"There are dozens if not hundreds of bands where I like one song and one song only. Now it's possible to get just that one song and not pay for crap I will never listen to."
In my case it's usual more than one, but I think you've precisely identified the cause of the eventual slowdown in sales of downloadable music. 90+% of everything released on CD is filler material. The big growth in digital music sales was due to an expanding user base, and the fact that you have 10% good music from a huge catalogue of previously released material.
The slowdown, either now, or in the near future will be the result of people buying the 1-3 songs per album that they actually like on the much smaller amount of newly released music(with some residual sales coming from new users and people augmenting their collection of older songs).
Mark me redundant if you must, as I see that others have already pointed out the foolishness of your post.
"your grand-daddy's rifle is really going to help against tanks and automatic weaponry."
Ever heard of a guerilla war? It doesn't entail groups of fighters standing out in the middle of a field with a big sign identifying themselves(and getting blown to hell by advanced weaponry). It consists of an armed resistance fighting an occupying invader through small skirmishes, acts of sabotage, and targeted killings, often with improvised weaponry. Furthermore, there is usually nothing to distinguish a guerilla soldier from an average member of the population that is being subjugated. Given a population sympathetic to the resistance, the invader has few options. Barring genocide and a complete destruction of the infrastructure, the invader's will to fight is eventually broken and he goes home.
Never underestimate a determined fighter defending his home soil. You need only look at the 20th century to see example after example of a lightly armed resistance defeating a modern army. Vietnam, Russia in Afghanistan, Israel in Lebanon 1982. . . etc. etc.
"we have a situation now where many people - especially in violent inner city areas - have in their hands a device which with the pull of a trigger can immediately kill . .."
So you're suggesting that a person willing to ignore the statutes against murder will be deterred by a law banning firearms? Are you instead assuming that said legislation will magically make all firearms disappear? In case you haven't noticed, we've been fighting a "war on drugs" for decades now, and thousands of pounds of such substances flow into this country every year. Will a "war on guns" be more successful, or will it simply harm the law abiding citizens?
P.S.
"ranges from point blank to a few hundred meters."
I'd like to see some inner city ghetto punk that could kill at "a few hundred meters"
I've been struggling with the definition of "innovation" since I started reading the article. Mutual agreement about the concept is fundamental to this debate. Establishing the definition is much more interesting than debating how a particular (undefined) label applies to a particular company.
So what exactly is "innovation". From the MS Encarta dictionary (hardcover) 1. The act or process of inventing or introducing something new. 2. something newly invented or a new way of doing things.
But I don't think a dictionary definition satisfies the question. My mind is open on this, but I tend to think that innovation almost implies "improvement". I believe that it has to be a significant improvement, rather than something obvious or incremental, but I also think it's different, and something less than "invention" or "discovery".
A case that comes to mind is Clarence Birdseye(sp?) frozen vegetable pioneer. People have been selling vegetables for centuries, and freezing things has been around since. . . (nevermind). The idea of producing and marketing frozen vegetables was certainly a major "innovation" in the food market. People have been shaving for a long time too, but the triple blade razor seems like an incremental improvement however and not really an "innovation". Recorded music was around for decades before the CD, but despite the fact that CDs were something "new", I think that's an "invention" as opposed to "innovation".
Now, if we limit the discussion to software, what are the "innovations" that we've actually seen? Depending on your definition, there are probably few worth mentioning, or conceivably too many to list. So which is it?
I don't follow your interpretation. Sorry to single you out, because I've read this opinion a few times, and I think it's a ridiculous conclusion.
"Okay, so now I can take something I find on the web, written by someone else, and even if I know it is untrue, or suspected untruth, or even just uncertain of it's truth, I can spread it around and be safe from any liability."
NO! I don't read that into this ruling at all. The ruling is stating that if you operate a WEB SITE, you don't have to be responsible for information posted by a 3rd party. That's all.
It does NOT imply that you can gather random information you found on web sites(from anonymous 3rd party sources) and then redistribute the info as fact. In that case, YOU would be responsible for the content and liable for it. I would argue that this holds true even if you made a direct quote and cited the source as www.BS.com posted by "Anonymous Coward"
I respect your opinion, but as a fellow fan, I just don't quite understand it.
Are these the ONLY Hollywood productions you've seen in the last 10 years? If so, then I understand. Perhaps you think a "good" film adaptation of the books is impossible? I can appreciate that sentiment as well. From your first statement however, you seem to imply that the movies could have been orders of magnitude better. I don't see how. I think that any fan would have had their own particular preferences regarding what to remove, gloss over, or adapt to make into 7-8 hours of film. I certainly did, but the choices HAD to be made.
If you use the garbage that Hollywood spews out year after year as a basis for comparison, the LOTR films were very well done, and ohhhhh, they could have been so much worse. Breathe a sigh of relief.
To each his own, but don't you think you're being a LITTLE harsh? "hideous mess"? "butchery"?
When I first heard about this project, I hung my head in despair with visions of how Hollywood would inevitably scew things up. "Relief" was my primary emotion when I saw the films.
This was a daunting (impossible?) task to begin with. Based on your typical book adaptations, or your typical film for that matter, can you just imagine how bad they COULD have been? I thought it was an admirable job. You think Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer(cringe) could have done better?
btw, I'm glad that they got rid of Tom Bombadil and the barrow wights, and just wish that there was a way to eliminate Treebeard from the plot.
Save that BS for the morons on the Yahoo! boards. The deficit shrank during the Clinton administration, but there was NEVER a balanced budget. Not to mention the fact that the Republicans controlled congress, and therefore held the purse strings. At the time of the smallest deficit, BOTH parties claimed credit for a mythical "surplus".
TRUTH: There was a time under Clinton when government took in more than it paid out, but if you consider the fact that government borrowed $650 Billion from Social Security that year, you'll see that there was still a DEFICIT!
Don't believe me?
Look at the Statistical abstract of the United Sates year 2004. Section 9 pages 461-491.
John Kerry George Bush Ralph Nader Bill Gates etc. =============
The Republicans and Democrats have been pursuing one disastrous policy after another for the past 60 years! Korean war, Viet-Nam war, Iraq warx2 , trillions in debt, GATT, NAFTA, 20M illegal immigrants, loss of personal freedoms, etc. etc.
I refuse to vote for any candidate from either party, and there haven't been more than a handful of competitive alternatives for national office. How could Gates POSSIBLY be any worse than the politicians we have today? I'd vote for Sylvester Stallone before I'd vote Republican or Democrat.
Glad that someone else remembers that part of the Orwellian prophecies:
"Relatedly, the Washington Post today was caught silently editing its published stories to make them less informative."
(Fortunately, this is hard to do in the print edition). It won't be long before the ministry of truth starts changing the historical facts to meet their present needs.
"I chose not to vote because there is no longer anyone worth voting for."
I completely understand the frustration, but I reject that blanket statement, unless you append "that has a reasonable chance of winning." Did you see the Slashdot stories preceding the last presidential election where the readers asked questions of the Libertarian and Green candidates? I thought that both of them were worth voting for. With a little research, I think you will find that there are lots of other candidates worthy of your vote.
I agree that the two major parties suck, but please vote, even if it is just to express your frustration with the candidates of the major parties.
If you think this is futile, I would urge you to become active in the efforts for fundamental reform of the voting system. "Instant Runoff" or "Approval" voting would break us out of this disastrous two party system in a very short time. There are organizations (I would say non-partisan, but the two major parties obviously hate the idea) trying to promote each.
Yeah, who would want to upset the Utopia we've created under Republicanism and Democratism? Maybe we should give this fascism thing a try as well. We wouldn't possibly want to incorporate any evil Libertarian principles into our government.
I don't know where you got your info, but Libertarians realize that a "completely" hands off government can't work because the cost of goods and services is out of balance when companies can force their production costs onto society. I doubt that you could find a Libertarian that would suggest we have multiple independently owned sets of wooden or metal poles running along our streets either.
Health Care? Are you implying that society should pay the cost for the most advanced(million dollar) treatments for every single person in the nation in attempts to preserve every second of life? Even in countries where health care is "free" there is rationing and prioritization. Furthermore, in a free society it creates the wrong incentives when costs of particular behavior, individual or business, are mis-allocated. A company dumping mercury into a river creates products which are artificially cheap because the cost has been placed on society. The same is true for an obese chain smoker in a socialized health care system.
We need to make a fundamental decision about how much of our collective income we want to have allocated through the public sector. 40% of GDP is NOT the right number. One primary belief of Libertarianism is to put a leash on renegade government spending. When we do that, our true spending priorities will emerge, and I guarantee that a $500B war will not be one of them.
Put a GDPx.20 cap on all government spending at all levels and let our elected officials make the hard choices we empower them to make. If a socialized health care system and publicly funded broadband are deemed to be priorities, so be it.
P.S. Electing a few Libertarians to Congress and the Senate doesn't mean that they'll seize power and enact their entire doctrine overnight.
I know I pay a price for living life in a rural area, but it would be nice if the 'price' was a $ amount as opposed to "unavailability". I'd sign up for that bandwidth at a price of $150/month in a heartbeat, and could surely be squeezed for a little more.
Back to the topic at hand, the depth of hypocrisy in these companies is unfathomable!! "Free Market until you try to circumvent our monopoly" ? Double Insanity!
"Well, the NRA, which doesn't care about any other amendment . .."
The NRA's primary focus is on protecting the Second Amendment. That certainly doesn't imply that they "don't care" about the rest of The Constitution. In fact, they sided with the ACLU in fighting the McCain/Feingold free speech infringement act which prevents either group from projecting their message in the days before an election.
I seem to remember that the NRA filed an amicus brief in the Kelo vs. New London case as well. I can't find a reference at the moment, but I'd challenge you to find an NRA source which claims that they "don't care" about The Constitution, apart from the 2nd Amendment.
" . . . remind me which one the Second Amendment is again . .."
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
". ..is it the one which enshrines the right of every citizen to carry automatic assault rifles?"
Since the musket was the state of the art military rifle at the time, I truly believe that the INTENT of the authors was that any citizen could keep and bear military arms equivalent to that of a soldier.
However, the NRA, and the vast majority of people who want to own firearms are willing to live with the Federal Firearms Acts of 1938 and 1968, and the National Instanct Checks System established ~1996. Sorry to shatter your sensationalized Hollywood perspective, but the average person can't just go purchase an "automatic assault rifle".
I doubt that you'd know an assault rifle from a salt shaker anyway.
Just for once I'd like to see some individual, business, organization or whatever react to the complaints of one of these crybaby "offended" people with a response like
"Yeah? Kiss my ass."
When did we become such a bunch of spineless, apologetic worms?
Ohhhh, I'm Soooooooooooo sorry that I hurt your feelings. Please let me grovel at your feet and accept my humble apology and most sincere promise never to do it again .
"Why not have 4 election days a year, instead of one."
A sure recipe for reducing overall voter turnout. Working people with day jobs have trouble taking time off to vote once per year.
A better solution would be to have elections on Saturday or Sunday. I've always thought that government offices, especially places like the DMV should be open on the weekends as well.
Move the elections to Saturday and I'll agree with the staggering idea. I'll be so hung over from Friday night that it shouldn't be a problem.
Forgive me for intruding on the dialogue, but as a real conservative, I couldn't resist.
To hell with "supporting the president" or "supporting the government". What kind of a belief system is that? Not sure what you mean by "undermine", but if the government is enacting policies I disagree with(about 90% of the time in the last 15-20 years) I'm not going to "support" them just because they have a letter next to their name
You're right about the fundamental values of conservatism. Fiscal restraint, and limited government intrusion primarily. The Republican party abandoned these principles entirely. They lost my support with the first couple of budgets the Bush Administration came forth with, and earned my scorn with their wars and blatant intrusions on individual liberty.
Of course I don't study all 500+ people in Congress, but the only real conservative I know of at the national level is Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, although Senator Voinovich(sp?) of Ohio(?) is fairly decent as well.
This whole "conservative == Republican" started with Rush Limbaugh. By blaming all of the evil in the world on some ill defined concept of "Liberalism" which essentially meant "Democrat" in his perspective, there was an inevitable backlash of self defined "liberals" criticizing "conservatives"(meaning Republicans by reciprocity).
That's where we stand today. A ridiculously bitter divide among the people based on meaningless labels and 2 political parties which seize upon this divide by a tenuous association with them. Meanwhile the two parties work in tandem against the interests of the majority.
It's called "divide and conquer" and we're well into the latter stage.
The public schools should provide uncensored Internet access, as should any other publicly funded institution.
Political agendas and personal biases are inevitable when it comes to definitions of arbitrary terms such as "hate", "offensive" and "indecent". The fundamental motivation in restricting the government's ability to suppress speech(The First Amendment) was to make sure that the government could NOT ban speech just because it doesn't happen to be "popular".
Parental rights you say? Parents should be aware of the fact that the schools don't censor free speech, and have the right to say that Junior may or may not access the Internet at school. They're free to censor whatever they want at home.
The only people I hate are the people that hate freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
"There are dozens if not hundreds of bands where I like one song and one song only. Now it's possible to get just that one song and not pay for crap I will never listen to."
In my case it's usual more than one, but I think you've precisely identified the cause of the eventual slowdown in sales of downloadable music. 90+% of everything released on CD is filler material. The big growth in digital music sales was due to an expanding user base, and the fact that you have 10% good music from a huge catalogue of previously released material.
The slowdown, either now, or in the near future will be the result of people buying the 1-3 songs per album that they actually like on the much smaller amount of newly released music(with some residual sales coming from new users and people augmenting their collection of older songs).
Mark me redundant if you must, as I see that others have already pointed out the foolishness of your post.
"your grand-daddy's rifle is really going to help against tanks and automatic weaponry."
Ever heard of a guerilla war? It doesn't entail groups of fighters standing out in the middle of a field with a big sign identifying themselves(and getting blown to hell by advanced weaponry). It consists of an armed resistance fighting an occupying invader through small skirmishes, acts of sabotage, and targeted killings, often with improvised weaponry. Furthermore, there is usually nothing to distinguish a guerilla soldier from an average member of the population that is being subjugated. Given a population sympathetic to the resistance, the invader has few options. Barring genocide and a complete destruction of the infrastructure, the invader's will to fight is eventually broken and he goes home.
Never underestimate a determined fighter defending his home soil. You need only look at the 20th century to see example after example of a lightly armed resistance defeating a modern army. Vietnam, Russia in Afghanistan, Israel in Lebanon 1982. . . etc. etc.
I'll be screaming about any assault on The Bill of Rights, but your statement brings up an interesting point.
I've never been able to figure out why such staunch supporters of the First Amendment would be so willing go give up their rights under the Second.
I despise the use of streotypes and mass labeling, but I will make a generalization here:
Why would people from the political left who despise George Bush be willing to give him even more power to erode their Constitutional rights?
"we have a situation now where many people - especially in violent inner city areas - have in their hands a device which with the pull of a trigger can immediately kill . . ."
So you're suggesting that a person willing to ignore the statutes against murder will be deterred by a law banning firearms? Are you instead assuming that said legislation will magically make all firearms disappear? In case you haven't noticed, we've been fighting a "war on drugs" for decades now, and thousands of pounds of such substances flow into this country every year. Will a "war on guns" be more successful, or will it simply harm the law abiding citizens?
P.S.
"ranges from point blank to a few hundred meters."
I'd like to see some inner city ghetto punk that could kill at "a few hundred meters"
I always thought of this section as: "Your Rights" Online as opposed to "Your Rights Online"
??
Seems unfair that something Brin and Page developed together would bear only one of their names.
"Page-rank"
??
"complex numbers . . . were deemed so useless when first conceived that they were called imaginary numbers."
:-)
Uhhh, so what are they called now?
(given that we've demonstrated their usefulness?)
"Terrorists looooove chicken with a side of fresh veggies. Good work, TSA."
Lower your score. Order the pork chops.
I've been struggling with the definition of "innovation" since I started reading the article. Mutual agreement about the concept is fundamental to this debate. Establishing the definition is much more interesting than debating how a particular (undefined) label applies to a particular company.
So what exactly is "innovation". From the MS Encarta dictionary (hardcover)
1. The act or process of inventing or introducing something new. 2. something newly invented or a new way of doing things.
But I don't think a dictionary definition satisfies the question. My mind is open on this, but I tend to think that innovation almost implies "improvement". I believe that it has to be a significant improvement, rather than something obvious or incremental, but I also think it's different, and something less than "invention" or "discovery".
A case that comes to mind is Clarence Birdseye(sp?) frozen vegetable pioneer. People have been selling vegetables for centuries, and freezing things has been around since. . . (nevermind). The idea of producing and marketing frozen vegetables was certainly a major "innovation" in the food market. People have been shaving for a long time too, but the triple blade razor seems like an incremental improvement however and not really an "innovation". Recorded music was around for decades before the CD, but despite the fact that CDs were something "new", I think that's an "invention" as opposed to "innovation".
Now, if we limit the discussion to software, what are the "innovations" that we've actually seen? Depending on your definition, there are probably few worth mentioning, or conceivably too many to list. So which is it?
I don't follow your interpretation. Sorry to single you out, because I've read this opinion a few times, and I think it's a ridiculous conclusion.
"Okay, so now I can take something I find on the web, written by someone else, and even if I know it is untrue, or suspected untruth, or even just uncertain of it's truth, I can spread it around and be safe from any liability."
NO! I don't read that into this ruling at all. The ruling is stating that if you operate a WEB SITE, you don't have to be responsible for information posted by a 3rd party. That's all.
It does NOT imply that you can gather random information you found on web sites(from anonymous 3rd party sources) and then redistribute the info as fact. In that case, YOU would be responsible for the content and liable for it. I would argue that this holds true even if you made a direct quote and cited the source as www.BS.com posted by "Anonymous Coward"
I respect your opinion, but as a fellow fan, I just don't quite understand it.
Are these the ONLY Hollywood productions you've seen in the last 10 years? If so, then I understand. Perhaps you think a "good" film adaptation of the books is impossible? I can appreciate that sentiment as well. From your first statement however, you seem to imply that the movies could have been orders of magnitude better. I don't see how. I think that any fan would have had their own particular preferences regarding what to remove, gloss over, or adapt to make into 7-8 hours of film. I certainly did, but the choices HAD to be made.
If you use the garbage that Hollywood spews out year after year as a basis for comparison, the LOTR films were very well done, and ohhhhh, they could have been so much worse. Breathe a sigh of relief.
To each his own, but don't you think you're being a LITTLE harsh? "hideous mess"? "butchery"?
When I first heard about this project, I hung my head in despair with visions of how Hollywood would inevitably scew things up. "Relief" was my primary emotion when I saw the films.
This was a daunting (impossible?) task to begin with. Based on your typical book adaptations, or your typical film for that matter, can you just imagine how bad they COULD have been? I thought it was an admirable job. You think Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer(cringe) could have done better?
btw, I'm glad that they got rid of Tom Bombadil and the barrow wights, and just wish that there was a way to eliminate Treebeard from the plot.
"Except Clinton balanced the books..."
Save that BS for the morons on the Yahoo! boards. The deficit shrank during the Clinton administration, but there was NEVER a balanced budget. Not to mention the fact that the Republicans controlled congress, and therefore held the purse strings. At the time of the smallest deficit, BOTH parties claimed credit for a mythical "surplus".
TRUTH: There was a time under Clinton when government took in more than it paid out, but if you consider the fact that government borrowed $650 Billion from Social Security that year, you'll see that there was still a DEFICIT!
Don't believe me?
Look at the Statistical abstract of the United Sates year 2004. Section 9 pages 461-491.
Think back to 2004. Suppose we had
John Kerry
George Bush
Ralph Nader
Bill Gates
etc.
=============
The Republicans and Democrats have been pursuing one disastrous policy after another for the past 60 years! Korean war, Viet-Nam war, Iraq warx2 , trillions in debt, GATT, NAFTA, 20M illegal immigrants, loss of personal freedoms, etc. etc.
I refuse to vote for any candidate from either party, and there haven't been more than a handful of competitive alternatives for national office. How could Gates POSSIBLY be any worse than the politicians we have today? I'd vote for Sylvester Stallone before I'd vote Republican or Democrat.
Glad that someone else remembers that part of the Orwellian prophecies:
"Relatedly, the Washington Post today was caught silently editing its published stories to make them less informative."
(Fortunately, this is hard to do in the print edition). It won't be long before the ministry of truth starts changing the historical facts to meet their present needs.
"I chose not to vote because there is no longer anyone worth voting for."
I completely understand the frustration, but I reject that blanket statement, unless you append "that has a reasonable chance of winning." Did you see the Slashdot stories preceding the last presidential election where the readers asked questions of the Libertarian and Green candidates? I thought that both of them were worth voting for. With a little research, I think you will find that there are lots of other candidates worthy of your vote.
I agree that the two major parties suck, but please vote, even if it is just to express your frustration with the candidates of the major parties.
If you think this is futile, I would urge you to become active in the efforts for fundamental reform of the voting system. "Instant Runoff" or "Approval" voting would break us out of this disastrous two party system in a very short time. There are organizations (I would say non-partisan, but the two major parties obviously hate the idea) trying to promote each.
Yeah, who would want to upset the Utopia we've created under Republicanism and Democratism? Maybe we should give this fascism thing a try as well. We wouldn't possibly want to incorporate any evil Libertarian principles into our government.
I don't know where you got your info, but Libertarians realize that a "completely" hands off government can't work because the cost of goods and services is out of balance when companies can force their production costs onto society. I doubt that you could find a Libertarian that would suggest we have multiple independently owned sets of wooden or metal poles running along our streets either.
Health Care? Are you implying that society should pay the cost for the most advanced(million dollar) treatments for every single person in the nation in attempts to preserve every second of life? Even in countries where health care is "free" there is rationing and prioritization. Furthermore, in a free society it creates the wrong incentives when costs of particular behavior, individual or business, are mis-allocated. A company dumping mercury into a river creates products which are artificially cheap because the cost has been placed on society. The same is true for an obese chain smoker in a socialized health care system.
We need to make a fundamental decision about how much of our collective income we want to have allocated through the public sector. 40% of GDP is NOT the right number. One primary belief of Libertarianism is to put a leash on renegade government spending. When we do that, our true spending priorities will emerge, and I guarantee that a $500B war will not be one of them.
Put a GDPx.20 cap on all government spending at all levels and let our elected officials make the hard choices we empower them to make. If a socialized health care system and publicly funded broadband are deemed to be priorities, so be it.
P.S. Electing a few Libertarians to Congress and the Senate doesn't mean that they'll seize power and enact their entire doctrine overnight.
Holy bandwidth Batman san!
I know I pay a price for living life in a rural area, but it would be nice if the 'price' was a $ amount as opposed to "unavailability". I'd sign up for that bandwidth at a price of $150/month in a heartbeat, and could surely be squeezed for a little more.
Back to the topic at hand, the depth of hypocrisy in these companies is unfathomable!! "Free Market until you try to circumvent our monopoly" ? Double Insanity!
"Well, the NRA, which doesn't care about any other amendment . . ."
The NRA's primary focus is on protecting the Second Amendment. That certainly doesn't imply that they "don't care" about the rest of The Constitution. In fact, they sided with the ACLU in fighting the McCain/Feingold free speech infringement act which prevents either group from projecting their message in the days before an election.
I seem to remember that the NRA filed an amicus brief in the Kelo vs. New London case as well. I can't find a reference at the moment, but I'd challenge you to find an NRA source which claims that they "don't care" about The Constitution, apart from the 2nd Amendment.
"Please cite the bill/amendment in congress that would limit the second amendment."
Wait until the Democrats take control of Congress and the Presidency, and I'll be happy to provide said list.
The Republicans really hate the 1st Amendment and will do everything they can to undermine it.
The Democrats despise the Second Amendment and desperately want to destroy it.
BOTH parties agree that the remaining 8 Amendments to the Bill of Rights should be eradicated, and their voting records prove it.
"I'm not American"
."
.is it the one which enshrines the right of every citizen to carry automatic assault rifles?"
Thank $deity for small favors.
" . . . remind me which one the Second Amendment is again . .
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
". .
Since the musket was the state of the art military rifle at the time, I truly believe that the INTENT of the authors was that any citizen could keep and bear military arms equivalent to that of a soldier.
However, the NRA, and the vast majority of people who want to own firearms are willing to live with the Federal Firearms Acts of 1938 and 1968, and the National Instanct Checks System established ~1996. Sorry to shatter your sensationalized Hollywood perspective, but the average person can't just go purchase an "automatic assault rifle".
I doubt that you'd know an assault rifle from a salt shaker anyway.
Just for once I'd like to see some individual, business, organization or whatever react to the complaints of one of these crybaby "offended" people with a response like
"Yeah? Kiss my ass."
When did we become such a bunch of spineless, apologetic worms?
Ohhhh, I'm Soooooooooooo sorry that I hurt your feelings. Please let me grovel at your feet and accept my humble apology and most sincere promise never to do it again .
"Why not have 4 election days a year, instead of one."
A sure recipe for reducing overall voter turnout. Working people with day jobs have trouble taking time off to vote once per year.
A better solution would be to have elections on Saturday or Sunday. I've always thought that government offices, especially places like the DMV should be open on the weekends as well.
Move the elections to Saturday and I'll agree with the staggering idea. I'll be so hung over from Friday night that it shouldn't be a problem.
(Off topic response)
Forgive me for intruding on the dialogue, but as a real conservative, I couldn't resist.
To hell with "supporting the president" or "supporting the government". What kind of a belief system is that? Not sure what you mean by "undermine", but if the government is enacting policies I disagree with(about 90% of the time in the last 15-20 years) I'm not going to "support" them just because they have a letter next to their name
You're right about the fundamental values of conservatism. Fiscal restraint, and limited government intrusion primarily. The Republican party abandoned these principles entirely. They lost my support with the first couple of budgets the Bush Administration came forth with, and earned my scorn with their wars and blatant intrusions on individual liberty.
Of course I don't study all 500+ people in Congress, but the only real conservative I know of at the national level is Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, although Senator Voinovich(sp?) of Ohio(?) is fairly decent as well.
This whole "conservative == Republican" started with Rush Limbaugh. By blaming all of the evil in the world on some ill defined concept of "Liberalism" which essentially meant "Democrat" in his perspective, there was an inevitable backlash of self defined "liberals" criticizing "conservatives"(meaning Republicans by reciprocity).
That's where we stand today. A ridiculously bitter divide among the people based on meaningless labels and 2 political parties which seize upon this divide by a tenuous association with them. Meanwhile the two parties work in tandem against the interests of the majority.
It's called "divide and conquer" and we're well into the latter stage.
The public schools should provide uncensored Internet access, as should any other publicly funded institution.
Political agendas and personal biases are inevitable when it comes to definitions of arbitrary terms such as "hate", "offensive" and "indecent". The fundamental motivation in restricting the government's ability to suppress speech(The First Amendment) was to make sure that the government could NOT ban speech just because it doesn't happen to be "popular".
Parental rights you say? Parents should be aware of the fact that the schools don't censor free speech, and have the right to say that Junior may or may not access the Internet at school. They're free to censor whatever they want at home.
The only people I hate are the people that hate freedom.