud protestations, previously, about how dangerous Saddam was and the risk of his weapons getting into the hands of terrorists? Fine. But will they concede that the intelligence provided by agencies in the US (consisting of career analysts, not political appointees), and those of similar agencies in France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Jordan, Israel, and many others were the basis for that position?
How about the payments that Saddam was publicly (on television) having presented to the families of suicide bombers? It was part of his hearts-and-minds PR campaign to get the non-secular Arab population to not hate him so much. But there he was, sponsoring terrorism with cashable checks, and making nice speeches about martyrdom, blah blah. Completely insincere, of course, but just pouring more gas (and cash) on the fire.
Saddam had no use for Al Queda
No use for them, directly, but also no problem with having their people in his country getting medical care. And no problem using parked airliners for hijacking training, with his own military holding the classes. Not directly related, in that case, to the 9/11 crowd, but indicative of his regime's interest in having people with those "skills" on hand or beholden to him. Of course, none of that matters compared to the flagrant - hostile, actually - actions on his part in regards to the UN sanctions, including those that provided for the use of force against his regime if he continued to subvert the weapons inspections and attack coalition forces - which he did every week. With actual guns, you know? Surface to air missles, anti-aircraft guns - the works.
Thus any idea that the war on Iraq is tied to U.S. interests or the war on (some) terror is sheer fantasy
And the notion that you have try to say that in order to distract from the fact that there were a myriad other reasons to see his malicious, mass-murdering, weapons-dealing, neighbor-invading regime finally out of the business of screwing with the UN, pumping skimmed cash to North Korea for smuggled missiles, etc - THAT's what's amazing. That little straw man (that he didn't have a role in 9/11, and therefore his regime wasn't also a problem) is completely disengenuous, and you know it. Even though you're busy fabricating casualty figures related to coalition action in Iraq (and can't seem to get your head around the vastly larger number of deaths directly caused by the insurgency and by the attempts from Iran to spark civil war there), you seem strangely comfortable with the millions and millions of deaths that Sadddam directly caused, and was continuing to cause.
His regime was headed for trouble either way, and with the f
Who's talking hardship? I'm talking about the person who is, indeed, one of the most powerful people in the world, having - as part of their job and as part of their role as a citizen of the United States - the ability, indeed the right, to talk privately. We don't get to see a print-out of what the Supreme Court justices say to each other over coffee or in an e-mail between them. We don't get to see what Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi swap in an e-mail while deciding how that want to position themselves on some political subject. It's not a bit different.
To pretend that a president must surrender the same rights that he's been sworn in to protect is just silly.
steal thier oil
Right, just like we did in Kuwait. I see. Just out of curiosity, how does the new revenue sharing (between the provinces in Iraq) that's going through the parliment there actually provide for the US to steal the country's oil, exactly? I mean, that little bit of misdirection might actually make some sense if it had any actual basis in fact, which of course it doesn't.
causing a million innocent Iraqis to die horrible painful deaths
I mean, really, what's the point of actually lying, here? Who do you think you're actually persuading, and in what way? People that - despite being connected to the internet and inclined to read slashdot - aren't able to actually use Google?
Wow. Way to judge an entire political party on one guy's callous remark
Well, that would be inconsiderate. But in this case, I find that sort of breathless Bush Derangement Syndrome to be found at almost every turn, coming from the left. Have you ever actually listened, if you can stand it for more that five minutes and can find someone still broadcasting them, to Air America? Ever actually read anything from the Daily Kos or MoveOn.org? You know, MoveOn.org, that says they own the Democratic party and its agenda. That organization simply oozes blind hatred of this type... get your shower running so you can jump right in afterwards, and then spend a little time wandering the related blogs. These are the launching points for much of the party's fundraising and get-out-the-vote hustling. The guy who wants to key the car with a Bush bumper sticker sounds like a paragon of reason and temperment comparatively. That's the stuff that condemns a whole party. Whole churches (like the one that Obama just ran out of like he was - after 20 years - suddenly on fire) actually get together every Sunday and preach these sorts of sentiments. It's really rather astounding. There are loons on the right, too. But this tone (the personal, visceral, seemingly nutso Bush hatred) is a very self-reinforcing bit of team spirit that seems to have sloshed over much of the Democrat party.
"Trust, but verify"
So, who does the verifying? Your political opponents, who want to see you defeated in an upcoming election? The editors of a hostile newspaper? Yeah, you'll get lots of thoughtful input from confidants, people with special knowledge on key topics, and quiet cooperation from your rivals what with all of that going on. No problem there.
Where do you draw the line? Should every one of Bill Clinton's convesations with friends while out on a sailboat off of Martha's Vineyard while on vacation be part of that public record? How do you plan on verifying that stuff?
Change We Can Believe In
It's the slogan of the mainstream candidate that voted against the war
Ah, so that's what he's going to change. Well, wait... I guess that still doesn't tell me anything, does it? What IS he going to change? Is he going to change how the intelligence analysts work, or is he going to change whether or not he listens to them? Or is he simply not going to be around to do things like police the no-fly zones dictated by the UN in the wake of Saddam being pushed back out of his invasion of Kuwait, so that when guys like Saddam then spend every subsequent year shooting at the patroling aircraft, he won't have to sweat whether or not he'll be called upon to take things like that into account? I guess that's one way of changing. But see? It doesn't really matter what I think, or what you think, because he's not saying what his changes will involve, is he? But as long as we can believe in it, I guess it's a good thing! I mean, he wouldn't say it if it weren't true. And we know he's not one to ever decide later, once people actually start looking at what he does, that perhaps his stated goals and opinions are just plain wrong.
No, he's an immovable rock of principle. He's not going to just dance out of the way of long-held associations and beliefs because the scrutiny is starting to make him look silly. No sirree. Especially when it comes to the religious matters that he says are at the heart of his world view. I mean, what could be more immovable, solid, and re-assuring than that? Why, just ask his pastor!
Yeah, that's the sort of character judgement that couldn't possibly - despite his extensive career experience in military, foreign affairs, and intelligence matters - result in misreading or misunderstanding or over/under-estimating the value of difficult-to-evaluate but critical intelligence. Nah. I mean, a guy like that? Who's been to the middle east as many times as he has, and his hip to all of the issues involved? Well, I guess "once" is close enough to "a lot," anyway. And it's not like anything has changed there in 18 months, anyway.
They take a few sentences and attribute an entire ideology, that could in no way be derived from what the person actually said, and then go on a rant against that ideology when the ideology in fact exists only in their own heads.
Really! And you don't find that to be true of loons on the left, as well? People (on the left) will encounter one aspect of my life (say, my habit of taking dogs and a shotgun out in the field and putting game birds in my freezer for nice dinners) and immediately launch into a first-rate Obama-esque dissertation about my clinging to guns and Jebus, etc.
Now, given the general demographic here, and the poster's rabid hatred for Bush (you'll note that unlike you, there was no context given about stupidity, etc., just blanket hatred), and his disengenuous attempt to sound meek (gosh, he just wouldn't know how to key a car - hysterical!), do you really think it's unreasonable to make a calculated assumption about the idealogical/political bent of the poster? Anyone who's comfortable talking about their urge to vandalize on seeing Bush's name, but who does not feel obligated to provide any context beyond that, is himself making some assumptions about how his position/idealogy will be understood. Since most people on the left who hate him so much are very comfortable just assuming that everyone does (this is my experience, hearing the way such people start such conversations), I think it's safe to say this isn't a disgruntled fiscal conservative talking, or someone who thinks he hasn't been harsh enough the stem cell issue, etc.