That's simply ludicrous. If the US is guilty of any recent crimes in the name of democracy, it's the kind of thing where we send a ton of troops and bombs and things to install a democracy (one that "just happens" to favor our interests). While the democratic principle does not, in my mind, excuse or justify this kind of behavior, the last 100 years have shown the US to largely be in favor of empowering people (exceptions being dubious covert actions, especially in South America-
These weren't the exceptions, these were the rule. The exceptions would be Germany and Japan, where we actually did install democratic systems.
The vast majority of the time when the US has enacted a regime change, we have deposed the democratically elected leaders and installed brutal dictators who murdered 10s of thousands of their citizens. We did this because the former leaders were looking out for the best interests of their citizens rather than for the best interests of US based companies.
If you have any doubt about this whatsoever, just look up "Banana Republic" and skip any results for the retailer.
Being a patriot does not mean saying " I love America" and "lalala I can't hear you" whenever somebody criticizes it. That is jingoism and it is pretty much the opposite of patriotism. That is what you are doing, that's what Fox news is dedicated to and it is literally destroying freedom in this country as it is the worst form of ignorance possible to a citizen.
Patriotism means honestly looking at what your country is doing and standing up against it *when* (not *if*, every country does fucked up things at times) it does. If so many people in this country hadn't shirked their duty in this respect, we would not be in the shitty situation we are currently where we have the choice between a treasonous chimp and a clod as president.
Their target audience are assholes that never graduated high school but 10 years later are still trying to pick up 16 year old chicks in their ratted out cameros
I see that conservatives must be pure and virginal to meet the Left's standards now. Who made up that rule?
Now you're just being an ass. The conservatives made up those idiotic rules. That much is obvious and undisputable.
The fact that they are far worse than the Liberals at following their own idiotic rules is just the proof of how moronic those ideas were in the first place.
Windows 2000 you could just schedule a reboot every month with the task scheduler. Win98 and ME have a scheduler also, but I've found that to be rather... unreliable.
The W2K scheduler isn't reliable either as we recently found out. In the first place, you can *only* run scheduled tasks as the system user unless the user who has the task scheduled is actually logged in at the console. This means no non-system scheduled tasks can run if the system reboots. This means driving in to type your user name and password in. Pretty stupid to even bother scheduling in this situation. Second, you have to explicitly type in the admin password to the scheduler for each and every task you want to actually schedule (see above). Third, it has a habit of forgetting the password you typed in causing all of your scheduled tasks to fail.
I've never been a fan of Windows, but these recent discoveries led me to the conclusion that it seriously is a toy single user operating system.
Don't even get me started on the fact that.NET doesn't even support simple basic internet protocols like...say...FT freaking P.
Stuff I submit frequently ends up as an article later in the day or in the following weeks. Of course submitted by someone else, whilst mine is rejected.
Well, let's see if we can figure out why.
Their's usually has included misspellings, where I spellcheck.
Bingo!
You see, the editors can't spell at all, so they assume that your words are misspelled. Given how concerned they are about keeping the quality of language up on this site, that's a clear reason to reject your posts;-)
You're so ridiculously hyprocritical it's funny. You clearly have no idea what that word means.
What do you think the war in Iraq is? A land grab?
Presumably, you think it's "Standing up for freedom". There's really no other way to interpret your ravings. Given that there was no possible way in which Iraq could be perceived as a threat to us, it's obviously not that. Now, look at who is in the administration that decided (well before 9/11) to invade Iraq. We have Donald Rumsfeld who sold the gas Saddam used to murder a crapload of Kurds. Hmmm.. freedom fighter or war mongering opportunist? That's clear. He doesn't care how many people dies if he makes a buck. Dick Cheney? Hmmm... Well he's making bank off of this occupation. Even if he has to short the people who are dying to make him that buck.
No, the reality is that this is a war to bury a lot of bodies. Of course, one so well informed as yourself knows that we had a deal with the Kurds that they would revolt and that we would back them. Of course, when it came time to honor our word, we stepped back and let Saddam use *our* gas on them without a word. And of course, your great wisdom includes the fact that Iraq was selling oil for Euros and if that spread, our economy would tank. Sure, but it's all about the freedom. Even if we have to give up ours. Cowardly traitors like you make me sick. You obviously don't know the difference between Patriotism and jingoism, because you're demonstrating the latter.
You sound like you're just upset that all the leaders you support have no integrity. Namely Clinton
Typical delusional idiocy. I never claimed to support Clinton. Additionally, you think a blowjob is worse than murder. Unless you're giving it, right Sparky?
How bout those forged documents I'm hearing about lately?
What, the ones that say the same thing as the real ones but weren't the actual copies?
Oh wow, the President is proven to be a cowardly deserter, but they copied off of somebody else's paper. That's much worse, really it is.
A missile is a pretty obvious way to get a bomb into the country. Saddam Hussein used them.
Hot tip, Sparky: We're more than 200 miles from Iraq. The atlas is your friend.
think you're also upset because the Patriot Act makes you feel paranoid that law officers will bust down your door and raid your indoor marijuana garden
No, not really. I'm just a bit bothered by an administration that thinks putting old dying people in jail for smoking a plant is more important than terrorists that they were warned by 7 different countries in increasing detail, who were planning on attacking our freaking country. I'm sorry you're so sick and deluded that you have your priorities so out of whack.
GWB didn't lie about it - the definition of a lie requires that the teller know it is untrue.
It isn't that he said Saddam had them. It's that he (and his administration) said that they had this quantity of this particular agent and we know exactly where they are located.
It's the whole Niger Uranium thing which was plagiarized from a student paper. When this evidence was refuted, they outed a CIA operative in retaliation.
It's the fact that he said that Iraq was an immenent threat to us which it quite clearly wasn't. He was a bad egg (to totally understate), but there is zero evidence that he had any plans against our nation. Even if he did, the idea that he was a major threat is silly. Here's why: You believe he still had these mass quantities of weapons. If that were true and it is also true that he was a threat to us, then I see no possible explanation for why our soldiers weren't attacked with them.
Seriously, he was a grave threat to us way over here, yet when his own country is invaded, he won't use his fearsome arsenal? It doesn't add up.
You can't have it both ways - either Bush, and Kerry, and the French, the Russians, the Brits, the vast majority of the UN, all intentionally lied and said the Iraq had WMD, or you have to say they were all wrong - not demonize an individual as a liar because he said the same thing the people you agree with (who you do not call liars) said.
Kerry, the French, the Russians etc. didn't start a war over it which has had the affect of stirring up terrorist recruitment, enriching Halliburton, and taking our forces away from the people who actually *did* attack us.
It's not a lie to say you think somebody has something (assuming you do), but it is a lie to say for a fact he does, and he's coming to murder your children with them blah blah blah in the interest of starting a war rather than presenting the facts and an actual case for it.
That is the issue I have with it, which was really the point I was trying to make. It isn't a question of being for or against attacking Iraq, it's the dishonest manipulative way in which it was done. It's the fact that his cronies have been egging this on since long before 9/11. It's the fact that this war is comnpletely unrelated to those events, but Bush used that as an excuse to both push for the destruction of freedom at home while calling anybody who disagree d with him a terrorist and a traitor and to start a war of profit with zero benefit for American safety.
All the while, Afghanistan is back under the control of the brutal warlords who preceded the Taliban. One city is under control of the Government we set up, and heroin production is back. We really should have cleaned up that mess before wading in somewhere else. Especially somewhere that was no threat to us and had nothing to do with the other events.
you bet your ass they'd use larger missiles if they could assemble them.
You ignore the point that a missle defense system won't do shit about it. That's hardly a problem when a suitcase bomb would be easier and more effective
I'm not going to say much about your anti-bush rant. He didn't lie,
What?!?!? He lied about the Uranium. He lied about WMDs. He said we knew exactly where the massive stockpiles were, not just that at some point he had them.
9/11 commission vindicated Bush.
Read the report again. He seriously downgraded terrorism investigations to go after terminally ill people smoking dope. It didn't completely condemn him, but it sure as hell didn't vindicate him.
Everyone in America thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction,
Right, that would be due to the *lies* Bush told about them.
Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick. If you are truly that out of touch with reality, it is pointless to try and reason with you. You are beyond the reach of sanity if you actually believe the things you wrote when they are 100% proven false. I pity you, but I pity the rest of us more if you're actually voting based on the delusions you are suffering from.
And if you think character means beating people to death in the street for their opinions, you're an idiot.
Character means standing up for freedom, not cowardly supporting those who try to destroy it as you are doing.
I can clarify from my standpoint, since I feel much the same as the parent poster on this - there are many things the libertarians stand for that I disagree with
OK, I see what you mean, and I can see how that might be what the OP meant.
I think you're missing the whole point of the vast majority of people's objections to the Iraq war though. The problem that anybody I've heard talking about it isn't that we're there, it's that GWB lied about everything regarding it. If he had made the case that Saddam was a bad person or whatever, then We The People would have had a chance to discuss the merits of the points. At that point, even if I disagreed with those reasons, or that they formed an appropriate justification for an invasion, then so be it, but at least there is integrity involved. As it is, he made up a bunch of crap. Presented blatant lies, half truths, and actively mislead the American people. To this day he has not provided a proper justification for doing it.
Do you see the difference?
Personally, I feel his actions amount to no less than treason. I would feel that way regardless of whether I thought the war was the greatest thing ever, or if I thought it was the worst.
In my opinion, the missile defense is an issue we need to be dealing with now,
Any particular reason? The biggest threats we face have nothing to do with missles. Even if missles were a major issue in this day and age, given the ridiculousness of the whole Star Wars concept, why exactly is it so imperative to spend billions on something with practically zero chance of working?
Character matters a lot to me, more than the things they say they would do.
Really? I assume from this that you are extremely anti-Bush given the record he has. You didn't really make it clear since you mostly spoke against Kerry rather than for anything. Kerry has the advantage of not having lied to start a war. He also didn't dismantle our anti-terrorism apparatus leading up to the greatest attack on our soil in our country's history to go after dirty pictures and terminally ill people smoking dope.
Yep, character is important to me to. That's why if we had any left in our country Bush would have been beaten to death in the streets by now as the traitor his actions have proven himself to be.
The same thing translates into the abortion debate. It is not an issue of women's rights, it is an issue of personal belief or conviction about when life begins.
This isn't strictly true though.
Even if you believe that life begins at conception, by being anti-choice, you are making a much stronger statement than this.
You are saying that just because someone had sex (either unprotected, the condom broke, they were raped etc.) and they ended up pregnant that both they and the future child should be punished for this action.
Seriously, you are saying that they should be forced at gunpoint to carry something inside their body for 9 months and then raise it for 18 years. Given that the only reason that they might have been considering abortion in the first place is that they didn't want to have a child, this is the least optimal possible situation for a child to be born into. Whether they are not financially, or emotionally ready to have a child, by taking away that choice you say "too fucking bad you are going to be forced to do it anyway". The really sickening part of this is that quite often, the child would be raised in abject poverty, so by not having it until she was in a better situation, the mother would be doing the best thing for her, for her child, and for society as a whole. If it's an emotional unpreparedness issue, it could well be even worse. So you force the woman to give birth to a kid she is not ready to raise and when she fails to raise it properly (in extreme cases abandons, abuses or neglects it), throw her in prison for doing what she knew she would end up doing and tried to avoid in the first place.
When you look at it without the religious "all life is sacred" glasses on and see the reality of what that creates, it doesn't look anywhere near as compassionate as the anti-choice types try to paint it.
Given also the fact that a great deal of these people are the same ones trying to prevent people from being taught the basic facts about birth control which would allow them to make a more responsible choice in the first place, it becomes obvious that they are just trying to create a totally rigged game.
So, no it is not just about what you believe about when life begins. It has to do with whether or not you believe that you know far more about what is best for a given person than they do.
The anti-choice crowd thinks that they have one single answer that works for every person in every situation, and that is the fundamental difference between the positions.
A more meaningful statistic is the probability that an individual voter will determine an election (i.e., break an exact tie in the state's vote, and have the voter's state swing the election). The chance of this happening is, of course, miniscule. But it's about 2.5 times more likely for a Californian than for a Montanan. In general, the EC has a significant bias towards large states.
I'm not sure what led you to make up this probability.
If there are 3 people in Wyoming, then there is a very large likelyhood of a person there casting the determining vote If there were 101 people in California, then the odds of there being an election decidable for a single vote is less. The fewer people, the less the possible difference is, hence a greater probability of a deciding vote existing.
Electoral votes are still based on population, so it's not like a thousand farmers are getting the same votes as a million city dwellers, but at least there's actually a chance they might be able to influence things.
Ahhh, but that's exactly what it's like. The numbers are not quite so bad, but my vote counts for far less than does that of somebody in a rural area.
Given that a large chunk of my tax dollars goes to subsidise their lifestyle, how is it unfair that I get at least an equal vote? Those rural states are what I uncharitably refer to as "The Welfare States". They take in more money from taxes than they put out. Without my paycheck, they would not be able to afford phones, nor would thay have the level of access to other modern things like the internet or cell phones that they do. If it were fair, they would get less of a say than I do since I subsidise their existence. I am willing to give them an equal say even so. It is completely ridiculous that they should have a greater say which they do under the current system.
Anti-gun activists in Louisiana brayed that the streets would run red with blood if such a law were passed, and the law was passed, and, of course, blood hasn't run down the streets...
No, it's just running down the walls and the curtains and...;-)
Seriously, I think the idea that they even had to pass a law saying you could defend yourself is pretty stupid.
I live in the city of Chicago where it's illegal to own a gun. Curiously enough, this didn't stop 2 different people from getting shot in my neighborhood within the last month.
How the Left took something targeted at them (Communism is an extreme Left wing view) and turned it into a tool to beat the Right over the head with, I'll never know (but I am impressed),
Let's see... Could it be because the current extreme right wing government in America is using an incredibly large amount of the tactics Orwell describes in his book? Maybe the fact that a big part of the right wing in recent years is composed of intolerant religius biots who actually are trying to control who you can love, how you can fuck, and when you will have kids?
No, you're right, it must be a conspiracy of leftist teachers. That's it.
It is hard for me to take you seriously for two reasons.
OK, let's look at them.
(#10180121) is the ultimate parent of this thread, and the origional of my comment, which was that there's no tolerance on Slashdot, and which is now marked -1 Troll more than confirming my point.
You know what? So it is. I thought you were referring to the first comment you made to me which wasn't modded down, and I didn't follow the chain to the top. Mea Culpa.
Now given the nature of the comment:
Tolerance? Come on dude, this is Slashdot. If it ain't Lefty liberal, flame on!
By the way, excellent point you make. Big "E" Education certainly is a religion to its practitioners, may they all come down with boils.
Besides, who says there's something wrong with teaching Christianity? If you don't know the rules of Western Civilization your life will suck, and all the rules come right out of the Bible like it or not.
Lets' see first paragraph has some slight merit, but largely trollish in character.
Second paragraph, flame.
Third paragraph... hmmm.... troll, I suppose maybe a bit of flamebait. If you don't buy into my book, your life will suck. Real nice.
Anyhow, the point was that I was referring to the wrong post. Fair enough. Actually your point was that I don't know how this site works, which I'm not really sure you demonstrated. I did make a mistake though, so whatever.
Second, you make the outrageous claim that John Ashcroft is a religious zealot hell bent on destroying everything his hate filled zealot heart wants to.
Well, in the first place this isn't what I said. I did say he was a religious zealot, which is hardly an outrageous claim. I don't recall calling him hell bent on destroying everything or anything like that.
Now, let's make sure we both know what we're talking about: From dictionary.com zealot n. 1. One who is zealous, especially excessively so. 2. A fanatically committed person.
Now, your whole premise seems to hinge upon some other definition of this word. Where you got it, I don't know but this is the one I was using.
Now, finally, you take my disagreement with your outrageous and unsupported assertions as evidence that I am a zealot too.
No, I took the fact that you attacked my very relevant critique of the priorities of a person who works for me as a citizen as some crazed "left wing" thing. There was nothing inherently political about my point, it just happens that the Republicans are currently in power and it was particular actions of a particular office holder that I criticized for their specific effect on our country. The fact that you took this to be somehow political and specifically "left wing" is what I took to be evidence of political zealotry on your part. Why do I think that had it been a "Lefty" who had lowered the priority on terrorism to pursue largely trivial things like terminally ill pot smokers with more zeal than terrorism that you would be up in arms? If so, then I was correct in my assessment.
If not, well.. I really don't know what to think about that. You seem to think terrorism is a big deal, but you don't want anybody to take responsibility? Anyhow, like I said, It's beyond me to understand that sort of thinking. I pay their salaries, I expect them to do their freaking jobs, not push their religious agenda.
I'm certainly willing to listen to some other explanation though.
So let's continue.
John Ashcroft is not a zealot, and the Bush administration is not corrupt.
OK, I see your point now. Be redefining zealot to mean "murders large groups of children" or something similar you are indeed correct (as far as I know) that Ashcroft does not meet that definition.
I also didn't mention anything about corruption, but lets look at this one too.
corrupt adj.
1. Marked by immorality and perversion; depraved.
2. Venal; dishone
It is rather telling that you consider my posting of the words of one of the top AirAmerica hosts as idiotic.
You get pissed when the right says, what you call hateful, things. But, when your side does the exact same thing it is OK.
Obviously, you completely missed the point Critical is not hateful. Honest debate is not hateful. Pointing out the lies people tell and refuting them with the actual facts with an admonition to examine the facts yourself before deciding is not hateful. The quotes you posted were critical, mostly in a humorous fashion. The quotes I responded with were calls for murder, attacks on 13 year olds, and demonstrations of howthe typical right wing media personality deals with attempts at open discourse.
I didn't say that you posting quotes from Air America was idiotic, I said it was ignorant to try and use quotes like that to try and demonstrate that they use hate, when there is no hate there. Bush gets his energy policy from blind monkeys versus we need to murder Chelsea Clinton to prevent Bill and Hillary's bloodline from polluting the world? Those are not even in the same league.
You will also note that I did not defend the RNC echo chamber that most talk radio has become.
No, you said it was bad after 10+ years of this mindless bashing for Liberals to step up and defend themselves.
Why is it that neither side can respond to criticism of their side? The two main sides just attack each other, never discussing anything important.
Untrue. The majority of the programming on Air America is response to criticism, and discussing the issues in a meaningful way. Certainly, there is some emotionalism, but most of it is presenting the actual issues or refuting the lies spewed out by some of these delusional psychopaths. It certainly isn't happening anywhere else in the media. Look again at that O'Reilley transcript. That was an attempt by one side at open discourse with O'Reilley shouting down every point and making up new delusional lies to cover up his previous lies which were being exposed while the so called moderator did nothing to aid in an honest discourse.
Last, you need to quite makeing assumptions as to what side the person you are responding to is on.
I'm not sure where I did that. You seemed to be saying that being critical of people is on the same level as inciting murder, because you certainly didn't present anything even remotely hateful. If that isn't what you were saying, then I'm really not sure what your point is.
Hmmm.. Well, I responded with a joke to your comment which was IMHO quite incorrectly modded as flamebait since you were, in fact, correct if perhaps offtopic (no more than the parent you were responding to if so though) and you come back with an ignorant response to my sig.
Do you know anything but attack? Well, the fact that there is one station in the country airing any sort of response to the mindless hate spewing from oh so many radio and TV stations is scary to you, I guess. But the fact is that there is no comparison between the raw evil hatred spewing from the right wing fanatics and Air America.
Some examples:
They are bad men. Very bad men.... They're dangerous. They distort your mind.
Presumably you don't agree with this? Well, people will believe the most irrational things.
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." -Ann Coulter on Muslim nations.
Oh yeah, the right wing nutjobs are *really freaking dangerous* Oh, I'm sorry, that was hateful of me, right?
Although... I am Glad that Laura Bush is in the White House... She believes that a child beginning at the very earliest age must be taught (how to respect the servants). What a great job she did with Jenna and the "other one". But by now I think the secret service must be used to those late night runs to the convenience store for beer, rolling papers, and condoms.
Well, let's see. Laura Bush killed her old boyfriend. George was an alcholic coke addict. Yet they are the "family values" types. Hmmm... Their family has a pretty bad record. From actively supporting the Nazi's during world war 2, to raising Crack addicts, the family clearly has no sense of decency or any clue as to what it takes to raise a decent human being. Now the Bush twins (so far as we know ) just like to get falling down drunk, which is typical for college, but given that their dad is a non-drinking but unreformed alcoholic, the odds of them turning out that great are pretty slim. Now, granted they didn't ask to be where they are. It is so awful to attack the children of a public figure. The right wingers would never imply that known college partiers were partying, would they.
No, they attack 13 year old girls for things they have no control over.
"Everyone knows the Clintons have a cat. Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is a White House dog?" Limbaugh said on TV, before holding up a picture Chelsea.--Rush Limbaugh
In fact, they actually advocate murdering her: Here's a real nice piece of work from John Derbyshire, Natonal Review:
Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past -- I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble -- recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an "enemy of the people". The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, "clan liability". In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished "to the ninth degree": that is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed, and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed. (This sounds complicated, but in practice what usually happened was that a battalion of soldiers was sent to the offender's home town, where they killed everyone they could find, on the principle neca eos omnes, deus suos agnoscet -- "let God sort 'em out".)
Slashdot Mirror
That's simply ludicrous. If the US is guilty of any recent crimes in the name of democracy, it's the kind of thing where we send a ton of troops and bombs and things to install a democracy (one that "just happens" to favor our interests). While the democratic principle does not, in my mind, excuse or justify this kind of behavior, the last 100 years have shown the US to largely be in favor of empowering people (exceptions being dubious covert actions, especially in South America-
These weren't the exceptions, these were the rule.
The exceptions would be Germany and Japan, where we actually did install democratic systems.
The vast majority of the time when the US has enacted a regime change, we have deposed the democratically elected leaders and installed brutal dictators who murdered 10s of thousands of their citizens. We did this because the former leaders were looking out for the best interests of their citizens rather than for the best interests of US based companies.
If you have any doubt about this whatsoever, just look up "Banana Republic" and skip any results for the retailer.
Being a patriot does not mean saying " I love America" and "lalala I can't hear you" whenever somebody criticizes it. That is jingoism and it is pretty much the opposite of patriotism. That is what you are doing, that's what Fox news is dedicated to and it is literally destroying freedom in this country as it is the worst form of ignorance possible to a citizen.
Patriotism means honestly looking at what your country is doing and standing up against it *when* (not *if*, every country does fucked up things at times) it does.
If so many people in this country hadn't shirked their duty in this respect, we would not be in the shitty situation we are currently where we have the choice between a treasonous chimp and a clod as president.
Guess you're not not a big Chappelle Show fan.
Their target audience are assholes that never graduated high school but 10 years later are still trying to pick up 16 year old chicks in their ratted out cameros
You say that like it's a bad thing.
I see that conservatives must be pure and virginal to meet the Left's standards now. Who made up that rule?
Now you're just being an ass.
The conservatives made up those idiotic rules.
That much is obvious and undisputable.
The fact that they are far worse than the Liberals at following their own idiotic rules is just the proof of how moronic those ideas were in the first place.
I'm not aware of any (modern) mail clients that execute javascript,
Well, Kmail and thunderbird to name 2 off the top of my head.
Granted it's off by default, but the functionality is there.
I like my women how I like my golf courses: with a windmill hole.
Ouch!!!
Windows 2000 you could just schedule a reboot every month with the task scheduler. Win98 and ME have a scheduler also, but I've found that to be rather... unreliable.
.NET doesn't even support simple basic internet protocols like...say...FT freaking P.
The W2K scheduler isn't reliable either as we recently found out.
In the first place, you can *only* run scheduled tasks as the system user unless the user who has the task scheduled is actually logged in at the console. This means no non-system scheduled tasks can run if the system reboots. This means driving in to type your user name and password in. Pretty stupid to even bother scheduling in this situation.
Second, you have to explicitly type in the admin password to the scheduler for each and every task you want to actually schedule (see above).
Third, it has a habit of forgetting the password you typed in causing all of your scheduled tasks to fail.
I've never been a fan of Windows, but these recent discoveries led me to the conclusion that it seriously is a toy single user operating system.
Don't even get me started on the fact that
Stuff I submit frequently ends up as an article later in the day or in the following weeks. Of course submitted by someone else, whilst mine is rejected.
;-)
Well, let's see if we can figure out why.
Their's usually has included misspellings, where I spellcheck.
Bingo!
You see, the editors can't spell at all, so they assume that your words are misspelled. Given how concerned they are about keeping the quality of language up on this site, that's a clear reason to reject your posts
sure, just as soon as you build a working distro without a kernel, I'll be glad to....
Awwww, come on, don't be an old stick in the mud.
You're so ridiculously hyprocritical it's funny.
You clearly have no idea what that word means.
What do you think the war in Iraq is? A land grab?
Presumably, you think it's "Standing up for freedom".
There's really no other way to interpret your ravings.
Given that there was no possible way in which Iraq could be perceived as a threat to us, it's obviously not that.
Now, look at who is in the administration that decided (well before 9/11) to invade Iraq. We have Donald Rumsfeld who sold the gas Saddam used to murder a crapload of Kurds. Hmmm.. freedom fighter or war mongering opportunist? That's clear. He doesn't care how many people dies if he makes a buck.
Dick Cheney? Hmmm... Well he's making bank off of this occupation. Even if he has to short the people who are dying to make him that buck.
No, the reality is that this is a war to bury a lot of bodies.
Of course, one so well informed as yourself knows that we had a deal with the Kurds that they would revolt and that we would back them. Of course, when it came time to honor our word, we stepped back and let Saddam use *our* gas on them without a word.
And of course, your great wisdom includes the fact that Iraq was selling oil for Euros and if that spread, our economy would tank.
Sure, but it's all about the freedom. Even if we have to give up ours.
Cowardly traitors like you make me sick.
You obviously don't know the difference between Patriotism and jingoism, because you're demonstrating the latter.
You sound like you're just upset that all the leaders you support have no integrity. Namely Clinton
Typical delusional idiocy. I never claimed to support Clinton. Additionally, you think a blowjob is worse than murder. Unless you're giving it, right Sparky?
How bout those forged documents I'm hearing about lately?
What, the ones that say the same thing as the real ones but weren't the actual copies?
Oh wow, the President is proven to be a cowardly deserter, but they copied off of somebody else's paper. That's much worse, really it is.
A missile is a pretty obvious way to get a bomb into the country. Saddam Hussein used them.
Hot tip, Sparky: We're more than 200 miles from Iraq. The atlas is your friend.
think you're also upset because the Patriot Act makes you feel paranoid that law officers will bust down your door and raid your indoor marijuana garden
No, not really.
I'm just a bit bothered by an administration that thinks putting old dying people in jail for smoking a plant is more important than terrorists that they were warned by 7 different countries in increasing detail, who were planning on attacking our freaking country.
I'm sorry you're so sick and deluded that you have your priorities so out of whack.
GWB didn't lie about it - the definition of a lie requires that the teller know it is untrue.
It isn't that he said Saddam had them. It's that he (and his administration) said that they had this quantity of this particular agent and we know exactly where they are located.
It's the whole Niger Uranium thing which was plagiarized from a student paper. When this evidence was refuted, they outed a CIA operative in retaliation.
It's the fact that he said that Iraq was an immenent threat to us which it quite clearly wasn't. He was a bad egg (to totally understate), but there is zero evidence that he had any plans against our nation. Even if he did, the idea that he was a major threat is silly. Here's why:
You believe he still had these mass quantities of weapons. If that were true and it is also true that he was a threat to us, then I see no possible explanation for why our soldiers weren't attacked with them.
Seriously, he was a grave threat to us way over here, yet when his own country is invaded, he won't use his fearsome arsenal?
It doesn't add up.
You can't have it both ways - either Bush, and Kerry, and the French, the Russians, the Brits, the vast majority of the UN, all intentionally lied and said the Iraq had WMD, or you have to say they were all wrong - not demonize an individual as a liar because he said the same thing the people you agree with (who you do not call liars) said.
Kerry, the French, the Russians etc. didn't start a war over it which has had the affect of stirring up terrorist recruitment, enriching Halliburton, and taking our forces away from the people who actually *did* attack us.
It's not a lie to say you think somebody has something (assuming you do), but it is a lie to say for a fact he does, and he's coming to murder your children with them blah blah blah in the interest of starting a war rather than presenting the facts and an actual case for it.
That is the issue I have with it, which was really the point I was trying to make.
It isn't a question of being for or against attacking Iraq, it's the dishonest manipulative way in which it was done. It's the fact that his cronies have been egging this on since long before 9/11. It's the fact that this war is comnpletely unrelated to those events, but Bush used that as an excuse to both push for the destruction of freedom at home while calling anybody who disagree d with him a terrorist and a traitor and to start a war of profit with zero benefit for American safety.
All the while, Afghanistan is back under the control of the brutal warlords who preceded the Taliban. One city is under control of the Government we set up, and heroin production is back. We really should have cleaned up that mess before wading in somewhere else. Especially somewhere that was no threat to us and had nothing to do with the other events.
you bet your ass they'd use larger missiles if they could assemble them.
You ignore the point that a missle defense system won't do shit about it. That's hardly a problem when a suitcase bomb would be easier and more effective
I'm not going to say much about your anti-bush rant. He didn't lie,
What?!?!?
He lied about the Uranium. He lied about WMDs. He said we knew exactly where the massive stockpiles were, not just that at some point he had them.
9/11 commission vindicated Bush.
Read the report again.
He seriously downgraded terrorism investigations to go after terminally ill people smoking dope.
It didn't completely condemn him, but it sure as hell didn't vindicate him.
Everyone in America thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction,
Right, that would be due to the *lies* Bush told about them.
Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick.
If you are truly that out of touch with reality, it is pointless to try and reason with you. You are beyond the reach of sanity if you actually believe the things you wrote when they are 100% proven false. I pity you, but I pity the rest of us more if you're actually voting based on the delusions you are suffering from.
And if you think character means beating people to death in the street for their opinions, you're an idiot.
Character means standing up for freedom, not cowardly supporting those who try to destroy it as you are doing.
I can clarify from my standpoint, since I feel much the same as the parent poster on this - there are many things the libertarians stand for that I disagree with
OK, I see what you mean, and I can see how that might be what the OP meant.
I think you're missing the whole point of the vast majority of people's objections to the Iraq war though.
The problem that anybody I've heard talking about it isn't that we're there, it's that GWB lied about everything regarding it.
If he had made the case that Saddam was a bad person or whatever, then We The People would have had a chance to discuss the merits of the points. At that point, even if I disagreed with those reasons, or that they formed an appropriate justification for an invasion, then so be it, but at least there is integrity involved.
As it is, he made up a bunch of crap. Presented blatant lies, half truths, and actively mislead the American people. To this day he has not provided a proper justification for doing it.
Do you see the difference?
Personally, I feel his actions amount to no less than treason. I would feel that way regardless of whether I thought the war was the greatest thing ever, or if I thought it was the worst.
In my opinion, the missile defense is an issue we need to be dealing with now,
Any particular reason?
The biggest threats we face have nothing to do with missles.
Even if missles were a major issue in this day and age, given the ridiculousness of the whole Star Wars concept, why exactly is it so imperative to spend billions on something with practically zero chance of working?
Character matters a lot to me, more than the things they say they would do.
Really? I assume from this that you are extremely anti-Bush given the record he has. You didn't really make it clear since you mostly spoke against Kerry rather than for anything.
Kerry has the advantage of not having lied to start a war. He also didn't dismantle our anti-terrorism apparatus leading up to the greatest attack on our soil in our country's history to go after dirty pictures and terminally ill people smoking dope.
Yep, character is important to me to. That's why if we had any left in our country Bush would have been beaten to death in the streets by now as the traitor his actions have proven himself to be.
The same thing translates into the abortion debate. It is not an issue of women's rights, it is an issue of personal belief or conviction about when life begins.
This isn't strictly true though.
Even if you believe that life begins at conception, by being anti-choice, you are making a much stronger statement than this.
You are saying that just because someone had sex (either unprotected, the condom broke, they were raped etc.) and they ended up pregnant that both they and the future child should be punished for this action.
Seriously, you are saying that they should be forced at gunpoint to carry something inside their body for 9 months and then raise it for 18 years.
Given that the only reason that they might have been considering abortion in the first place is that they didn't want to have a child, this is the least optimal possible situation for a child to be born into. Whether they are not financially, or emotionally ready to have a child, by taking away that choice you say "too fucking bad you are going to be forced to do it anyway".
The really sickening part of this is that quite often, the child would be raised in abject poverty, so by not having it until she was in a better situation, the mother would be doing the best thing for her, for her child, and for society as a whole.
If it's an emotional unpreparedness issue, it could well be even worse. So you force the woman to give birth to a kid she is not ready to raise and when she fails to raise it properly (in extreme cases abandons, abuses or neglects it), throw her in prison for doing what she knew she would end up doing and tried to avoid in the first place.
When you look at it without the religious "all life is sacred" glasses on and see the reality of what that creates, it doesn't look anywhere near as compassionate as the anti-choice types try to paint it.
Given also the fact that a great deal of these people are the same ones trying to prevent people from being taught the basic facts about birth control which would allow them to make a more responsible choice in the first place, it becomes obvious that they are just trying to create a totally rigged game.
So, no it is not just about what you believe about when life begins. It has to do with whether or not you believe that you know far more about what is best for a given person than they do.
The anti-choice crowd thinks that they have one single answer that works for every person in every situation, and that is the fundamental difference between the positions.
Now I'm registered libertarian, but find my beliefs a bit too hypocritical to fit well with them either...
You find you own beliefs hypocritical?!?
You're either the most honest person ever, or you meant something else by that.
Care to clarify?
A more meaningful statistic is the probability that an individual voter will determine an election (i.e., break an exact tie in the state's vote, and have the voter's state swing the election). The chance of this happening is, of course, miniscule. But it's about 2.5 times more likely for a Californian than for a Montanan. In general, the EC has a significant bias towards large states.
I'm not sure what led you to make up this probability.
If there are 3 people in Wyoming, then there is a very large likelyhood of a person there casting the determining vote
If there were 101 people in California, then the odds of there being an election decidable for a single vote is less.
The fewer people, the less the possible difference is, hence a greater probability of a deciding vote existing.
Electoral votes are still based on population, so it's not like a thousand farmers are getting the same votes as a million city dwellers, but at least there's actually a chance they might be able to influence things.
Ahhh, but that's exactly what it's like. The numbers are not quite so bad, but my vote counts for far less than does that of somebody in a rural area.
Given that a large chunk of my tax dollars goes to subsidise their lifestyle, how is it unfair that I get at least an equal vote? Those rural states are what I uncharitably refer to as "The Welfare States". They take in more money from taxes than they put out. Without my paycheck, they would not be able to afford phones, nor would thay have the level of access to other modern things like the internet or cell phones that they do. If it were fair, they would get less of a say than I do since I subsidise their existence.
I am willing to give them an equal say even so. It is completely ridiculous that they should have a greater say which they do under the current system.
Just to be clear, it is perfectly legal to own guns, just *not handguns* in Chicago
Aha. Thanks for the clarification.
Anti-gun activists in Louisiana brayed that the streets would run red with blood if such a law were passed, and the law was passed, and, of course, blood hasn't run down the streets...
;-)
No, it's just running down the walls and the curtains and...
Seriously, I think the idea that they even had to pass a law saying you could defend yourself is pretty stupid.
I live in the city of Chicago where it's illegal to own a gun. Curiously enough, this didn't stop 2 different people from getting shot in my neighborhood within the last month.
How the Left took something targeted at them (Communism is an extreme Left wing view) and turned it into a tool to beat the Right over the head with, I'll never know (but I am impressed),
Let's see... Could it be because the current extreme right wing government in America is using an incredibly large amount of the tactics Orwell describes in his book? Maybe the fact that a big part of the right wing in recent years is composed of intolerant religius biots who actually are trying to control who you can love, how you can fuck, and when you will have kids?
No, you're right, it must be a conspiracy of leftist teachers. That's it.
preparing the project as a showcase for Duane Johnson (the Rock) to star as John Carter.
Oh crap. Please tell me your kidding. Even if you have to lie to do it.
It is hard for me to take you seriously for two reasons.
OK, let's look at them.
(#10180121) is the ultimate parent of this thread, and the origional of my comment, which was that there's no tolerance on Slashdot, and which is now marked -1 Troll more than confirming my point.
You know what? So it is. I thought you were referring to the first comment you made to me which wasn't modded down, and I didn't follow the chain to the top. Mea Culpa.
Now given the nature of the comment:
Tolerance? Come on dude, this is Slashdot. If it ain't Lefty liberal, flame on!
By the way, excellent point you make. Big "E" Education certainly is a religion to its practitioners, may they all come down with boils.
Besides, who says there's something wrong with teaching Christianity? If you don't know the rules of Western Civilization your life will suck, and all the rules come right out of the Bible like it or not.
Lets' see first paragraph has some slight merit, but largely trollish in character.
Second paragraph, flame.
Third paragraph... hmmm.... troll, I suppose maybe a bit of flamebait. If you don't buy into my book, your life will suck. Real nice.
Anyhow, the point was that I was referring to the wrong post. Fair enough.
Actually your point was that I don't know how this site works, which I'm not really sure you demonstrated. I did make a mistake though, so whatever.
Second, you make the outrageous claim that John Ashcroft is a religious zealot hell bent on destroying everything his hate filled zealot heart wants to.
Well, in the first place this isn't what I said. I did say he was a religious zealot, which is hardly an outrageous claim. I don't recall calling him hell bent on destroying everything or anything like that.
Now, let's make sure we both know what we're talking about:
From dictionary.com
zealot n.
1. One who is zealous, especially excessively so.
2. A fanatically committed person.
Now, your whole premise seems to hinge upon some other definition of this word. Where you got it, I don't know but this is the one I was using.
Now, finally, you take my disagreement with your outrageous and unsupported assertions as evidence that I am a zealot too.
No, I took the fact that you attacked my very relevant critique of the priorities of a person who works for me as a citizen as some crazed "left wing" thing. There was nothing inherently political about my point, it just happens that the Republicans are currently in power and it was particular actions of a particular office holder that I criticized for their specific effect on our country. The fact that you took this to be somehow political and specifically "left wing" is what I took to be evidence of political zealotry on your part. Why do I think that had it been a "Lefty" who had lowered the priority on terrorism to pursue largely trivial things like terminally ill pot smokers with more zeal than terrorism that you would be up in arms? If so, then I was correct in my assessment.
If not, well.. I really don't know what to think about that. You seem to think terrorism is a big deal, but you don't want anybody to take responsibility? Anyhow, like I said, It's beyond me to understand that sort of thinking. I pay their salaries, I expect them to do their freaking jobs, not push their religious agenda.
I'm certainly willing to listen to some other explanation though.
So let's continue.
John Ashcroft is not a zealot, and the Bush administration is not corrupt.
OK, I see your point now.
Be redefining zealot to mean "murders large groups of children" or something similar you are indeed correct (as far as I know) that Ashcroft does not meet that definition.
I also didn't mention anything about corruption, but lets look at this one too.
corrupt
adj.
1. Marked by immorality and perversion; depraved.
2. Venal; dishone
It is rather telling that you consider my posting of the words of one of the top AirAmerica hosts as idiotic.
You get pissed when the right says, what you call hateful, things. But, when your side does the exact same thing it is OK.
Obviously, you completely missed the point
Critical is not hateful. Honest debate is not hateful. Pointing out the lies people tell and refuting them with the actual facts with an admonition to examine the facts yourself before deciding is not hateful.
The quotes you posted were critical, mostly in a humorous fashion. The quotes I responded with were calls for murder, attacks on 13 year olds, and demonstrations of howthe typical right wing media personality deals with attempts at open discourse.
I didn't say that you posting quotes from Air America was idiotic, I said it was ignorant to try and use quotes like that to try and demonstrate that they use hate, when there is no hate there.
Bush gets his energy policy from blind monkeys versus we need to murder Chelsea Clinton to prevent Bill and Hillary's bloodline from polluting the world?
Those are not even in the same league.
You will also note that I did not defend the RNC echo chamber that most talk radio has become.
No, you said it was bad after 10+ years of this mindless bashing for Liberals to step up and defend themselves.
Why is it that neither side can respond to criticism of their side? The two main sides just attack each other, never discussing anything important.
Untrue.
The majority of the programming on Air America is response to criticism, and discussing the issues in a meaningful way. Certainly, there is some emotionalism, but most of it is presenting the actual issues or refuting the lies spewed out by some of these delusional psychopaths. It certainly isn't happening anywhere else in the media. Look again at that O'Reilley transcript. That was an attempt by one side at open discourse with O'Reilley shouting down every point and making up new delusional lies to cover up his previous lies which were being exposed while the so called moderator did nothing to aid in an honest discourse.
Last, you need to quite makeing assumptions as to what side the person you are responding to is on.
I'm not sure where I did that. You seemed to be saying that being critical of people is on the same level as inciting murder, because you certainly didn't present anything even remotely hateful. If that isn't what you were saying, then I'm really not sure what your point is.
Well, I responded with a joke to your comment which was IMHO quite incorrectly modded as flamebait since you were, in fact, correct if perhaps offtopic (no more than the parent you were responding to if so though) and you come back with an ignorant response to my sig.
Do you know anything but attack?
Well, the fact that there is one station in the country airing any sort of response to the mindless hate spewing from oh so many radio and TV stations is scary to you, I guess. But the fact is that there is no comparison between the raw evil hatred spewing from the right wing fanatics and Air America.
Some examples:
They are bad men. Very bad men.... They're dangerous. They distort your mind.
Presumably you don't agree with this? Well, people will believe the most irrational things.
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." -Ann Coulter on Muslim nations.
Oh yeah, the right wing nutjobs are *really freaking dangerous*
Oh, I'm sorry, that was hateful of me, right?
Although... I am Glad that Laura Bush is in the White House... She believes that a child beginning at the very earliest age must be taught (how to respect the servants). What a great job she did with Jenna and the "other one". But by now I think the secret service must be used to those late night runs to the convenience store for beer, rolling papers, and condoms.
Well, let's see. Laura Bush killed her old boyfriend. George was an alcholic coke addict. Yet they are the "family values" types. Hmmm...
Their family has a pretty bad record. From actively supporting the Nazi's during world war 2, to raising Crack addicts, the family clearly has no sense of decency or any clue as to what it takes to raise a decent human being. Now the Bush twins (so far as we know ) just like to get falling down drunk, which is typical for college, but given that their dad is a non-drinking but unreformed alcoholic, the odds of them turning out that great are pretty slim. Now, granted they didn't ask to be where they are. It is so awful to attack the children of a public figure. The right wingers would never imply that known college partiers were partying, would they.
No, they attack 13 year old girls for things they have no control over.
In fact, they actually advocate murdering her:
Here's a real nice piece of work from John Derbyshire, Natonal Review: