Amendment IX - The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X - The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
The following link may shock you a bit. Since I constantly hear the our government hates Muslims, I did a Google search to find actual quotes from the White House on Islam/Muslims.
I saw video of it on CNN. Actually, technically I believe it was on their Headline News network, but I did in fact directly see video of it.
However, as a side note, I once suggested as a small child (perhaps 7 or 8) that it only made sense for the world to go completely to electronic currency. I kept trying to convince adults that physical currency is not only inconvenient, but it is easier to steal, and harder to track.
If those concepts are readily apparent to a child, why hasn't anyone actually suggested it on a very serious level?
Can someone please explain to me why Google bought YouTube, merged the search results for the two sites, etc. but still hasn't ported over some of the nicer features of the video.google.com player?
Doesn't it make sense to merge the best features of the two sites and the two players?
I think you shoud have a tiny little clarification - not trying to argue further, but I think we need to separate "hating govt employees who are corrupt" from "hating the USA". They are not one and the same. This isn't opinion, it is simple logic, and can be demonstrated as such.
I agree. As Penn and Teller covered in their show Bullshit, patriotism shouldn't be unflinchingly supporting everything about your nation without question.
I think therein lies the problem. Many judges are turning a blind eye; and those judges that tend to pursue it do seem to have a problem upholding those rights. Here is a fine example of what I am trying to describe: the recent(!) Supreme Court decision to allow arbitrary seizure of property by private entities, a right once entitled to governments alone for the sole purpose of improvements for the public good. Clearly, someone was NOT thinking when they allowed this one through.
Is eminent domain evil and wrong? Likely. Is it Constitutional? Well, maybe. The Constitution said you can't be denied personal property without compensation. In the case of eminent domain, I do believe you are awarded compensation. You should be happy to note however that several states are passing laws to forbid or severely limit eminent domain.
I highly doubt it's some form of partisan politics, as this has occurred on the watch of BOTH parties - maybe it has something to do with the stench of corruption and money?
This is exactly my point. Because these issues only seem to be brought up as a form of partisan politics, they get ignored. We file them away with all the usual mud slinging. If the media were perhaps a little bit more objective in politics, we might take a more serious note of accusations such as these, which is my desire to see.
It should also be noted, that when we scream wolf over small matters, we ignore the major transgressions as well. This is partly why I am playing devil's advocate right now.
So this whole "warrantless" concept is without...warrant? I guess you could really stretch the part about "unreasonable searches and seizures" in an attempt to justify it but the next part is pretty clear to me, "no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause...." Really, pretty plain English as far as I can tell. So, this warrantless search and seizure bit - just how far back are we talking about? I would like to hear your information on this, as it seems there is a bit of a conflict as to "what source is correct". I'm not so much trying to argue as I am trying to point out another example of "bending the rules" again.
Please reference another post I made just above you. I'd like to see probable cause, privacy, warrants all these matters more clearly defined by legislation. Probable cause is a very broad term. For instance, alcohol itself doesn't really have an odor, but many alcoholic drinks do. If a police officer claims they may have smelled the odor of alcohol on you, they can use that as probable cause to search your vehicle against your consent without a warrant. And I've seen this stand many-a-time. You can't prove after the fact in court the officer perceived the odor of alcohol, so really if anyone ever wanted to abuse the system, all they had to do was make the claim, and boom, you get a free search of the car!
Probable cause and "unreasonable" searches are unclear. Unclear terms are subject to abuse.
I really didn't ask, much less demand, for them to "know everything". In fact, I didn't even panic when "it" happened, although I was quite sad for a few days.
I'm not simply talking about one incident. In fact, when any incident occurs, there is often public outcry about why it wasn't prevented, and people overreacting who want immediate, sloppy legislature put into measure. The Patriot Act is a great example. Not perfect. Not wholly evil. It is a huge, cumbersome example of overreacting by Congress.
The recent VT shootings are another incident. Everyone
1 There is no state ordained church, and we still have freedom of speech pretty clearly. I work for a newspaper that rips the President pretty frequently so I think freedom of press is still intact.
2 People can still buy guns and form militias.
3 The government is not forcing me to house soldiers.
4 "against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause". I have little doubt that people have made poor decisions from time to time in deciding what is unreasonable or protected by probable cause. However, the very fact that these warrants and searches are being reviewed and questioned by other members of our government demonstrates that someone is attempting to enforce this.
5 You could argue that this one is currently being bent. It said no person, not citizen. So everyone human on US soil should be protected. They should all get due process. What about prisoners of war captured on foreign soil? Well, the Constitution doesn't actually make any provision about them. If someone is picked up off US soil however and thrown in a hole without due process, you could argue wrong doing.
6 See above.
7 I love that they gave a monetary amount to law suits here, with no recourse for inflation. But, this isn't being infringed.
8 Again, we're good here.
9 Again, we're good here.
10 And here.
So, you maintain that none of the Bill of Rights are enforced, when it seems that actually we only have one current issue. That is people are being detained as political prisoners right now. I don't know the details of who is being detained, but if you have info that people from the US are being detained without a trial, I'd like to look over that info.
That quote originates from a politically-biased blogger. He said three people overheard the quote. One of three people he named as sources, is someone he commonly names, only it turns out said source doesn't exist.
When that blogger is caught lying and making up sources, said blogger loses respectability.
Unless you can find actual proof for the quote, I wouldn't toss it around as fact. If anything there is evidence to suggest the source is known to lie.
When the largest PC distributor out there refuses to use AMD chips (Dell) that certainly hurts you.
When Intel is using illegal anti-trust tactics, that certainly hurts you.
The sad thing is that even if AMD wins their case, the damage both in lost revenue and market share will be almost possible to replace. Everyone in the world knows the name Intel. By illegally leveraging themselves, they've guaranteed that most people will demand their products regardless.
The lesson here is that illegal tactics work. If I were a mega-corporation, I'd take note.
I was an AMD consumer for ages based on price and performance.
I just built a new AMD rig however for two reasons.
Firstly, At the very low-end price point, I found AMD still performed better for that price range. I bought a Brisbane dual-core proc for $59. It overclocks unfairly well, and the peformance I get out of it is insane given the price. I haven't dared really push it over the edge, but consider just the latest review off NewEgg.
"This chip's a little beast, I've got the combo running stable (prime 16 hrs) @ 3106 (9.5,x326 @ 533 htt 3x) on air! "
Again, we're talking a measly $59 USD.
Secondly, it seems AMD got Intel dead to rights on their anti-trust suit. Several vendors and partners have offered credible evidence, and Intel is claiming their IT department deleted all pertinent email that would be the nails in said case. Again, they sound guilty as sin. I will not financially support such a company.
Even if Intel offered slight performance increase for the money (which isn't the case here) I wouldn't buy their product.
You are posting on the internet questioning your own government. You have the freedom to do so.
Don't for a second compare your government to China.
To do so is a disservice to those who fought to protect the freedoms you call into question.
After Russia dealt with recent terrorist attacks, they rolled back on basically every civil liberty that had been established in the past 50 years, including freedom of religion.
After the "tube" bombings in England, Tony Blair said he had no qualms with a shoot-first approach that led to some innocent kids being shot because they fled police in a tube. Security over civil liberties he argued.
Unless you can clearly demonstrate to me that your Constitutional rights have actually been revoked, perhaps you should reconsider your statements that we are becoming like China. From my vantage-point they come across like hyperbole at best. Furthermore, constantly echoing these statements of unfounded hatred only seem to bolster similar feelings in those around you. Ergo, you only add to the problem.
People are perceiving they live in this horrible country because they hear it all the time. Can you actually outline what supposed rights you've lost. Because a quick Google search shows the Constitution still hasn't been amended in our sleep.
Let me be clear to avoid an argument. I agree that we should fight to protect the Constitution and civil liberties.
However, I feel the need to make some clarifications.
First off, the Constitution can only be altered through a clearly defined Amendment process. It has not been Ammended. Thusly, the rights guaranteed in the Constitution are valid. Any lawyer or judge with any sense of decency shouldn't have trouble upholding basic Constitutional rights.
Secondly, both the office of the President and Congress under many different administrations have failed to uphold the liberties the Constitution is supposed to protect. The failures lie both with the President and Congress. These should be brought to light, but not as a means of partisan politics, but rather as a means of upholding civil liberties.
One such minor example was the Telecommunications Decency Act of (94 or 96?) that clearly trampled on free speech. The then Speaker of the House even publicly said it violated the Constitution, yet the House passed it.
Thirdly, the Constitution could use a good Amendment clarifying our rights to privacy. Currently, they aren't really defined. The Constitution states that we can't be forced to self-incriminate, and that is where unlawful searches and such come from. But there have always been exceptions. For instance, if you have reason to suggest that evidence is time sensitive, or will be destroyed, you can search without a warrant. If you have probable cause, you can search without a warrant. Warrant-less searches have occurred for ages, and should not be made to be appear as a recent or partisan issue. Again, this is an issue that should be more clearly defined in legislation and hasn't been.
Fourthly, the second our security is in question, people panic and demand that the government know everything that is going on, and be omniscient in their ability to defend us. This conflicts with our personal desires to not have the government look over our shoulder. Again, this line should be more clearly defined, but it is not.
Lastly, I have not seen a single statement from the White House or any US government official requesting the ability to detail American citizens indefinitely without either charges or due process. There was a controversial provision about detaining immigrants deemed terrorists basically without due process, but it made several clear provisions against applying to American citizens. If you have clear factual evidence that any government official intends to detain American citizens indefinitely without charges or legal due process, that would be very clear grounds for impeachment.
I'm not a huge expert on the subject, but I do believe that the former Yugoslavia under Marshall Tito was a Communist nation that didn't have problems with toltarianism or censorship. Their biggest problem was hatred across various ethnic lines within the nation.
It is both irresponsible and impossible to maintain such a firewall forever.
There are plenty of people who bypass the firewall already. China is marching into the 21st century with an eye to the future. They are building schools and focusing on emerging technologies. They are growing not only in population, but in knowledge and economy.
I don't think it is unreasonable to assume a strong possibility exists where they are the lone true superpower in the future.
However, you can not get to that point with discontent citizens, or backwards technological practices.
If you want people to love their country, then you can't pretend the past never happened.
The moment a strong Chinese political leader steps forward, admits to all the past mistakes made by former Chinese leaders, and motivates their population under the banner of a new, free China, watch the fuck out.
Thank you. As a former US Marine I so often get discouraged by the hatred so many Americans have fostered for their country.
When in reality, I think they have little to no appreciation for what we have here.
We're very much imperfect, and I greatly frustrated by some aspects of our culture, but we are very much a free nation. Perhaps sometime people should see what it is to live in nation without civil liberties.
What I crave will likely never happen, but that is KHTML as the rendering engine with all the features of plugins of Firefox.
Konqueror has three main functions.
The file manager function has been replaced by Dolphin. The document viewer function has been replaced by Okular.
Quite frankly, KHTML and this web-unity project shouldn't be a threat to Mozilla, but rather an opportunity.
Imagine for two seconds if Safari, Firefox and Konqeueror all used the same rendering engine. As a web designer, I design valid (X)HTML and test it in Safari, Firefox or Konqueror, confident that I know it will render the same way in all three browsers.
Wouldn't such a triumvirate pose a serious threat to Microsoft?
Even Opera would have to seriously consider joining in the KHTML love.
Is the front-end so horrible when everyone gets it so easily despite the fact that it is the most robust email/calendar system on the planet?
That's my point.
If the interface is that intuitive and easy to pick up, yet so feature rich that most people never fully use the whole system, then it can't be that bad of a design, especially where there are and have been projects to replace Outlook/Exchange, and none have succeeded.
I'm going to assume you used Outlook for personal mail at home because it came with Office?
It is arguably the simplest, most intuitive, yet powerful tool Microsoft ever gave the average business user. I work in IT, and I have to support hundreds of end-users who don't know a damned thing about computers, but they get Outlook right away.
Microsoft has done many things wrong, but when you utilize Outlook in a domain with Exchange/Active Directory, you get a pretty powerful tool.
Slashdot Mirror
If you do business with several nations, you are international, even if you localize and cater your business to each nation.
"Luckily the UK is a bit smarter"
A bit? Don't be modest.
I was just being lazy, not ducking points.
Amendment IX - The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X - The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Let's hear your arguments on these.
The 14th Amendment is my favorite. I think members of Congress should be made familiar with it.
But I digress. A much simpler argument is that José Padilla is a US citizen.
Wow. That is good reading.
Which specific religion?
t ml
The following link may shock you a bit. Since I constantly hear the our government hates Muslims, I did a Google search to find actual quotes from the White House on Islam/Muslims.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/ramadan/islam.h
I saw video of it on CNN. Actually, technically I believe it was on their Headline News network, but I did in fact directly see video of it.
However, as a side note, I once suggested as a small child (perhaps 7 or 8) that it only made sense for the world to go completely to electronic currency. I kept trying to convince adults that physical currency is not only inconvenient, but it is easier to steal, and harder to track.
If those concepts are readily apparent to a child, why hasn't anyone actually suggested it on a very serious level?
Can someone please explain to me why Google bought YouTube, merged the search results for the two sites, etc. but still hasn't ported over some of the nicer features of the video.google.com player?
Doesn't it make sense to merge the best features of the two sites and the two players?
I think you shoud have a tiny little clarification - not trying to argue further, but I think we need to separate "hating govt employees who are corrupt" from "hating the USA". They are not one and the same. This isn't opinion, it is simple logic, and can be demonstrated as such.
I agree. As Penn and Teller covered in their show Bullshit, patriotism shouldn't be unflinchingly supporting everything about your nation without question.
I think therein lies the problem. Many judges are turning a blind eye; and those judges that tend to pursue it do seem to have a problem upholding those rights. Here is a fine example of what I am trying to describe: the recent(!) Supreme Court decision to allow arbitrary seizure of property by private entities, a right once entitled to governments alone for the sole purpose of improvements for the public good. Clearly, someone was NOT thinking when they allowed this one through.
Is eminent domain evil and wrong? Likely. Is it Constitutional? Well, maybe. The Constitution said you can't be denied personal property without compensation. In the case of eminent domain, I do believe you are awarded compensation. You should be happy to note however that several states are passing laws to forbid or severely limit eminent domain.
I highly doubt it's some form of partisan politics, as this has occurred on the watch of BOTH parties - maybe it has something to do with the stench of corruption and money?
This is exactly my point. Because these issues only seem to be brought up as a form of partisan politics, they get ignored. We file them away with all the usual mud slinging. If the media were perhaps a little bit more objective in politics, we might take a more serious note of accusations such as these, which is my desire to see.
It should also be noted, that when we scream wolf over small matters, we ignore the major transgressions as well. This is partly why I am playing devil's advocate right now.
So this whole "warrantless" concept is without...warrant? I guess you could really stretch the part about "unreasonable searches and seizures" in an attempt to justify it but the next part is pretty clear to me, "no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause...." Really, pretty plain English as far as I can tell. So, this warrantless search and seizure bit - just how far back are we talking about? I would like to hear your information on this, as it seems there is a bit of a conflict as to "what source is correct". I'm not so much trying to argue as I am trying to point out another example of "bending the rules" again.
Please reference another post I made just above you. I'd like to see probable cause, privacy, warrants all these matters more clearly defined by legislation. Probable cause is a very broad term. For instance, alcohol itself doesn't really have an odor, but many alcoholic drinks do. If a police officer claims they may have smelled the odor of alcohol on you, they can use that as probable cause to search your vehicle against your consent without a warrant. And I've seen this stand many-a-time. You can't prove after the fact in court the officer perceived the odor of alcohol, so really if anyone ever wanted to abuse the system, all they had to do was make the claim, and boom, you get a free search of the car!
Probable cause and "unreasonable" searches are unclear. Unclear terms are subject to abuse.
I really didn't ask, much less demand, for them to "know everything". In fact, I didn't even panic when "it" happened, although I was quite sad for a few days.
I'm not simply talking about one incident. In fact, when any incident occurs, there is often public outcry about why it wasn't prevented, and people overreacting who want immediate, sloppy legislature put into measure. The Patriot Act is a great example. Not perfect. Not wholly evil. It is a huge, cumbersome example of overreacting by Congress.
The recent VT shootings are another incident. Everyone
Mail your cash to my home address.
????
Profit, I mean, I will then help you with all your problems.
I saw a story on CNN about a guy who paid his yearly taxes with a huge truck and pennies.
In the US, the IRS is required to accept cash.
Let's go down the list.
1 There is no state ordained church, and we still have freedom of speech pretty clearly. I work for a newspaper that rips the President pretty frequently so I think freedom of press is still intact.
2 People can still buy guns and form militias.
3 The government is not forcing me to house soldiers.
4 "against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause". I have little doubt that people have made poor decisions from time to time in deciding what is unreasonable or protected by probable cause. However, the very fact that these warrants and searches are being reviewed and questioned by other members of our government demonstrates that someone is attempting to enforce this.
5 You could argue that this one is currently being bent. It said no person, not citizen. So everyone human on US soil should be protected. They should all get due process. What about prisoners of war captured on foreign soil? Well, the Constitution doesn't actually make any provision about them. If someone is picked up off US soil however and thrown in a hole without due process, you could argue wrong doing.
6 See above.
7 I love that they gave a monetary amount to law suits here, with no recourse for inflation. But, this isn't being infringed.
8 Again, we're good here.
9 Again, we're good here.
10 And here.
So, you maintain that none of the Bill of Rights are enforced, when it seems that actually we only have one current issue. That is people are being detained as political prisoners right now. I don't know the details of who is being detained, but if you have info that people from the US are being detained without a trial, I'd like to look over that info.
Fact checking please.
That quote originates from a politically-biased blogger. He said three people overheard the quote. One of three people he named as sources, is someone he commonly names, only it turns out said source doesn't exist.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071003K.shtml
When that blogger is caught lying and making up sources, said blogger loses respectability.
Unless you can find actual proof for the quote, I wouldn't toss it around as fact. If anything there is evidence to suggest the source is known to lie.
The submitted mentioned the fee he pays the local phone company for his phone number to remain unlisted.
When the largest PC distributor out there refuses to use AMD chips (Dell) that certainly hurts you.
When Intel is using illegal anti-trust tactics, that certainly hurts you.
The sad thing is that even if AMD wins their case, the damage both in lost revenue and market share will be almost possible to replace. Everyone in the world knows the name Intel. By illegally leveraging themselves, they've guaranteed that most people will demand their products regardless.
The lesson here is that illegal tactics work. If I were a mega-corporation, I'd take note.
I was an AMD consumer for ages based on price and performance.
I just built a new AMD rig however for two reasons.
Firstly, At the very low-end price point, I found AMD still performed better for that price range. I bought a Brisbane dual-core proc for $59. It overclocks unfairly well, and the peformance I get out of it is insane given the price. I haven't dared really push it over the edge, but consider just the latest review off NewEgg.
"This chip's a little beast, I've got the combo running stable (prime 16 hrs) @ 3106 (9.5,x326 @ 533 htt 3x) on air! "
Again, we're talking a measly $59 USD.
Secondly, it seems AMD got Intel dead to rights on their anti-trust suit. Several vendors and partners have offered credible evidence, and Intel is claiming their IT department deleted all pertinent email that would be the nails in said case. Again, they sound guilty as sin. I will not financially support such a company.
Even if Intel offered slight performance increase for the money (which isn't the case here) I wouldn't buy their product.
You are posting on the internet questioning your own government. You have the freedom to do so.
Don't for a second compare your government to China.
To do so is a disservice to those who fought to protect the freedoms you call into question.
After Russia dealt with recent terrorist attacks, they rolled back on basically every civil liberty that had been established in the past 50 years, including freedom of religion.
After the "tube" bombings in England, Tony Blair said he had no qualms with a shoot-first approach that led to some innocent kids being shot because they fled police in a tube. Security over civil liberties he argued.
Unless you can clearly demonstrate to me that your Constitutional rights have actually been revoked, perhaps you should reconsider your statements that we are becoming like China. From my vantage-point they come across like hyperbole at best. Furthermore, constantly echoing these statements of unfounded hatred only seem to bolster similar feelings in those around you. Ergo, you only add to the problem.
People are perceiving they live in this horrible country because they hear it all the time. Can you actually outline what supposed rights you've lost. Because a quick Google search shows the Constitution still hasn't been amended in our sleep.
Let me be clear to avoid an argument. I agree that we should fight to protect the Constitution and civil liberties.
However, I feel the need to make some clarifications.
First off, the Constitution can only be altered through a clearly defined Amendment process. It has not been Ammended. Thusly, the rights guaranteed in the Constitution are valid. Any lawyer or judge with any sense of decency shouldn't have trouble upholding basic Constitutional rights.
Secondly, both the office of the President and Congress under many different administrations have failed to uphold the liberties the Constitution is supposed to protect. The failures lie both with the President and Congress. These should be brought to light, but not as a means of partisan politics, but rather as a means of upholding civil liberties.
One such minor example was the Telecommunications Decency Act of (94 or 96?) that clearly trampled on free speech. The then Speaker of the House even publicly said it violated the Constitution, yet the House passed it.
Thirdly, the Constitution could use a good Amendment clarifying our rights to privacy. Currently, they aren't really defined. The Constitution states that we can't be forced to self-incriminate, and that is where unlawful searches and such come from. But there have always been exceptions. For instance, if you have reason to suggest that evidence is time sensitive, or will be destroyed, you can search without a warrant. If you have probable cause, you can search without a warrant. Warrant-less searches have occurred for ages, and should not be made to be appear as a recent or partisan issue. Again, this is an issue that should be more clearly defined in legislation and hasn't been.
Fourthly, the second our security is in question, people panic and demand that the government know everything that is going on, and be omniscient in their ability to defend us. This conflicts with our personal desires to not have the government look over our shoulder. Again, this line should be more clearly defined, but it is not.
Lastly, I have not seen a single statement from the White House or any US government official requesting the ability to detail American citizens indefinitely without either charges or due process. There was a controversial provision about detaining immigrants deemed terrorists basically without due process, but it made several clear provisions against applying to American citizens. If you have clear factual evidence that any government official intends to detain American citizens indefinitely without charges or legal due process, that would be very clear grounds for impeachment.
I'm not a huge expert on the subject, but I do believe that the former Yugoslavia under Marshall Tito was a Communist nation that didn't have problems with toltarianism or censorship. Their biggest problem was hatred across various ethnic lines within the nation.
It is both irresponsible and impossible to maintain such a firewall forever.
There are plenty of people who bypass the firewall already. China is marching into the 21st century with an eye to the future. They are building schools and focusing on emerging technologies. They are growing not only in population, but in knowledge and economy.
I don't think it is unreasonable to assume a strong possibility exists where they are the lone true superpower in the future.
However, you can not get to that point with discontent citizens, or backwards technological practices.
If you want people to love their country, then you can't pretend the past never happened.
The moment a strong Chinese political leader steps forward, admits to all the past mistakes made by former Chinese leaders, and motivates their population under the banner of a new, free China, watch the fuck out.
Thank you. As a former US Marine I so often get discouraged by the hatred so many Americans have fostered for their country.
When in reality, I think they have little to no appreciation for what we have here.
We're very much imperfect, and I greatly frustrated by some aspects of our culture, but we are very much a free nation. Perhaps sometime people should see what it is to live in nation without civil liberties.
Please revise your comment unless you fully intended to troll.
The Chinese Government is Communist. All "Chinamen" are not.
Furthermore, Communism does not have to equate directly to censorship.
What I crave will likely never happen, but that is KHTML as the rendering engine with all the features of plugins of Firefox.
Konqueror has three main functions.
The file manager function has been replaced by Dolphin.
The document viewer function has been replaced by Okular.
Quite frankly, KHTML and this web-unity project shouldn't be a threat to Mozilla, but rather an opportunity.
Imagine for two seconds if Safari, Firefox and Konqeueror all used the same rendering engine. As a web designer, I design valid (X)HTML and test it in Safari, Firefox or Konqueror, confident that I know it will render the same way in all three browsers.
Wouldn't such a triumvirate pose a serious threat to Microsoft?
Even Opera would have to seriously consider joining in the KHTML love.
Is the front-end so horrible when everyone gets it so easily despite the fact that it is the most robust email/calendar system on the planet?
That's my point.
If the interface is that intuitive and easy to pick up, yet so feature rich that most people never fully use the whole system, then it can't be that bad of a design, especially where there are and have been projects to replace Outlook/Exchange, and none have succeeded.
You insist it is easy to replace, yet no one has.
I'm going to assume you used Outlook for personal mail at home because it came with Office?
It is arguably the simplest, most intuitive, yet powerful tool Microsoft ever gave the average business user. I work in IT, and I have to support hundreds of end-users who don't know a damned thing about computers, but they get Outlook right away.
Microsoft has done many things wrong, but when you utilize Outlook in a domain with Exchange/Active Directory, you get a pretty powerful tool.
He speaks the truth.
I don't care for Microsoft's business practices. And many of their products are horribly flawed.
But Outlook/Exchange are staples in the business world, and I don't see a really alternative.