While I doubt we agree on everything politically, you've hit the nail squarely on the head.
The U.S. needs a free market of ideas, and the Democrats' failure to come up with some kind of platform isn't just hurting their party, it's hurting the country.
I lean to the right, but I've certainly voted for Democrats and third party candidates before - more than my fair share, in fact. I voted for them because I liked their platform... and this requires having a platform, something the DNC seems incapable of creating at the present time.
Voting opposition for strictly contrarian purposes is not particularly desirable to me. Until I see a better platform than "we're the DNC, not the RNC, vote for me!", I'm not buying.
2. People fill out polls to make a statement. Again, this tends to favor opposition parties, or parties that are less likely to be represented in a region. People like the idea of voting twice.
Shouldn't have left this point so quickly without going for a deeper explanation. My mistake.
People like to show their support for a candidate they feel very strongly about more than once. Those who vote for Incumbents/members of the dominant party are, generally speaking of course, less passionate about the matter - they're happy with how things are. Those who vote for the opposition are more likely (although certainly not always) to feel strongly about the matter and want their opinion registered as much as possible.
"the idea of voting twice" was a misstatement on my part.
I have... and our results were off by a quite a bit.
Why? I can think of a few reasons:
1. It takes time. It usually takes about 10-15 minutes to fill out a good exit poll form. People with less time on their hands - people with steady jobs, people with kids, people who vote in the morning on the way to work, etc. - are much less likely to accept the polling sheet. On the other hand, people with lots of time on their hands - the retired, the unemployed, often younger voters, etc. - are much more likely to fill out exit poll forms. Given that the unemployed are more likely to vote a certain way (generally for the opposition party, whoever that may be), this can lead to skewed data, not to mention other groups.
2. People fill out polls to make a statement. Again, this tends to favor opposition parties, or parties that are less likely to be represented in a region. People like the idea of voting twice.
3. The organization you poll for could determine who answers your questions. Example - "Hi, I'm performing a poll for University X! Could I take ten minutes of your time?" If the person you are trying to poll doesn't like your university's football team, they may not participate. Or, if a poller represents a news organization the person dislikes, a potential pollee (?) may opt out as well.
4. People honestly forget. This doesn't happen so much in presidential elections, to be sure, but on many exit polls people mark their own votes wrong because they forget what proposition x was or who the candidates for a seat on whatever were.
As someone who has worked exit polls before, let me assure you that they're not always accurate and there are a LOT of things that can throw them off.
In any case, though, the CNN exit poll data from 2004 should make the case for a Bush win, if you go by exit poll data alone.
For you will surely receive it. If there's one thing slashdotters love, it's a simple bumper-sticker slogan that makes everyone feel better.
Yet we all cede various amounts of "essential liberty" for safety - temporary and permanent.
We do not drive as we wish to ensure proper order on the roads (we hold to the proper lane... well... most of us).
We cede liberty to do as we wish when we want to constantly. Building codes, taxes, standards, all interfere with us doing precisely what we wish to do.
Certainly there is a question here between "liberty" and "essential liberty" - is it essential to drive precisely as we wish? - but the fact remains that giving up liberty allows for order.
Quoting Ben Franklin is wonderful and all, but can one quote another founding father in response?
"There is nothing more necessary than good intelligence to frustrate a designing enemy, & nothing requires greater pains to obtain." - George Washington
We can play dueling quotes all we want - do the "pains" Washington mentions include potential conflicts of interest with civil liberties? - but until a mature discussion that doesn't depend on what men said well over 200 years ago out of the present context comes up, I don't think it will be very productive.
At present, I have no opinion on the bill as I have yet to read it and do not trust the media's ability to interpret anything correctly. When I have a chance, I'll read it and some more insightful (non-blog, non-mass media) commentary and then form an opoinion.
Sometimes, a company can only make a security threat worse by declaring the problem exists.
Let's take a stolen laptop, for example. If Company A's suffers a laptop theft, and the laptop (for whatever stupid reason) has the personal data of thousands of customers or employees on it, how should that company respond? This is obviously an example of poor security to begin with (no one should have that kind of information on a laptop taken off the premises), but how do you keep a bad situation from getting worse?
I see no clear best answer. Do you announce it to the world and all of your customers? While this would be a perfectly acceptable and reasonable knee-jerk response, I'm not convinced it's the best one. What happens if the punks who took the laptop are only interested in pawning it, ditching it at the first possible moment, likely to someone who doesn't really care about the data on there (obviously, however, they might)? If you notify the world of the theft and what was lost, you've just greatly increased the likelihood that information could be used against you and let the crooks know they have something of much more value - you could (and that is the key word here) make a problem worse while acting with the best intentions.
On the other hand, hiding this problem from your customers is certainly not ethical. It's their data, their money after all. But by assuming the worst could happen and informing people, do you ensure the worst will happen?
I'm not sure there's always a best way to handle these things - sometimes it could be informing everyone, at other times it could just mean scrutinizing accounts more closely while keeping everything quiet. It's a hard thing to balance.
I'm no security professional, but I'd like to ask those who are - is my reasoning correct, or am I totally off? If I'm off, please feel free to critique/correct at will, as I would love to hear more.
Personally, I would support this move. While there are certainly matters of personal freedom involved, I would pay any price, bear any burden, undertake any action possible to save a new generation from "Ice Ice Baby". Secret prison camps with sound-proofed walls filled with upper-middle class white kids with bad hair and the mistaken impression they're hip? It's not just something I'd accept, it's something I'd encourage!
Please, DHS, please! Think of the children! Think of the children who, 15+ years later still have to hear this crap on early 90's compilation CDs! Do not make the same mistake with the coming generation, nip this threat in the bud!
Are you really that stupid AND ignorant? The two do often go together, of course...
, not supposed "disciplines" cobbled together to put weight behind political dogma., not supposed "disciplines" cobbled together to put weight behind political dogma.
Wow, this would explain why there are no leftists in the political sciences! No, none at all! It must be due to all of those crazy, rich, elitist doctorate holders! Why, it's not as if there were leftists in my list several posts back about influential thinkers... no... none at all! And who are these "elite echelons" Ph.D professors you speak of? As someone who has been in the field for years now, I've yet to meet anyone with a Ph.D in the Political Sciences that comes from a particularly wealthy family, and I've met more than my share of people from across the political spectrum. Oh, but you know better.
If you are all the left has to offer - and for the sake of this country, I sincerely hope that's not the case - the Democrats will never regain power. Nor would they deserve it. My only hope is that you're not yet of voting age, which gives me little hope in the up and coming generation, but at least some hope for the present.
I'm off to bed, so no time to even bother. Great way to lighten up the evening, though. Thanks once again for the laughs, especially this nugget:
Since the left speaks clearly, but with great complexity, I can only assume you simply don't understand the complexity theyre trying to convey to you.. you insult yourself wrongly here.. because I honestly think you're more competent than that.
Allow me to assure you that I hold no similar opinion of your intellect.
Also... people with Ph.D's in fields like those you are speaking about also tend to be in the elite echelons of the upper class, because those degrees tend to cost you more money than you make from them (without the right connections, of course.. wink wink).. and you wander why they espouse elitist right wing values and are listened to by elitist right wing leaders?
Ah, the left's distrust for science...
I've got to go sleep so I can wake up with all the energy I need to keep down the teeming masses yearning to be free. Toddle back along to Kos and post away where your views won't be challenged, and you'll feel much better, I promise!
Most of your post is simply too absurd to bother with responding to, but I'll have some fun while I'm here:
First, naom chomsky and Al Franken are influential political thinkers.. or maybe lies and lying liars didnt make it to the the top 10 best sellers list?
So, I should read Ann Coulter as well? Great! She's influential! Stupid, but influential! She's on a top 10 list!
By influential, I mean people that write things policy makers read and have some hope of being implemented: Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama, Scott Sagan, John Mueller, Thomas Friedman, et al. People with doctorates in relevant fields, people who have worked on this. People who have done analysis or worked in the field. Not op/ed page dwellers that make a quick buck off of political rantings. Not linguistics professors who have made a living writing rants that find a home amongst Marxists.
Finally.. that whole rant just pegged you as an extreme neofascist right wing nutter.
Help, mommy, he's calling me names! Oooh... fascist. The left's favorite word! I'm so scared by it, ooooooh!
Those publications you seem to sarcastically laud in your shameless frothing rant have been thoroughly debunked as extreme right, and it's been shown from first hand witnesses that anything opposed to the right wing agenda since '01 has been kept out of the main stream by zealous editors, corporate chiefs, etc because it would be "bad for america"...
The Council on Foreign Relations has been "debunked as extreme right"? Are you really so stupid as to say something like that? No, seriously, if you post in response, I'd like you to type exactly those words - "The CFR has been debunked as an extreme right organization". They'll make a great sig for me. Do you have any idea what you're talking about? I mean at all? Have you heard of these publications? Read them? Or is anything other than The Nation simply a right-wing rag? Who, precisely, has debunked these publications? Where is your evidence? Oh wait... you don't need any... BUSH SUCKS, FASCIST!
Make Social Security insoluble. Great. Pardon me as I run for the ballot box...
better than making it "nonexistant".. by the way making it actually worth something to people by reforming it and undoing bush's rediculous privatization does not necessarily mean making it insoluble.. it may however mean that corporate executives will have to get 3 solid gold hum-v's this year instead of 4.
Yes, we should really stick with the present social security system, which is bound for failure in the next few decades, just to make sure no one gets "solid gold hum-v's" (which should be HMMWV, but hey, it's not like you're concerned with accuracy). Riiiiight...
Social Security will, effectively, become "nonexistent" unless massive reforms are made. Personally, since you're so concerned about rights and freedoms (vis-a-vis your position on the PATRIOT act), if the government wants to invest money in a retirement account for me, I'd like the choice of where that money goes rather than trusting the government (something you obviously have issues with) to put it into a system which depends on birth rates the U.S. is highly unlikely to sustain in the long-term.
Take a look at similar programs in countries whose present birth rate reflects what the U.S. birth rate will be in a few decades - here's a hint, it's not pretty. For someone who's supposedly so concerned about government intervention in our lives, working against a program that would allow people to exercise some freedom over how THEIR money is spent for THEIR retirement rather than just placing it all in a system that will not be able to provide for them in a few decades would seem to make sense. But your positions aren't based on personal consistency - simply arguing the contrary of what someone you don't like says.
As to the rest... heh, thanks for the laughs. It was a boring boring BORING (as you seem to like to type it) repeat of the gibberish found throughout the left and about as enlightening as reading a Franken/Chomsky/Coulter/Limbaugh debate.
-withdraw from iraq, try to do so gracefully since were damned if we stay and damned if we go.
So, the Democrats' official position is that Iraq's hopeless? Wow, I'm inspired with confidence. The solution of "no solution". Great.
-undo the damage to our civil liberties done by the patriot act
Yes, because the majority of the U.S. population is so pissed off that you can look at library records. Forgive me, but the PATRIOT Act is by far the least of my concerns. As someone who has done more than his fair share of studying national security issues, I recognize the need for something that goes well beyond FISA, which was designed to operate against different kinds of threats.
-reform social security by removing the blatant privatization bush put in which basically amounts to abolshment (but with the added benefit of commissions to brokers before your stock tanks)
Make Social Security insoluble. Great. Pardon me as I run for the ballot box...
-Universal health care (which responds to the increasing 10s of millions of people without healthcare, and which they make a damned good economic case for!)
Because it's worked oh so well for Europe and Canada! Quick, let's all jump on that bandwagon! And where do you plan on getting the funding for all of this?
-Investigation into bush's illegal activites, followed hopefully by impeachment
DOWN WITH BUSHITLER! Please, did you bother to read the post above?
-Investigation into oil companies among others for gouging.
Because there could only be one source for all the world's problems - rich people.
Among others.. it's all laid out..
I sincerely hope this isn't a serious party platform. Please, please tell me that your post is some kind of sick joke. No serious group could put this forward and expect people to vote for them.
Big media is owned by republicans so you don't see it.. listen to air america and they spend each and every day spelling out those exact same points.
And, of course, the big time media conspiracy theory which I don't buy from the right wing and find particularly fatuous when coming from the left. Yes, I must listen to the great Air America and exorcise the right wing demons like Ted Turner! Save me! Why, I've been wasting all of this time reading ridiculous publications like Foreign Affairs, Policy Review, and the Christian Science Monitor when I could've been listening to some idiot and paid political actor with a BA in Government tell me what to think in the form of nice, compact bumper sticker slogans! Oh, the fool I must be! I must throw away my entire library of books written by influential political thinkers and replace it with Al Franken and Noam Chomsky ravings!
If you're looking to convince me your party has anything resembling a platform, you've failed miserably.
I lean to the right politically, but I would love - LOVE - to have an alternative party. The Democrats have largely set themselves as simple contrarians with one plank on their platform - "vote for us, we're not the Republican party!"
Yes, I can see that. I saw that little "D" instead of the "R" which seems to be so dominant amongst elected officials these days.
But why on earth should I vote for a party which wants to get into power before stating a platform?
Economically speaking, the U.S. is doing quite well, so economics aren't much of the issue and elected officials have an often overstated effect on the economy as is. That's not much of a reason to vote for the Democrats. The present deficit level is high, to be sure, but that's not the sort of concern that really gets the voters out.
Iraq's a bit of a mess, but the Democrats haven't really stated what they're going to do with it beyond "we shouldn't have gone in". Great, we shouldn't have gone in, that's lovely and all, but guess what, we're there now - what do we do? They won't say. They don't have a plan at all... granted, the Bush administration's own plans are not particularly well-defined, but they are committed to staying for some time, which isn't the road map I'd like to see but it's heading in the right direction. Democrats can't decide to stay, go... or do anything else. Give me your party's POSITION on the matter! Do you have a position? Oh, that's right, I forgot, your position is, "we're not Bush!"
Then there's the "cultural issues". Democrats and their supporters alike can't seem to wrap their heads around this, but every time they lose an election they blame it on people who vote on "cultural issues". Perhaps if they learned that these cultural issues were really, truly important to many voters they could win votes, but noooo... instead, we hear the same mantra of, "stupid rednecks only care about x!" each election cycle. These stupid rednecks are voters, you know, and cultural issues are important to people, no matter how much the Democrats want to deny it. Responding to elections lost due to cultural issues by reaffirming your stance on these issues will NOT somehow magically bring people to your point of view.
I'm not entirely pleased with the Republican party at the moment, and would love to see some new ideas pop up on the hill. But the U.S. lacks an opposition party, and only has a band of contrarians without ideas.
It's like the Cola wars all over again, except instead of 'Coke' and 'Pepsi', I have 'Coke' and 'we're not Coke and we think Coke sucks!'
Please check your objectivity, nuance, and common sense at the door.
Now, we all get to read the political rantings in journal form of a slashdotter who finds himself/herself on a political extreme but, by chance, likely happens to coincide with an editor's own position. Oh joy. Particularly when the author of this journal is also the author of gems such as his own take on the Declaration of Independence.
SlashKos. Really old opinion pieces from music/culture magazines spun by random journal writers for far-left geeks. Stuff that really, truly doesn't matter, but hopefully will stir up some controversy and ad clicks.
I find myself on the right politically, but I'm not one to complain about stories that show the left's point of view, even the more extreme left. This however screams to me of "slow news day" and "must do something to get site traffic up" nonsense.
I realize my post is likely redundant, but some things simply must be said over and over. Why on earth was this posted here, now?
I come to Slashdot expecting Slashdot. Not SlashKos. For that matter, I'd also be unhappy to see SlashLGF, as well.
While I realize the author's complaint regarding the law, it should be noted that the definition of terrorist has changed at least a dozen times since the term was coined in the 1790's - scholars who study terrorism for a living still don't have a working definition of what it means to be a terrorist that is widely accepted, and most books I've seen on the matter take about a chapter to come up with a loose working definition but ultimately apply a "you know it when you see it" approach.
Defining a term whose meaning moves a great deal - and has strayed so far from its original meaning - is no easy task, and present USG definitions from State and DoD aren't too satisfying either.
In cases like that, it's often the employees they don't trust.
It's not that hard to slap on a lower-priced sticker from an item, arrange with your good buddy to scan you through, and make a normal looking transaction a quick pay-off.
The guy checking the receipts is checking up on the employees just as much - if not more - than the customers.
To avoid any possible liability issues and the trouble of having to cook up ex-lax brownies, you could've just run to the store and picked up the hottest peppers you could find and soak just about everything in Jalapeños. That gets the message across immediately, and makes the culprit much easier to identify. If he complains, just say you like really spicy food.
Deaths resulting from the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria shot up dramatically among Mac users, as they are immune to viruses.
Microsoft Chairman, Steve Ballmer, was quoted as saying: "these deaths were inevitable. It was only a matter of time until a GOOD virus came around to help everyone. By keeping ourselves open to the possibilities the world and the market, all of our users will now be immune to this terrible bacteria. This has been a part of our business plan all along. Oh, and iPod users are vulnerable, too! THIS is the iPod killer!"
Following this remark, Ballmer screamed something intelligable (believed to be the word "developers") and threw a piece of furniture at the journalist filing this report. No source exists to confirm Mr. Ballmer's claims regarding Apple's iPod.
Steve Jobs, presently in iCare - Cupertino's intensive care ward - was unavailable for comment.
It appears I've misjudged you and made some mistakes. I apologize for that.
In response to some questions posed:
I think the west's greatest weakness is the desire to oversimplify, to believe the sound bites, to be lazy and not continue to look deeper into things.
Very well put.
On Israel, US support of Israel seems to be a large part of the ill will directed at the US by those in the middle east. If you are correct, and everyone in the middle east buys into this Jihadi mindset, then that is equally directed at every non-muslim run country, no? So, why the special stuff aimed at the US and her allies. Mind you, I dont believe that everyone in the middle east believes that. I do believe that there is a fringe element that does, and that they are trying to motivate the vast indifferent masses into action. And it seems that our prejudices and reactions are serving them well.
I don't recall saying that everyone in the Middle East bought into the Jihadi mindset, but a sizeable number do. Clearly, anger at Israel is not limited to Jihadis, but they feed off it and take it to the extreme. The Palestinian election of Hamas - not merely a result of Hamas's foreign policy, of course - seems to demonstrate that the portion of the population involved may have increased.
Peace is possible in Israel, and the Israelis have demonstrated this. The problem is that there must be a partner for this peace and, at the present, there is none.
I dont willfully ignore Jihadi ideology. I dont buy into the notion that the middle east peoples uniformly and totally think this way. If all they do, then why have they not managed more than they have? If they were all so uniformly ready to be suicide bombers, then why havent they accomplished the goal of pushing Israel into the sea? Why did Egypt sign the camp David accords with Israel? Why havent Iran and Syria acted on the provocations of Israel's actions in Lebanon? Why didnt our actions in Iraq lead to a huge tidal wave of terrorists to drive us out? Note, I recogise that some people did go, but not all that many, really, compared to the muslim population of the middle east.
Egypt is a very secular (for the Middle East) government that has fought Jihadis in its own population, namely the Muslim Brotherhood which has been heavily influenced by Qutb and others. It was offered financial and other incentives and accepted them.
As to Iran and Syria, they may fund suicide bombers but they are not into national suicide.
As to Lebanon - Hezbollah brought that on, and Israel accepted an unnecessary leash. Jihadis, such as Hezbollah, can only benefit from "proportionate response". The civilian deaths - all too often caused by Hezbollah's tactics - are very regrettable. But the fighting will continue until one side can successfully be brought to its knees, in my opinion.
I've got to agree with you, though, on our sound bite, bumper sticker slogan driven society. I read a study done on sound bites a while ago (sorry... no specific source to cite... wish I could find it again and get specifics) that showed they'd shrunk in size from somewhere around 30-45 seconds in the 60's (enough time to get some context) to a mere 7 seconds today. It seems that everything now must play strictly to the lowest common denominator... which is quite sad.
Yes, we should always give genocidal maniacs precisely what they want. It's worked well in the past, of course...
Actually, if I was to meet an Arabic speaking terrorist, I'd speak to him in Arabic - a language I speak at a novice level, no doubt, but do speak. Sadly, these particular terrorists are Pakistani in origin and, as such, likely speak Urdu and not Arabic, although they may only speak English. If they spoke Spanish or French, I'd have no problem communicating.
But keep thinking that all southerners are stupid. Go for it. And keep thinking that "y'all" can only be appropriately used with those who also use it, as if it were another language.
But what makes you truly ignorant, and not merely caught up in your own linguistic superiority complex, is this idea that all of the problems in the Middle East and the terrorism directed at the U.S. is simply due to Israel. You willfully ignore other motivations because one of them happens to meet with your own goals.
You willfully ignore Jihadi ideology, the deep, extremely misguided, twisted, and contorted religious reasons. Their desire to implement a true caliphate across the Middle East and force its people to live under its caliphate, the idea that no "true" Islam can exist except under the caliphate (a country that recognizes laws only when they come "from God"), a complete rejection of so-called "international law" (including the Geneva Conventions) because it is anti-Islamic, and yes, even a hatred for personal freedoms such as freedom of speech and religion enjoyed in the west (see the writings of Sayyid Qutb, a major inspiration to Jihadis everywhere).
Bin Laden and Jihadi terrorists are not "freedom fighters" by any definition. They are working to enslave as many people as possible in their twisted version of Islam and bring themselves into government. This is a group that believes the Taliban to be the model government for the "caliphate".
The west's greatest weakness is its complete failure to understand its enemy and the numerous "useful idiots" who seem to be hell bent to support its enemies simply to be contrary or to make common cause.
As someone who gets to Latin America every once in a while (thus the name...), I would NEVER check my laptop, electronics, or ANYTHING of value in my baggage. NEVER.
Theft occurs often enough in the U.S. to make me at the very least give serious pause... in Latin America? In Argentina, for example, a country where you have almost no hope of receiving anything more than a disposable camera in the mail, there is NO way I would entrust my laptop to their baggage handlers, not to mention my camera, iPod, etc.
It looks like the security is being toned down a little bit now, and I hope and pray it stays at the present level.
I would also appreciate it if people would stop planning to blow up airplanes - can y'all just knock that off, please? Thanks, guys.
My personal opinion - he got scared. He got scared, he didn't want to go through with it, but was also afraid of being labelled a coward (or perhaps worse) by his handlers, so he went for it, put up a bit of a fight, and let himself get captured. He gets his "honor", but doesn't get blown to bits.
Other alternatives:
- He was just plain ditch water dumb and wanted to get in his "Allahu Akbar" in front of everyone before it blew. Yeah, that didn't work out too well. Less likely.
- The bomb needed to blow up close to an exterior wall, which was not available on that particular aircraft in the bathroom. Really, really poor planning in that case.
Slashdot Mirror
While I doubt we agree on everything politically, you've hit the nail squarely on the head.
The U.S. needs a free market of ideas, and the Democrats' failure to come up with some kind of platform isn't just hurting their party, it's hurting the country.
I lean to the right, but I've certainly voted for Democrats and third party candidates before - more than my fair share, in fact. I voted for them because I liked their platform... and this requires having a platform, something the DNC seems incapable of creating at the present time.
Voting opposition for strictly contrarian purposes is not particularly desirable to me. Until I see a better platform than "we're the DNC, not the RNC, vote for me!", I'm not buying.
2. People fill out polls to make a statement. Again, this tends to favor opposition parties, or parties that are less likely to be represented in a region. People like the idea of voting twice.
Shouldn't have left this point so quickly without going for a deeper explanation. My mistake.
People like to show their support for a candidate they feel very strongly about more than once. Those who vote for Incumbents/members of the dominant party are, generally speaking of course, less passionate about the matter - they're happy with how things are. Those who vote for the opposition are more likely (although certainly not always) to feel strongly about the matter and want their opinion registered as much as possible.
"the idea of voting twice" was a misstatement on my part.
I have... and our results were off by a quite a bit.
Why? I can think of a few reasons:
1. It takes time. It usually takes about 10-15 minutes to fill out a good exit poll form. People with less time on their hands - people with steady jobs, people with kids, people who vote in the morning on the way to work, etc. - are much less likely to accept the polling sheet. On the other hand, people with lots of time on their hands - the retired, the unemployed, often younger voters, etc. - are much more likely to fill out exit poll forms. Given that the unemployed are more likely to vote a certain way (generally for the opposition party, whoever that may be), this can lead to skewed data, not to mention other groups.
2. People fill out polls to make a statement. Again, this tends to favor opposition parties, or parties that are less likely to be represented in a region. People like the idea of voting twice.
3. The organization you poll for could determine who answers your questions. Example - "Hi, I'm performing a poll for University X! Could I take ten minutes of your time?" If the person you are trying to poll doesn't like your university's football team, they may not participate. Or, if a poller represents a news organization the person dislikes, a potential pollee (?) may opt out as well.
4. People honestly forget. This doesn't happen so much in presidential elections, to be sure, but on many exit polls people mark their own votes wrong because they forget what proposition x was or who the candidates for a seat on whatever were.
As someone who has worked exit polls before, let me assure you that they're not always accurate and there are a LOT of things that can throw them off.
In any case, though, the CNN exit poll data from 2004 should make the case for a Bush win, if you go by exit poll data alone.
For yet another example of the difficulty of applying older standards to new problems.
For you will surely receive it. If there's one thing slashdotters love, it's a simple bumper-sticker slogan that makes everyone feel better.
Yet we all cede various amounts of "essential liberty" for safety - temporary and permanent.
We do not drive as we wish to ensure proper order on the roads (we hold to the proper lane... well... most of us).
We cede liberty to do as we wish when we want to constantly. Building codes, taxes, standards, all interfere with us doing precisely what we wish to do.
Certainly there is a question here between "liberty" and "essential liberty" - is it essential to drive precisely as we wish? - but the fact remains that giving up liberty allows for order.
Quoting Ben Franklin is wonderful and all, but can one quote another founding father in response?
"There is nothing more necessary than good intelligence to frustrate a designing enemy, & nothing requires greater pains to obtain." - George Washington
We can play dueling quotes all we want - do the "pains" Washington mentions include potential conflicts of interest with civil liberties? - but until a mature discussion that doesn't depend on what men said well over 200 years ago out of the present context comes up, I don't think it will be very productive.
At present, I have no opinion on the bill as I have yet to read it and do not trust the media's ability to interpret anything correctly. When I have a chance, I'll read it and some more insightful (non-blog, non-mass media) commentary and then form an opoinion.
Sometimes, a company can only make a security threat worse by declaring the problem exists.
Let's take a stolen laptop, for example. If Company A's suffers a laptop theft, and the laptop (for whatever stupid reason) has the personal data of thousands of customers or employees on it, how should that company respond? This is obviously an example of poor security to begin with (no one should have that kind of information on a laptop taken off the premises), but how do you keep a bad situation from getting worse?
I see no clear best answer. Do you announce it to the world and all of your customers? While this would be a perfectly acceptable and reasonable knee-jerk response, I'm not convinced it's the best one. What happens if the punks who took the laptop are only interested in pawning it, ditching it at the first possible moment, likely to someone who doesn't really care about the data on there (obviously, however, they might)? If you notify the world of the theft and what was lost, you've just greatly increased the likelihood that information could be used against you and let the crooks know they have something of much more value - you could (and that is the key word here) make a problem worse while acting with the best intentions.
On the other hand, hiding this problem from your customers is certainly not ethical. It's their data, their money after all. But by assuming the worst could happen and informing people, do you ensure the worst will happen?
I'm not sure there's always a best way to handle these things - sometimes it could be informing everyone, at other times it could just mean scrutinizing accounts more closely while keeping everything quiet. It's a hard thing to balance.
I'm no security professional, but I'd like to ask those who are - is my reasoning correct, or am I totally off? If I'm off, please feel free to critique/correct at will, as I would love to hear more.
Personally, I would support this move. While there are certainly matters of personal freedom involved, I would pay any price, bear any burden, undertake any action possible to save a new generation from "Ice Ice Baby". Secret prison camps with sound-proofed walls filled with upper-middle class white kids with bad hair and the mistaken impression they're hip? It's not just something I'd accept, it's something I'd encourage!
Please, DHS, please! Think of the children! Think of the children who, 15+ years later still have to hear this crap on early 90's compilation CDs! Do not make the same mistake with the coming generation, nip this threat in the bud!
Are you really that stupid AND ignorant? The two do often go together, of course...
, not supposed "disciplines" cobbled together to put weight behind political dogma., not supposed "disciplines" cobbled together to put weight behind political dogma.
Wow, this would explain why there are no leftists in the political sciences! No, none at all! It must be due to all of those crazy, rich, elitist doctorate holders! Why, it's not as if there were leftists in my list several posts back about influential thinkers... no... none at all! And who are these "elite echelons" Ph.D professors you speak of? As someone who has been in the field for years now, I've yet to meet anyone with a Ph.D in the Political Sciences that comes from a particularly wealthy family, and I've met more than my share of people from across the political spectrum. Oh, but you know better.
If you are all the left has to offer - and for the sake of this country, I sincerely hope that's not the case - the Democrats will never regain power. Nor would they deserve it. My only hope is that you're not yet of voting age, which gives me little hope in the up and coming generation, but at least some hope for the present.
I'm off to bed, so no time to even bother. Great way to lighten up the evening, though. Thanks once again for the laughs, especially this nugget:
Since the left speaks clearly, but with great complexity, I can only assume you simply don't understand the complexity theyre trying to convey to you.. you insult yourself wrongly here.. because I honestly think you're more competent than that.
Allow me to assure you that I hold no similar opinion of your intellect.
Also... people with Ph.D's in fields like those you are speaking about also tend to be in the elite echelons of the upper class, because those degrees tend to cost you more money than you make from them (without the right connections, of course.. wink wink).. and you wander why they espouse elitist right wing values and are listened to by elitist right wing leaders?
Ah, the left's distrust for science...
I've got to go sleep so I can wake up with all the energy I need to keep down the teeming masses yearning to be free. Toddle back along to Kos and post away where your views won't be challenged, and you'll feel much better, I promise!
Oh man... great times, great times.
As always, thanks for the laughs.
Most of your post is simply too absurd to bother with responding to, but I'll have some fun while I'm here:
First, naom chomsky and Al Franken are influential political thinkers.. or maybe lies and lying liars didnt make it to the the top 10 best sellers list?
So, I should read Ann Coulter as well? Great! She's influential! Stupid, but influential! She's on a top 10 list!
By influential, I mean people that write things policy makers read and have some hope of being implemented: Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama, Scott Sagan, John Mueller, Thomas Friedman, et al. People with doctorates in relevant fields, people who have worked on this. People who have done analysis or worked in the field. Not op/ed page dwellers that make a quick buck off of political rantings. Not linguistics professors who have made a living writing rants that find a home amongst Marxists.
Finally.. that whole rant just pegged you as an extreme neofascist right wing nutter.
Help, mommy, he's calling me names! Oooh... fascist. The left's favorite word! I'm so scared by it, ooooooh!
Those publications you seem to sarcastically laud in your shameless frothing rant have been thoroughly debunked as extreme right, and it's been shown from first hand witnesses that anything opposed to the right wing agenda since '01 has been kept out of the main stream by zealous editors, corporate chiefs, etc because it would be "bad for america"...
The Council on Foreign Relations has been "debunked as extreme right"? Are you really so stupid as to say something like that? No, seriously, if you post in response, I'd like you to type exactly those words - "The CFR has been debunked as an extreme right organization". They'll make a great sig for me. Do you have any idea what you're talking about? I mean at all? Have you heard of these publications? Read them? Or is anything other than The Nation simply a right-wing rag? Who, precisely, has debunked these publications? Where is your evidence? Oh wait... you don't need any... BUSH SUCKS, FASCIST!
Make Social Security insoluble. Great. Pardon me as I run for the ballot box...
better than making it "nonexistant".. by the way making it actually worth something to people by reforming it and undoing bush's rediculous privatization does not necessarily mean making it insoluble.. it may however mean that corporate executives will have to get 3 solid gold hum-v's this year instead of 4.
Yes, we should really stick with the present social security system, which is bound for failure in the next few decades, just to make sure no one gets "solid gold hum-v's" (which should be HMMWV, but hey, it's not like you're concerned with accuracy). Riiiiight...
Social Security will, effectively, become "nonexistent" unless massive reforms are made. Personally, since you're so concerned about rights and freedoms (vis-a-vis your position on the PATRIOT act), if the government wants to invest money in a retirement account for me, I'd like the choice of where that money goes rather than trusting the government (something you obviously have issues with) to put it into a system which depends on birth rates the U.S. is highly unlikely to sustain in the long-term.
Take a look at similar programs in countries whose present birth rate reflects what the U.S. birth rate will be in a few decades - here's a hint, it's not pretty. For someone who's supposedly so concerned about government intervention in our lives, working against a program that would allow people to exercise some freedom over how THEIR money is spent for THEIR retirement rather than just placing it all in a system that will not be able to provide for them in a few decades would seem to make sense. But your positions aren't based on personal consistency - simply arguing the contrary of what someone you don't like says.
As to the rest... heh, thanks for the laughs. It was a boring boring BORING (as you seem to like to type it) repeat of the gibberish found throughout the left and about as enlightening as reading a Franken/Chomsky/Coulter/Limbaugh debate.
-withdraw from iraq, try to do so gracefully since were damned if we stay and damned if we go.
So, the Democrats' official position is that Iraq's hopeless? Wow, I'm inspired with confidence. The solution of "no solution". Great.
-undo the damage to our civil liberties done by the patriot act
Yes, because the majority of the U.S. population is so pissed off that you can look at library records. Forgive me, but the PATRIOT Act is by far the least of my concerns. As someone who has done more than his fair share of studying national security issues, I recognize the need for something that goes well beyond FISA, which was designed to operate against different kinds of threats.
-reform social security by removing the blatant privatization bush put in which basically amounts to abolshment (but with the added benefit of commissions to brokers before your stock tanks)
Make Social Security insoluble. Great. Pardon me as I run for the ballot box...
-Universal health care (which responds to the increasing 10s of millions of people without healthcare, and which they make a damned good economic case for!)
Because it's worked oh so well for Europe and Canada! Quick, let's all jump on that bandwagon! And where do you plan on getting the funding for all of this?
-Investigation into bush's illegal activites, followed hopefully by impeachment
DOWN WITH BUSHITLER! Please, did you bother to read the post above?
-Investigation into oil companies among others for gouging.
Because there could only be one source for all the world's problems - rich people.
Among others.. it's all laid out..
I sincerely hope this isn't a serious party platform. Please, please tell me that your post is some kind of sick joke. No serious group could put this forward and expect people to vote for them.
Big media is owned by republicans so you don't see it.. listen to air america and they spend each and every day spelling out those exact same points.
And, of course, the big time media conspiracy theory which I don't buy from the right wing and find particularly fatuous when coming from the left. Yes, I must listen to the great Air America and exorcise the right wing demons like Ted Turner! Save me! Why, I've been wasting all of this time reading ridiculous publications like Foreign Affairs, Policy Review, and the Christian Science Monitor when I could've been listening to some idiot and paid political actor with a BA in Government tell me what to think in the form of nice, compact bumper sticker slogans! Oh, the fool I must be! I must throw away my entire library of books written by influential political thinkers and replace it with Al Franken and Noam Chomsky ravings!
If you're looking to convince me your party has anything resembling a platform, you've failed miserably.
You're a perfect illustration of why I won't vote for Democrats for the time being.
Thanks for the refresher.
THANK YOU.
Geez...
I lean to the right politically, but I would love - LOVE - to have an alternative party. The Democrats have largely set themselves as simple contrarians with one plank on their platform - "vote for us, we're not the Republican party!"
Yes, I can see that. I saw that little "D" instead of the "R" which seems to be so dominant amongst elected officials these days.
But why on earth should I vote for a party which wants to get into power before stating a platform?
Economically speaking, the U.S. is doing quite well, so economics aren't much of the issue and elected officials have an often overstated effect on the economy as is. That's not much of a reason to vote for the Democrats. The present deficit level is high, to be sure, but that's not the sort of concern that really gets the voters out.
Iraq's a bit of a mess, but the Democrats haven't really stated what they're going to do with it beyond "we shouldn't have gone in". Great, we shouldn't have gone in, that's lovely and all, but guess what, we're there now - what do we do? They won't say. They don't have a plan at all... granted, the Bush administration's own plans are not particularly well-defined, but they are committed to staying for some time, which isn't the road map I'd like to see but it's heading in the right direction. Democrats can't decide to stay, go... or do anything else. Give me your party's POSITION on the matter! Do you have a position? Oh, that's right, I forgot, your position is, "we're not Bush!"
Then there's the "cultural issues". Democrats and their supporters alike can't seem to wrap their heads around this, but every time they lose an election they blame it on people who vote on "cultural issues". Perhaps if they learned that these cultural issues were really, truly important to many voters they could win votes, but noooo... instead, we hear the same mantra of, "stupid rednecks only care about x!" each election cycle. These stupid rednecks are voters, you know, and cultural issues are important to people, no matter how much the Democrats want to deny it. Responding to elections lost due to cultural issues by reaffirming your stance on these issues will NOT somehow magically bring people to your point of view.
I'm not entirely pleased with the Republican party at the moment, and would love to see some new ideas pop up on the hill. But the U.S. lacks an opposition party, and only has a band of contrarians without ideas.
It's like the Cola wars all over again, except instead of 'Coke' and 'Pepsi', I have 'Coke' and 'we're not Coke and we think Coke sucks!'
Please, SELL me some ideas and I might BUY THEM!
</rant>
Please check your objectivity, nuance, and common sense at the door.
Now, we all get to read the political rantings in journal form of a slashdotter who finds himself/herself on a political extreme but, by chance, likely happens to coincide with an editor's own position. Oh joy. Particularly when the author of this journal is also the author of gems such as his own take on the Declaration of Independence.
SlashKos. Really old opinion pieces from music/culture magazines spun by random journal writers for far-left geeks. Stuff that really, truly doesn't matter, but hopefully will stir up some controversy and ad clicks.
I find myself on the right politically, but I'm not one to complain about stories that show the left's point of view, even the more extreme left. This however screams to me of "slow news day" and "must do something to get site traffic up" nonsense.
I realize my post is likely redundant, but some things simply must be said over and over. Why on earth was this posted here, now?
I come to Slashdot expecting Slashdot. Not SlashKos. For that matter, I'd also be unhappy to see SlashLGF, as well.
Which is much of the difficulty.
From a scholarly perspective, one of the few things really agreed on is that terrorists almost never call themselves terrorists...
Please note my first sentence:
"While I realize the author's complaint regarding the law..."
No definition of 'terrorist.'
While I realize the author's complaint regarding the law, it should be noted that the definition of terrorist has changed at least a dozen times since the term was coined in the 1790's - scholars who study terrorism for a living still don't have a working definition of what it means to be a terrorist that is widely accepted, and most books I've seen on the matter take about a chapter to come up with a loose working definition but ultimately apply a "you know it when you see it" approach.
Defining a term whose meaning moves a great deal - and has strayed so far from its original meaning - is no easy task, and present USG definitions from State and DoD aren't too satisfying either.
In cases like that, it's often the employees they don't trust.
It's not that hard to slap on a lower-priced sticker from an item, arrange with your good buddy to scan you through, and make a normal looking transaction a quick pay-off.
The guy checking the receipts is checking up on the employees just as much - if not more - than the customers.
I think only a full personality transplant will really ensure his safety.
Oh, and vitamins. Lots and lots of vitamins. Can't forget those.
To avoid any possible liability issues and the trouble of having to cook up ex-lax brownies, you could've just run to the store and picked up the hottest peppers you could find and soak just about everything in Jalapeños. That gets the message across immediately, and makes the culprit much easier to identify. If he complains, just say you like really spicy food.
Not that I've ever tried that or anything...
Deaths resulting from the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria shot up dramatically among Mac users, as they are immune to viruses.
Microsoft Chairman, Steve Ballmer, was quoted as saying: "these deaths were inevitable. It was only a matter of time until a GOOD virus came around to help everyone. By keeping ourselves open to the possibilities the world and the market, all of our users will now be immune to this terrible bacteria. This has been a part of our business plan all along. Oh, and iPod users are vulnerable, too! THIS is the iPod killer!"
Following this remark, Ballmer screamed something intelligable (believed to be the word "developers") and threw a piece of furniture at the journalist filing this report. No source exists to confirm Mr. Ballmer's claims regarding Apple's iPod.
Steve Jobs, presently in iCare - Cupertino's intensive care ward - was unavailable for comment.
(and yes, I'm a Mac user...)
It appears I've misjudged you and made some mistakes. I apologize for that.
In response to some questions posed:
I think the west's greatest weakness is the desire to oversimplify, to
believe the sound bites, to be lazy and not continue to look deeper
into things.
Very well put.
On Israel, US support of Israel seems to be a large part of the ill will directed at the US by those in the middle east. If you are correct, and everyone in the middle east buys into this Jihadi mindset, then that is equally directed at every non-muslim run country, no? So, why the special
stuff aimed at the US and her allies. Mind you, I dont believe that everyone in the middle east believes that. I do believe that there is a fringe element that does, and that they are trying to motivate the vast indifferent masses into action. And it seems that our prejudices and reactions are serving them well.
I don't recall saying that everyone in the Middle East bought into the Jihadi mindset, but a sizeable number do. Clearly, anger at Israel is not limited to Jihadis, but they feed off it and take it to the extreme. The Palestinian election of Hamas - not merely a result of Hamas's foreign policy, of course - seems to demonstrate that the portion of the population involved may have increased.
Peace is possible in Israel, and the Israelis have demonstrated this. The problem is that there must be a partner for this peace and, at the present, there is none.
I dont willfully ignore Jihadi ideology. I dont buy into the
notion that the middle east peoples uniformly and totally think
this way. If all they do, then why have they not managed more
than they have? If they were all so uniformly ready to be
suicide bombers, then why havent they accomplished the goal
of pushing Israel into the sea? Why did Egypt sign the camp
David accords with Israel? Why havent Iran and Syria acted
on the provocations of Israel's actions in Lebanon? Why didnt
our actions in Iraq lead to a huge tidal wave of terrorists to
drive us out? Note, I recogise that some people did go, but
not all that many, really, compared to the muslim population
of the middle east.
Egypt is a very secular (for the Middle East) government that has fought Jihadis in its own population, namely the Muslim Brotherhood which has been heavily influenced by Qutb and others. It was offered financial and other incentives and accepted them.
As to Iran and Syria, they may fund suicide bombers but they are not into national suicide.
As to Lebanon - Hezbollah brought that on, and Israel accepted an unnecessary leash. Jihadis, such as Hezbollah, can only benefit from "proportionate response". The civilian deaths - all too often caused by Hezbollah's tactics - are very regrettable. But the fighting will continue until one side can successfully be brought to its knees, in my opinion.
I've got to agree with you, though, on our sound bite, bumper sticker slogan driven society. I read a study done on sound bites a while ago (sorry... no specific source to cite... wish I could find it again and get specifics) that showed they'd shrunk in size from somewhere around 30-45 seconds in the 60's (enough time to get some context) to a mere 7 seconds today. It seems that everything now must play strictly to the lowest common denominator... which is quite sad.
Yes, we should always give genocidal maniacs precisely what they want. It's worked well in the past, of course...
Actually, if I was to meet an Arabic speaking terrorist, I'd speak to him in Arabic - a language I speak at a novice level, no doubt, but do speak. Sadly, these particular terrorists are Pakistani in origin and, as such, likely speak Urdu and not Arabic, although they may only speak English. If they spoke Spanish or French, I'd have no problem communicating.
But keep thinking that all southerners are stupid. Go for it. And keep thinking that "y'all" can only be appropriately used with those who also use it, as if it were another language.
But what makes you truly ignorant, and not merely caught up in your own linguistic superiority complex, is this idea that all of the problems in the Middle East and the terrorism directed at the U.S. is simply due to Israel. You willfully ignore other motivations because one of them happens to meet with your own goals.
You willfully ignore Jihadi ideology, the deep, extremely misguided, twisted, and contorted religious reasons. Their desire to implement a true caliphate across the Middle East and force its people to live under its caliphate, the idea that no "true" Islam can exist except under the caliphate (a country that recognizes laws only when they come "from God"), a complete rejection of so-called "international law" (including the Geneva Conventions) because it is anti-Islamic, and yes, even a hatred for personal freedoms such as freedom of speech and religion enjoyed in the west (see the writings of Sayyid Qutb, a major inspiration to Jihadis everywhere).
Bin Laden and Jihadi terrorists are not "freedom fighters" by any definition. They are working to enslave as many people as possible in their twisted version of Islam and bring themselves into government. This is a group that believes the Taliban to be the model government for the "caliphate".
The west's greatest weakness is its complete failure to understand its enemy and the numerous "useful idiots" who seem to be hell bent to support its enemies simply to be contrary or to make common cause.
As someone who gets to Latin America every once in a while (thus the name...), I would NEVER check my laptop, electronics, or ANYTHING of value in my baggage. NEVER.
Theft occurs often enough in the U.S. to make me at the very least give serious pause... in Latin America? In Argentina, for example, a country where you have almost no hope of receiving anything more than a disposable camera in the mail, there is NO way I would entrust my laptop to their baggage handlers, not to mention my camera, iPod, etc.
It looks like the security is being toned down a little bit now, and I hope and pray it stays at the present level.
I would also appreciate it if people would stop planning to blow up airplanes - can y'all just knock that off, please? Thanks, guys.
My personal opinion - he got scared. He got scared, he didn't want to go through with it, but was also afraid of being labelled a coward (or perhaps worse) by his handlers, so he went for it, put up a bit of a fight, and let himself get captured. He gets his "honor", but doesn't get blown to bits. Other alternatives: - He was just plain ditch water dumb and wanted to get in his "Allahu Akbar" in front of everyone before it blew. Yeah, that didn't work out too well. Less likely. - The bomb needed to blow up close to an exterior wall, which was not available on that particular aircraft in the bathroom. Really, really poor planning in that case.