Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" music video was blamed for a school shooting. The odd thing is that the video is supposed to be about a suicide, not a murder, but is frequently misinterpreted. I believe they asked the band to testify during the trial as the defense team blamed the band for the murders.
This is the letter I sent to my elected officials. Each sent me a form letter back in response on their views on the 2nd amendment that made it clear none of them read my letter.
--------
As a parent, I found the events in Sandy Hook Elementary truly frightening. As a society, we should look for solutions to prevent gun violence. However, the discussion I'm seeing in Washington D.C. pointing back repeatedly to video games is not only off the mark, but it is harmful. When we point the finger in the wrong direction, we obfuscate the real issues, preventing them from being addressed. And we punish unfairly.
No one has ever found a link video games and aggression beyond vague correlations that don't stand up to basic logic and reasoning.
72% of Americans play video games. There does not appear to be any clear correlation to violent behavior.
Violent video games are just as popular, if not more-so in countries like Japan, Germany, Canada, England, etc. without any correlation of violent behavior.
The talking point that video games give people the courage to commit crimes they wouldn't otherwise could be applied just the same to music, books, movies and television shows. It is flawed logic to begin with, but video games should be viewed the same way as these other mediums. They are self-regulated with ratings to allow parents to make informed decisions about what games/shows/movies, etc. are appropriate for their children.
I served in the Marine Corps. Playing Halo is not the equivalent of military training and I find it laughable that people make such claims.
In the immediate aftermath of the Columbine school shooting, President Clinton and his wife were both quick to blame video games. Hillary Clinton made it a core issue of her tenure in New York, trying repeatedly to pass federal legislation to criminalize the sale of violent video games to kids (a problem that doesn't exist given that each study has shown most retailers will not sell M rated titles to children - http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/05/secretshop.shtm). If they had instead focused immediately on the actual issues, perhaps we wouldn't have had as many school shootings since then.
The more time that we waste in Washington D.C. blaming the wrong parties, the more we perpetuate the actual issues. Doing so is disrespectful and a disservice to those who have lost loved ones to such violence.
I am hoping that we can count on you as a leader to steer the discussion to where it needs to go (responsible gun control, mental health advocacy, reasonable security measures).
The 9/11 commission said Iraq wasn't tied to 9/11. Bush said in repeated speeches that Iraq wasn't tied to 9/11. He said going into Iraq was part of the war on terror, which got him in trouble.
The media turned around and said Bush lied by linking Iraq to 9/11 when he said the exact opposite of that. The media created the story that using the word terror is the same thing as saying "Iraq perpetrated 9/11". The problem is that the media is the one who twisted the context, since they failed to repeat Bush's direct statements that Iraq wasn't responsible.
Bush was an idiot and did a lot of things wrong. But the media also editorialized to suit their agenda at the same time. But in this case, lives were lost because of it.
When inspectors would show up unannounced, Iraq wouldn't let them inspect. They were allowed to inspect certain areas on certain days if Iraq approved it ahead of time. The inspection process was a joke, but Hans Blix defended it because he didn't want to see war again.
The irony is that if Hans was harsher and enforced real surprise inspections, perhaps we would have had real answers on WMD sooner and prevented war. By not really running proper inspections, Blix may have enabled the war to happen.
For better or worse, Bush and Cheney thought it was the right thing to do. It wasn't like they got rich doing so.
People like to conveniently forget, but right after 9/11 (two days later if I recall) the UN Security Council unanimously passed another measure threatening Iraq for lack of compliance, but Bush publicly spoke about not rushing to blame Iraq, and letting facts come out over time. If Bush wanted to capitalize on popularity, he could have gone into Iraq immediately after 9/11, though he would have been wrong to do so.
The argument for going into Iraq 3 years later came down to 3 points (which Bush laid out in his national address 2 weeks before going into Iraq).
1. 30 million people living in Iraq were in danger. Saddam had begun cutting off shipments of food to cities, shutting off water, etc. He had bombed Kurds and chased them out of their homes, forcing them to hide in caves.
2. The cease fire from 1991 was based on Iraq's compliance. The UN Security council then passed 75 resolutions over the next 10 years citing that Iraq was refusing to comply and waving their fist. Bush contended that Iraq had refused to abide by the terms of the cease-fire, so the initial authorization for military conflict in 1991 stood. Some say this is cheap logic, but at the same time, if you never once follow through on an ultimatum, then the UN Security Council becomes a paper tiger (if they aren't already).
3. He said the CIA had presented evidence that Iraq had been pursuing WMD. This is the biggest point of contention. I know Powell despises war, but argued for war because he believed the intel as well. In retrospect, I guess some of the intel was flawed. And the term WMD is so vague, that the American public perceived this as ICBMs where Iraq could nuke the US, which is absurd. Bush also screwed up big time by asking the UN permission to invade in advance (tipping off Iraq) and then announcing on national TV he was going to invade two weeks later. Then famously, we saw a huge caravan leave Iraq and head into Syria. Powell then noted we'd likely never find the smoking gun on WMD evidence as we gave them warning to move it out of country.
We did find training manuals, storage facilities, missiles with sarin gas, etc. but not a huge smoking gun of lots of really dangerous WMD. Maybe they had more, and maybe they didn't. I guess we'll never know.
But even in the Twitter age, the first two points would stand, even if journalists questioned the intel on point 3 sooner.
The common talking point that Bush lied to create war for his profit is a really absurd lie that needs to go away. Bush was an idiot and he also acted on bad intel. But it wasn't like he lined his pockets with oil money and fabricated the situation.
They had Unity built on Qt, but I think it was just the 2D with no compositing fall-back mode. With Plasma and Qt, it should be trivial to make a Unity desktop shell with QML.
Their new phone stack uses uses Qt and QML.
I don't understand half using Gnome and using Qt at this point.
So you weren't asking an honest question, you were just trolling.
You discount the performance increase from the S3 to the S4 as a useless jump in numbers, but are quick to point out that you assume iOS will have a better increase in numbers in their next device.
However, I'll give a real response in case anyone is still reading.
iOS devices have often had better GPUs than many Android devices, and they have more games in their app store. An iPhone/iPad at the same price as an Android device can be seen as a better gaming device.
That being said, I happily switched from the iPhone 4 personally to the S3 and am happy with the move. There are enough games on Android that I'm more than happy. The S3 is great hardware. And I actually prefer the software/UI/experience.
Mind you, the above link is for Hawken on a Tegra 4, which this isn't using, but the point is that developers are working on bringing console-level titles to phones.
I understand, but again they're in a tight market with Apple on the finished phones.
I don't believe they'd sell more phones to see a 9% increase in overall company revenue simply by not making processors for Apple.
Apple has a decent profit margin per product and tons of cash. If Apple had to pay slightly more per proc through another supplier, they'd likely have to eat the difference.
You're suggesting Samsung drop 9% of their total revenue to slightly screw over Apple. But it wouldn't really benefit Samsung. Samsung acting like a dick won't make Samsung suddenly sell tons more phones.
Even though these companies compete with finished products, I believe it is a good deal for both companies for Samsung to produce chips for Apple, which is precisely why the deal persists despite their legal wrangling.
It would hurt Samsung to suddenly drop 9% of their revenue. And because they're competing fiercely, they can't suddenly make a higher margin on less parts in a tight market.
Apple has shopped and can't find a better supplier, which is why they still use a company they hate. They get a part they need at the right price.
The Supreme Court made a famous eminent domain ruling in 2005, empowering the government to seize more land. Bush then issued an executive order as a response to actually limit eminent domain.
So it was actually the opposite of what you just said.
This. I'm shocked no one else saw what was obvious here.
AMD is providing a unified CPU/GPU on a single die that shares the same memory and bandwidth. For Nvidia to provide a separate GPU to compete at the same performance and price would be really difficult, if not impossible.
But Palin balanced the budget in Alaska and called out corrupt Republicans like Stevens. I'm assuming he thought she too would do what was right regardless of party lines, while at the same time, appealing to the more fundamentalist Republic voters (who didn't like McCain because he was too centrist).
As a Libertarian, obviously I voted Gary Johnson. However, I think our best candidate from the two major parties in the past 8 years was McCain. But the Democrat spin at the time was McCain was Bush 2.0, and if you hated Bush, you had to vote against him. They said he would be pro-war and bad for the country.
McCain routinely called out Republicans while heading the ethics commission in D.C. After he was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he volunteered to go back to Vietnam as an ambassador and help end the war. He did the same thing in Korea. While Americans wanted to see the war in Iraq and Afghanistan ended, we had a president with strong military background (having served, and was raised by a 4-star Admiral), existing rapport with foreign leaders and experience ending wars. But the media said he'd probably be pro-war.
Americans wanted someone who would improve foreign relations, so we voted against he guy who had great rapport with foreign leaders, and voted for Obama who went on TV and made a joke about the Special Olympics, and who made fun of McCain's physical disabilities (a result of his POW torture). We have a President only capable of speaking off a teleprompter who makes offensive comments when off it. I don't see how that helps our rapport with foreign leaders.
McCain routinely crossed the aisle in D.C. and didn't care about party lines, but rather what was right. He promised to call out individual politicians in either party who added pork to bills.
He also said that instead of doing talk shows perhaps as a Senator, his first job should be working in D.C. to fix the economy, which Obama disagreed with. Apparently talk shows are more important than fixing the economy.
I get a number of reasons why people didn't like Romney, but it is a damn shame we elected Obama over McCain.
When Obama ran for President the first time around, he promised repeatedly to end warantless wiretapping and protect our privacy. During the same campaign, he actually voted as a senator to extend warantless wiretapping. When called out on this outright lie, he said he no choice, because the bill would pass either way. Frankly, this is a stupid excuse. If it would pass either way, what harm would there be in being honest and voting against it like he said he would?
Then once in the White House, one of his first Executive Orders was actually to extend the power of the program. We also know have warrantless GPS tracking and spy drones over US soil.
The argument for voting for Obama was in theory that we couldn't afford a Republican candidate because they would do these things. The reality is that blinding voting either party often turns out bad.
Look at the records of the past three Presidents and you'll see that they don't fall into traditional party stereotypes:
George W. Bush * He spent like mad and created new government bureacracy (Homeland Security). A Republican spent more and supported Bigger Government. * Created a tax credit for solar panels and hybrid cars. A Republican was anti-oil and pro-environment. * Increased stem cell research. Pro-science (and Republicans are supposed to be anti-stem-cells!) * Increased NASA budget. Pro-science! * Passed clean air and water acts in his first 100 days (after Clinton promised to for 8 years and didn't) * Penalized US automakers who didn't make hybrids * Pushed for higher fuel economy standards (Democrats pushed a much weaker version that Bush called for and oddly enough Obama fully supported Bush as a senator on this) * Helped prevent a war in Liberia and negotiated for a dictator to step down without bullets being fired * Argued immediately after 9/11 that we not blame Iraq and argued that people who were calling for war in Iraq should wait for facts to come out * Supported an open/transparent commission to study 9/11 with the full report being released to the public
Before him, Clinton:
* Bombed 4 countries without asking Congress for approval * Compromised with Newt Gingrinch to cut government spending to balance the budget. Yep, a Democrat worked towards smaller government. * Refused to push through clean air/water acts that were written and just waiting for a push despite promising to do so * Declared "banks were too big to fail" and pushed for what was then considered an illegal merger with Citbank and Travellers Insurance (by getting rid of the Glass-Steagall law thusly now making it legal). After this, Citigroup hired a bunch of politicians as lobbyists, and Clinton appointed Citigroup employees to government positions. Seriously. * Was accused of undisclosed massive donations not only from corporations that he hid, but also from the Chinese government. Hillary Clinton was then later also caught taking donations from the Chinese government. Seriously.
Obama:
* Refused to release the White House emails he promised to release when in office (despite all these claims of transparency) * Filled his cabinet with lobbyists after promising no Washington old-guard and no lobbyists * Screams about paying taxes when half his cabinet has been busted for not paying taxes * Supported an additional bail out with no real controls on how the money was handled by big banks, allowing CEOs who created the crisis to steal tax payer dollars * Refused to disclose where his big online campaign donations came from and won't support campaign transparency * Created warrantless GPS tracking and has spy drones on US soil * Promised to close Gitmo * His means of ending detainee torture was to order prisoners to be killed rather than kept in war. Real humane there. * Sent troops to Libya and Yemen when both Congress and the public opposed it * Cut NASA funding and cancelled missions
If you dig deeper into other politicians, you'll see this all the time. Harry Reid is one
2 Live Crew also had their albums banned in Florida by Jack Thompson who deemed them indecent. I'm not talking about any attempt at censorship over something deemed indecent.
I meant the US tried specifically to ban pornography from the internet. It simply doesn't work and is impossible to do.
Google paid for the development of Android and then released it as open source. They try to make that money back through licenses and mobile search ads.
If you don't like it, then you're free to install a forked ROM that caters to your privacy needs, because Google released it as open source and even encourages Android fork development. And they'll be happy to sell you hardware without a locked bootloader, making it even easier to do this.
Google wants to make money, but they're giving you the tools and freedom to do what you want.
There is a massive difference. One if handing your personal information out to third parties, and the other one protects your privacy and doesn't hand your personal information out to third parties.
If you're completely against seeing ads, you can pay for hosted email from Google with no ads.
If you think it is evil that they're trying to recoup the costs of free email with ads, then I don't know what to tell you.
Not entirely true. Google initially created Android and released it as open source. But Android today is governed by the Open Handset Alliance. Several companies (including hardware ones) have a say in Android development, not just Google.
Slashdot Mirror
Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" music video was blamed for a school shooting. The odd thing is that the video is supposed to be about a suicide, not a murder, but is frequently misinterpreted. I believe they asked the band to testify during the trial as the defense team blamed the band for the murders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_(song)#Controversy
This is the letter I sent to my elected officials. Each sent me a form letter back in response on their views on the 2nd amendment that made it clear none of them read my letter.
--------
As a parent, I found the events in Sandy Hook Elementary truly frightening. As a society, we should look for solutions to prevent gun violence. However, the discussion I'm seeing in Washington D.C. pointing back repeatedly to video games is not only off the mark, but it is harmful. When we point the finger in the wrong direction, we obfuscate the real issues, preventing them from being addressed. And we punish unfairly.
No one has ever found a link video games and aggression beyond vague correlations that don't stand up to basic logic and reasoning.
Violent crime has actually decreased since 1994 while video games are being played more. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/viortrdtab.cfm
Juvenile crime is actually at a 30-year low.
72% of Americans play video games. There does not appear to be any clear correlation to violent behavior.
Violent video games are just as popular, if not more-so in countries like Japan, Germany, Canada, England, etc. without any correlation of violent behavior.
The talking point that video games give people the courage to commit crimes they wouldn't otherwise could be applied just the same to music, books, movies and television shows. It is flawed logic to begin with, but video games should be viewed the same way as these other mediums. They are self-regulated with ratings to allow parents to make informed decisions about what games/shows/movies, etc. are appropriate for their children.
I served in the Marine Corps. Playing Halo is not the equivalent of military training and I find it laughable that people make such claims.
In the immediate aftermath of the Columbine school shooting, President Clinton and his wife were both quick to blame video games. Hillary Clinton made it a core issue of her tenure in New York, trying repeatedly to pass federal legislation to criminalize the sale of violent video games to kids (a problem that doesn't exist given that each study has shown most retailers will not sell M rated titles to children - http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/05/secretshop.shtm). If they had instead focused immediately on the actual issues, perhaps we wouldn't have had as many school shootings since then.
The more time that we waste in Washington D.C. blaming the wrong parties, the more we perpetuate the actual issues. Doing so is disrespectful and a disservice to those who have lost loved ones to such violence.
I am hoping that we can count on you as a leader to steer the discussion to where it needs to go (responsible gun control, mental health advocacy, reasonable security measures).
The 9/11 commission said Iraq wasn't tied to 9/11. Bush said in repeated speeches that Iraq wasn't tied to 9/11. He said going into Iraq was part of the war on terror, which got him in trouble.
The media turned around and said Bush lied by linking Iraq to 9/11 when he said the exact opposite of that. The media created the story that using the word terror is the same thing as saying "Iraq perpetrated 9/11". The problem is that the media is the one who twisted the context, since they failed to repeat Bush's direct statements that Iraq wasn't responsible.
Bush was an idiot and did a lot of things wrong. But the media also editorialized to suit their agenda at the same time. But in this case, lives were lost because of it.
Since I'm a pedantic asshole, yes Iraq was aiding terrorists. They were just aiding terrorists killing people in Israel, not in the US.
When inspectors would show up unannounced, Iraq wouldn't let them inspect. They were allowed to inspect certain areas on certain days if Iraq approved it ahead of time. The inspection process was a joke, but Hans Blix defended it because he didn't want to see war again.
The irony is that if Hans was harsher and enforced real surprise inspections, perhaps we would have had real answers on WMD sooner and prevented war. By not really running proper inspections, Blix may have enabled the war to happen.
How did Bush, Cheney and the like profit?
For better or worse, Bush and Cheney thought it was the right thing to do. It wasn't like they got rich doing so.
People like to conveniently forget, but right after 9/11 (two days later if I recall) the UN Security Council unanimously passed another measure threatening Iraq for lack of compliance, but Bush publicly spoke about not rushing to blame Iraq, and letting facts come out over time. If Bush wanted to capitalize on popularity, he could have gone into Iraq immediately after 9/11, though he would have been wrong to do so.
The argument for going into Iraq 3 years later came down to 3 points (which Bush laid out in his national address 2 weeks before going into Iraq).
1. 30 million people living in Iraq were in danger. Saddam had begun cutting off shipments of food to cities, shutting off water, etc. He had bombed Kurds and chased them out of their homes, forcing them to hide in caves.
2. The cease fire from 1991 was based on Iraq's compliance. The UN Security council then passed 75 resolutions over the next 10 years citing that Iraq was refusing to comply and waving their fist. Bush contended that Iraq had refused to abide by the terms of the cease-fire, so the initial authorization for military conflict in 1991 stood. Some say this is cheap logic, but at the same time, if you never once follow through on an ultimatum, then the UN Security Council becomes a paper tiger (if they aren't already).
3. He said the CIA had presented evidence that Iraq had been pursuing WMD. This is the biggest point of contention. I know Powell despises war, but argued for war because he believed the intel as well. In retrospect, I guess some of the intel was flawed. And the term WMD is so vague, that the American public perceived this as ICBMs where Iraq could nuke the US, which is absurd. Bush also screwed up big time by asking the UN permission to invade in advance (tipping off Iraq) and then announcing on national TV he was going to invade two weeks later. Then famously, we saw a huge caravan leave Iraq and head into Syria. Powell then noted we'd likely never find the smoking gun on WMD evidence as we gave them warning to move it out of country.
We did find training manuals, storage facilities, missiles with sarin gas, etc. but not a huge smoking gun of lots of really dangerous WMD. Maybe they had more, and maybe they didn't. I guess we'll never know.
But even in the Twitter age, the first two points would stand, even if journalists questioned the intel on point 3 sooner.
The common talking point that Bush lied to create war for his profit is a really absurd lie that needs to go away. Bush was an idiot and he also acted on bad intel. But it wasn't like he lined his pockets with oil money and fabricated the situation.
They had Unity built on Qt, but I think it was just the 2D with no compositing fall-back mode. With Plasma and Qt, it should be trivial to make a Unity desktop shell with QML.
Their new phone stack uses uses Qt and QML.
I don't understand half using Gnome and using Qt at this point.
So you weren't asking an honest question, you were just trolling.
You discount the performance increase from the S3 to the S4 as a useless jump in numbers, but are quick to point out that you assume iOS will have a better increase in numbers in their next device.
However, I'll give a real response in case anyone is still reading.
iOS devices have often had better GPUs than many Android devices, and they have more games in their app store. An iPhone/iPad at the same price as an Android device can be seen as a better gaming device.
That being said, I happily switched from the iPhone 4 personally to the S3 and am happy with the move. There are enough games on Android that I'm more than happy. The S3 is great hardware. And I actually prefer the software/UI/experience.
http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/7/3848380/hawken-project-shield-exclusive-tegra-4
Mind you, the above link is for Hawken on a Tegra 4, which this isn't using, but the point is that developers are working on bringing console-level titles to phones.
BTW, see today's news as a further example of why Apple is having difficult moving away from Samsung.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/03/apple-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit-over-defective-retina-displays/
I expect the two to continue to partner for some time.
I understand, but again they're in a tight market with Apple on the finished phones.
I don't believe they'd sell more phones to see a 9% increase in overall company revenue simply by not making processors for Apple.
Apple has a decent profit margin per product and tons of cash. If Apple had to pay slightly more per proc through another supplier, they'd likely have to eat the difference.
You're suggesting Samsung drop 9% of their total revenue to slightly screw over Apple. But it wouldn't really benefit Samsung. Samsung acting like a dick won't make Samsung suddenly sell tons more phones.
Even though these companies compete with finished products, I believe it is a good deal for both companies for Samsung to produce chips for Apple, which is precisely why the deal persists despite their legal wrangling.
It would hurt Samsung to suddenly drop 9% of their revenue. And because they're competing fiercely, they can't suddenly make a higher margin on less parts in a tight market.
Apple has shopped and can't find a better supplier, which is why they still use a company they hate. They get a part they need at the right price.
That's exactly what I said. He promised one thing and did exactly the opposite.
If you finished the sentence before replying, you would have seen that.
The Supreme Court made a famous eminent domain ruling in 2005, empowering the government to seize more land. Bush then issued an executive order as a response to actually limit eminent domain.
So it was actually the opposite of what you just said.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
This. I'm shocked no one else saw what was obvious here.
AMD is providing a unified CPU/GPU on a single die that shares the same memory and bandwidth. For Nvidia to provide a separate GPU to compete at the same performance and price would be really difficult, if not impossible.
Samsung has a similar contract to make all the processors for every iPhone, iPad, etc.
Man, that contract must suck. It provides 9% of all Samsung revenue.
People who owe banks money and thusly can't keep a checking account.
Or impatient people who want to spend their refund before receiving it.
Picking Palin was massive, massive mistake.
But Palin balanced the budget in Alaska and called out corrupt Republicans like Stevens. I'm assuming he thought she too would do what was right regardless of party lines, while at the same time, appealing to the more fundamentalist Republic voters (who didn't like McCain because he was too centrist).
That mistake blew up in his face in a big way.
As a Libertarian, obviously I voted Gary Johnson. However, I think our best candidate from the two major parties in the past 8 years was McCain. But the Democrat spin at the time was McCain was Bush 2.0, and if you hated Bush, you had to vote against him. They said he would be pro-war and bad for the country.
McCain routinely called out Republicans while heading the ethics commission in D.C. After he was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he volunteered to go back to Vietnam as an ambassador and help end the war. He did the same thing in Korea. While Americans wanted to see the war in Iraq and Afghanistan ended, we had a president with strong military background (having served, and was raised by a 4-star Admiral), existing rapport with foreign leaders and experience ending wars. But the media said he'd probably be pro-war.
Americans wanted someone who would improve foreign relations, so we voted against he guy who had great rapport with foreign leaders, and voted for Obama who went on TV and made a joke about the Special Olympics, and who made fun of McCain's physical disabilities (a result of his POW torture). We have a President only capable of speaking off a teleprompter who makes offensive comments when off it. I don't see how that helps our rapport with foreign leaders.
McCain routinely crossed the aisle in D.C. and didn't care about party lines, but rather what was right. He promised to call out individual politicians in either party who added pork to bills.
He also said that instead of doing talk shows perhaps as a Senator, his first job should be working in D.C. to fix the economy, which Obama disagreed with. Apparently talk shows are more important than fixing the economy.
I get a number of reasons why people didn't like Romney, but it is a damn shame we elected Obama over McCain.
When Obama ran for President the first time around, he promised repeatedly to end warantless wiretapping and protect our privacy. During the same campaign, he actually voted as a senator to extend warantless wiretapping. When called out on this outright lie, he said he no choice, because the bill would pass either way. Frankly, this is a stupid excuse. If it would pass either way, what harm would there be in being honest and voting against it like he said he would?
Then once in the White House, one of his first Executive Orders was actually to extend the power of the program. We also know have warrantless GPS tracking and spy drones over US soil.
The argument for voting for Obama was in theory that we couldn't afford a Republican candidate because they would do these things. The reality is that blinding voting either party often turns out bad.
Look at the records of the past three Presidents and you'll see that they don't fall into traditional party stereotypes:
George W. Bush
* He spent like mad and created new government bureacracy (Homeland Security). A Republican spent more and supported Bigger Government.
* Created a tax credit for solar panels and hybrid cars. A Republican was anti-oil and pro-environment.
* Increased stem cell research. Pro-science (and Republicans are supposed to be anti-stem-cells!)
* Increased NASA budget. Pro-science!
* Passed clean air and water acts in his first 100 days (after Clinton promised to for 8 years and didn't)
* Penalized US automakers who didn't make hybrids
* Pushed for higher fuel economy standards (Democrats pushed a much weaker version that Bush called for and oddly enough Obama fully supported Bush as a senator on this)
* Helped prevent a war in Liberia and negotiated for a dictator to step down without bullets being fired
* Argued immediately after 9/11 that we not blame Iraq and argued that people who were calling for war in Iraq should wait for facts to come out
* Supported an open/transparent commission to study 9/11 with the full report being released to the public
Before him, Clinton:
* Bombed 4 countries without asking Congress for approval
* Compromised with Newt Gingrinch to cut government spending to balance the budget. Yep, a Democrat worked towards smaller government.
* Refused to push through clean air/water acts that were written and just waiting for a push despite promising to do so
* Declared "banks were too big to fail" and pushed for what was then considered an illegal merger with Citbank and Travellers Insurance (by getting rid of the Glass-Steagall law thusly now making it legal). After this, Citigroup hired a bunch of politicians as lobbyists, and Clinton appointed Citigroup employees to government positions. Seriously.
* Was accused of undisclosed massive donations not only from corporations that he hid, but also from the Chinese government. Hillary Clinton was then later also caught taking donations from the Chinese government. Seriously.
Obama:
* Refused to release the White House emails he promised to release when in office (despite all these claims of transparency)
* Filled his cabinet with lobbyists after promising no Washington old-guard and no lobbyists
* Screams about paying taxes when half his cabinet has been busted for not paying taxes
* Supported an additional bail out with no real controls on how the money was handled by big banks, allowing CEOs who created the crisis to steal tax payer dollars
* Refused to disclose where his big online campaign donations came from and won't support campaign transparency
* Created warrantless GPS tracking and has spy drones on US soil
* Promised to close Gitmo
* His means of ending detainee torture was to order prisoners to be killed rather than kept in war. Real humane there.
* Sent troops to Libya and Yemen when both Congress and the public opposed it
* Cut NASA funding and cancelled missions
If you dig deeper into other politicians, you'll see this all the time. Harry Reid is one
2 Live Crew also had their albums banned in Florida by Jack Thompson who deemed them indecent. I'm not talking about any attempt at censorship over something deemed indecent.
I meant the US tried specifically to ban pornography from the internet. It simply doesn't work and is impossible to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act
Google paid for the development of Android and then released it as open source. They try to make that money back through licenses and mobile search ads.
If you don't like it, then you're free to install a forked ROM that caters to your privacy needs, because Google released it as open source and even encourages Android fork development. And they'll be happy to sell you hardware without a locked bootloader, making it even easier to do this.
Google wants to make money, but they're giving you the tools and freedom to do what you want.
There is a massive difference. One if handing your personal information out to third parties, and the other one protects your privacy and doesn't hand your personal information out to third parties.
If you're completely against seeing ads, you can pay for hosted email from Google with no ads.
If you think it is evil that they're trying to recoup the costs of free email with ads, then I don't know what to tell you.
Not entirely true. Google initially created Android and released it as open source. But Android today is governed by the Open Handset Alliance. Several companies (including hardware ones) have a say in Android development, not just Google.
http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html