"Not voting is not neutral: It is supporting the majority or plurality (not incumbents)."
You are employing a very unusual and ethically dubious definition of "supporting".
I have abstained from voting in many races; I am proud of it, I tell others that I do it, why I do it, and I will keep doing it.
Captors have tied you and your family to chairs. You are told to choose whether your wife or your child shall be shot. If you fail to choose, your wife shall be shot, you are told. You tell those fuckers exactly what you think of them. They shoot your wife. Did you support killing your wife?
"Voting isn't about getting everything you want on every single issue. That doesn't happen in a democracy -- you'll have to become dictator of your own nation to realize that little fantasy."
Your snide remark is incorrect. To get your way all the time you must simply share the opinion of a sufficient representative majority on every issue you care about.
And most people are only particularly interested in a handful of national issues.
You also fail to account for positions of principal or conscience. Given a choice only between, say, two pro-life or two pro-choice candidates, it would not surprise me were a considerable number of people to simply abstain from voting in that race. I know people who would never under any circumstances vote for a pro-life candidate. And I know people who would never under any circumstances vote for a pro-choice candidate. Similarly I would not object to a pacifist choosing to abstain from voting in a race given a choice between only pro-military candidates.
A vote to many people is not merely another utilitarian calculus, but rather a personal endorsement of a candidate's character, intelligence, and values.
And to others, a vote lends legitimacy to a system they deem illegitimate. This is also a stance I respect.
How you understand voting is your prerogative, but I encourage others to stick to their convictions rather than be pressured into taking an action they believe to be ethically objectionable. Abstaining from voting is your right. And in a nation where mid-term elections frequently see less than 50% turnout, the votes of those who choose to abstain speak more loudly than those who choose to participate.
"As the verdict was read, Saddam yelled out, "Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!""
"Later, his lawyer said the former dictator called on Iraqis to reject sectarian violence and refrain from revenge against U.S. forces."
Somehow... somehow I really doubt that, unless Saddam had a remarkable complete turnabout, this lawyer is not accurately representing his client.
The message from the lawyer sounds more like something planted by a U.S. propaganda ministry than what Saddam would have said.
Also of interest: I see that some of the defendants were convicted of... torture. Will the trials for torture by the Bush regime and its agents be held before Bush leaves office, or after? The answer is: Never. For those not paying attention, Congress has already passed into law the legislation essentially pardoning the Bush regime for its agents from its illegal torture and other human rights abuses. While the Iraqi people are seeing this Saddam regime brought to justice, the American people have already handed over their right to bring the Bush regime to justice.
So in exchange for constant government monitoring and at a cost of 3/4 of the crime prevention budget, people see a reduction in vehicle crimes but no significant reduction in violent crimes.
Either the people of the UK really, really like their cars, of they do not value their privacy and freedom from government intrusion.
Well at least they get some benefit from it... in the U.S.A. we give up our freedoms in exchange for the "feeling" of being safe from terrorist attacks.
"Okay, so we have a story on a political website ("Friends of Liberty") with a link only to published comments by another political website ("PapersPlease.org") concerning a proposal where the original RFP [gpo.gov] was posted July 14 of this year. Where was the outrage then, where was the irate Slashdot article then?"
Indeed:
"Absurd! How dare they bring this up a week before midterm elections! Why, we've been conspiring to strip them of these rights for a good 6 months now!"
The Democracts are going to take the House. They WILL launch myriad investigations into this irresponsible, corrupt, fascist regime.
Republics are right to be scared. They are scared shitless. WHY do you think it was so important to Bush to pass the Military Commisions Act of 2006 pardoning all the war criminals before the election?
Personally I think we should wait until Bush is out of office so that fucker can't pardon them when the Congressional committee comes knocking.
"If a can of tuna went for $300 dollars because of a tuna shortage, I bet a lot of people would start cutting back on their tuna consumption."
That may be, but outside of an anarcho-capitalist wet dream - out here in reality - the Free Market does not obey the law of don't-harvest-that-animal-to-extinction-for-its-ta sty-flesh. You can't just say, oh, "the price of tuna will increase proportionately," wave your hands, and chalk up another victory for the market. Have you considered a career in homeopathy? [insert hand waving].
Why on earth would you think otherwise? What mechanism do you propose that binds the free market value of tuna to not harvesting tuna beyond its capacity to recover? Yes, the price of seafood would likely increase as fish become increasingly scarce, but we simply have no reason to believe that we can throw caution and depend on the Free Market to ensure that when the population of tuna is at the threshold beyond which recovery is unlikely, the price of tuna will "therefore" be such as to reduce the rate of consumption to below the rate of recovery. There is simply no reason to trust that this will happen. There is no "therefore".
Now, if you were a *good* Libertarian you would say, "The problem with the oceans is because they are not privately owned, no one has an incentive to protect them. If the oceans were privately owned, then their owners would protect them to ensure their continued vitality. Therefore, to save the oceans, we must parcel out the oceans - or at least the tasty-fish-stock - to private landowners."
See? Even I know that one. That's a neat trick, isn't it?
But you know what, that private landowner doesn't give a shit what impact his actions will have on the world 50 - much less 100 - years from now, and he certainly doesn't give a shit about the ecological impact on what he does not own, nor on that which is not profitable.
There is no "therefore", and a future that "tends toward" not being an ecological catastrophy isn't exactly the sort of world we should be leaving for our grandchildren.
But hey, so long as you make a few bucks off 'a it...catastrophy smastrophy, AMIRITE?!
Why can politicians get away with making claims such as, "If the Democrats gain control of Congress, the Terrorists have won"? Or consider one I heard recently in a House candidate debate: "[Candidate X] voted against making it a crime to operate a meth lab near children, and voted against notifying parents when out of state sex offenders move into their neighborhood." Come. On.
What kind of idiots do these politicians take us for?
It isn't just that we let them get away with it, we shout and cheer them on!
Where's the sanity check? Don't people think, "Wait a second... Either this candidate took special interest money from the powerful meth-lab lobby (laugh), or there's probably more to this story"? Don't people think, "Wait a second... isn't it already absolutely, amazingly illegal to run a meth lab *anywhere*?" "Is this candidate really batshit crazy and against notifying parents when dangerous sex offenders move in next door, or is there more to this story?"
Or, "Wait a second, this is a political add not Freddy vs. Jason III. I shouldn't conclude this candidate is Hitler Jr. just because the picture is dark and the voice is scary." Please? Anyone?
What kind of idiots to these politicians take us for? The idiots that we are, apparently.
The machines that count the fucking votes are not more important than vague "wrenches" like "primaries, party politics, and campaign financing"?
"primaries" and "party politics"? What the hell are you talking about?
If we can not trust that the votes are being counted correctly, nothing else counts for shit. And private corporations like Diebold and former CEO Walden "everything in my power to guarantee a Bush victory" O'Dell are the very last parties we should trust to count them.
You better believe we care. We care because George W Bush was determined the winner of the 2000 election on a technicality - a glitch. A "technicality" can make a world of difference. A "technicality" can impact the lives of billions of people around the world. You better believe we care when our votes aren't counted due to a "technicality". If we can not trust that device to count our votes - no measure of convenience can make it anything other than what it is: a subversion of our democratic system of government.
Due to a technicality George W. Bush was counted the winner despite his opponent being the selection of the people of this nation. Not only did Al Gore win the popular vote, but when all the votes in Florida were recounted following any legal standard for the counting of contested ballots, Al Gore was clearly identified as the democratically selected President of this nation.
We care because the War in Iraq is the result of a technicality - an accident. If George W. Bush had not been determined the winner of the 2000 election on a technicality, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians would not be dead today. We would not have sullied the good name of the United States of America in every corner of the world. We would not be kidnapping and torturing foreign nationals in violation of the Geneva Conventions. We would not have mass-pardoned government officials and military officers who ordered and obeyed the orders to torture.
And we would not be suffering through 4 more years now. That's why we care.
But Comedy Central does potentially have an interest in controlling content on YouTube.
If you didn't know, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are both available as subscriptions (well, "multi-pass") through iTunes at a price of $9.99 for 16 episodes.
Now, people putting full episodes up on YouTube at quality that isn't that much less tolerable, obviously directly competes with this product.
So I think we will see Viacom restricting the length of clips or the number of clips available for a single episode available on YouTube.
I don't have cable as an option and I'm not willing to pay for dish. Until subscriptions were launched on iTunes, I watched both shows through YouTube and usually had no problem finding or piecing together complete, current episodes.
I for one welcome this advance in voting technology.
Our constituents have complained about feeling compelled to vote for Democrats as a matter of intellectual honesty - even conscience. In recent elections some have even reported unwittingly voting for Democrats. We must not allow our system of government to be subverted by the will of the ignorant masses.
The introduction of self-correcting voting machines will see to it that this doesn't happen again. Voters who mistakenly vote for Democrats will have their vote automatically changed to a vote for the correct candidate: the Republican.
This advancement will usher in a new age of democracy. Scientists tell me that in the future we may even be able to limit the need to involve voters: we'll just have the machines vote for the correct candidate in the first place!
According to the studies linked from the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph) it seems that while the test has a high false positive rate, the false negative rate is lower than one would expect of random chance. Does anyone read it otherwise?
While I think it would be abhorrent to allow such a device to be used against a defendant in our criminal justice system, it the above is true it doesn't seem to me so unreasonable at all that it be used in the hiring of FBI and CIA agents and the like.
A better chance of keeping Russian and Chinese spies out of our security forces may very well outweigh turning away candidates incorrectly classified as deceitful.
Whereas in matters of criminal justice most seem to agree it is better that 10 guilty men should go free than that 1 innocent man should be condemned.
Also, I've always wondered whether this isn't really more of a "nervousness test" than anything else.
"Why can't these be on one desktop? Why is it better that they're on 9 separate ones? Seems to unnecessarily complicate matters."
While this fellow seems to have gone overboard, virtual desktops provide a number of advantages.
First, so long as you avoid window overlap and also consistently put the same windows on the same desktops, as I imagine most virtual desktop fans do, you more or less have hotkey access to every running application. Once you have memorized that your email client is on, say, desktop 4, you just hit CTRL+ALT+4 or Win+4 or whatever the case may be. I find this to be far and away better than hunting through an overcrowded taskbar to pick up the window I.
Second, frequently windows fall into logical groups. Say, if you always or nearly always want the application log output window next to the application you are debugging or testing. If you didn't isolate them from other windows on a virtual desktop, you would then need to hunt TWO windows out of that overcrowded taskbar. With virtual desktops it's just a key combo and they're there.
The term "virtual desktop" doesn't do a very good job of conveying how the function is used. Virtual desktops can probably be better thought of as "window groups". OS X uses this concept in a limited way. On OS X ALT+Tab switches between window groups - window groups are just unfortunately hard coded to be all windows of the same application.
I think they should have given better odds of getting prizes, just enough so that, say, spending $100 or $200 on cards would likely get you something. Why? Because people like you would pay for it. The more money Blizzard gets, the more they have available to reinvest in R&D. And if you can't resist the "gotta catch 'em all urge", you probably deserve to be milked like this.
There were already many examples of items in WoW that could no longer be obtained. And there are many more examples of items that 99% of players will never obtain eventhough they could if they spent a year or more raiding.
I mean, don't you think it's a little pathetic that you as a grown man are whining about this?
"Doesn't matter what crime, so long as the kid is terrorized sufficiently. I mean, there are so many laws on the books nowadays that everyone, and I mean everyone, is guilty of something and can be nailed to a cross for little reason, or no reason at all."
Terrorized indeed. The terrorists who now threaten our freedom and way of life are not abroad hiding in mosques, but here in our midst hiding in the halls of the institutions of our democracy.
We are in the heart of an occupation. We must win back the hearts and minds of the people of this land, to stand up, to go to the polls in 2006 and 2008 and send the message that we will be intimidated no longer, that under no circumstances will we turn over one liberty more, that we reject the Campaign of Terror this government is waging against its own people, that we choose Freedom over Fear.
The central claim to legitimacy of this administration is that it has kept us safe from another attack.
Now, despite their threat levels and their vague disclosures, there is no evidence that anyone or any group has been anywhere near executing a new attack on U.S. soil.
ALL this administration has done to back up its claim of keeping us safe is a long list of fear mongering activities: terror alerts, alert levels, banning TOOTHPASTE, etc.
All this administration has going for it is the public perception that the things it is doing are keeping us safe. And what this guy did was a direct challenge to their authority and their record.
It doesn't matter that we aren't actually safer. It doesn't matter that the Bush administration has not stopped a single legitimate terror plot against the fatherland. All that matters is that the public believe they have.
Contribute to his defense fund and before you know it you are "providing material support to a terrorist organization".
All it takes is for Bush to give the approval for a charge with those magic words, and you can be declared an enemy combatant, tortured and shipped off to Gitmo indeterminately - being a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil means nothing. They wouldn't have pushed the Congress so hard for it if they didn't intend to use it.
Is it so inconceivable? Contributing money to an Islamic charity the provides relief to the wrong people can get you a charge of providing material support to a terrorist organization.
This man is engaging in conspiracy to provide forged documents to terrorists. I'd call that material support. Under the new policy, that's all the grounds Bush needs to declare him an enemy combatant.
Contributing to the defense fund of an enemy combatant might just get you the same.
You think 30-40 researchers and professors standing up together would deter the government?
They would raid the homes of the leaders, charge them, leaving the rest in a state of fear for their lives and their families. Any who dare speak out about their leaders being made an example of will face the same.
You think the people of our nation would listen to these researchers and professors? Professors and researchers are God-hating communists. They hate America. They hate our troops. They want to terrorists to win.
Haven't you heard?
Our society is caught up in a jingoistic, fascist hysteria. If anything the intellectuals who speak out as you suggest will be the first to go to Git'mo.
Our best bet is to hope Democrats pick up the House and pick up the Presidency in 2008. Although not the Senate. All 3 controlled by any one party is something to be afraid of. Unless of course our Democrats have the guts to come in in 2008 with both houses and the presidency and start trying this administration on war crimes. But I doubt they do.
Who applauds the government whistleblower? "Society applauds the whistleblower"? Not before, not after. Let's not kid ourselves.
Heck, the senator calling for his arrest in the story this follows up is a Democrat - Congressman Markey (D-Mass)! A Democrat!
Large segments of our society are caught up in a jingoistic, xenophobic, fascist hysteria.
They detest whistleblowers, particularly when the perpetrator is this administration. Rush Limbaugh listeners and O'Reilly Factor and Hannity viewers prove the point. If the government says this man is a dangerous criminal aiding the terrorists, then by golly he's a terrorist. Posters on Right-wing sites like FreeRepublic prove the point. The first reaction of these people is anger and the threat of violence against anyone who would dare to question this administration or show it with its metaphorical pants down.
You think they will support a whistleblower? These are people who HATE the ACLU, one of the few organizations that is fighting to keep this ship afloat long enough to get her back to harbor in 2008 still in one piece!
Their first reaction to a whistleblower? SHUT UP! SHUT UP!
Reality is painful. Reality reminds them that the administration they have put into power is plunging us into catastrophic, unrecoverable debt. Reality reminds them that they put into power the administration that is stripping us of personal privacy and persona liberties at every turn. Reality reminds them that the administration they put into power is rapidly and quietly consildating unprecedented power into the Office of the President - the Unitary Executive.
No, you can't count on society to stand up for the whistleblowers. We are in full on fingers-in-our-ears-yelling shut up, shut up, shut up, mode. 9/11 changed everything.
And to all you slashdotters posting in the previous story about this gentleman, hypothesizing about potential airline security vulnerabilities, even strategies... good luck. You could be next. Someone found his blog. Someone can find your post. You might just wake up Monday morning to the sound of your door being kicked in.
And don't forget that if we had an election system that wasn't an insult to every voting man and woman, George W. Bush would NEVER have become president in the first place.
There wouldn't have been an Iraq invasion. And we wouldn't be suffering through "4 more years!' as we speak because there wouldn't have been 4 years to have more of.
The People did choose their leader in 2000. But that didn't stop Bush from taking office.
If it weren't for our antiquated presidential election system, we would not be in Iraq today.
That is just astounding.
The Bush presidency is a miscarriage of democracy. And this isn't a flame about Florida. No one denies that Gore won the popular vote nationwide.
Terming it "apathy" isn't necessarily fair. I believe there is something to be said for abstaining from federal elections. Now, that isn't an excuse to ignore the issues. But I see nothing detestable about a principled position of closely following federal issues yet choosing to abstain from federal elections.
To those who believe we have regressed to a point where the ground rules - the system itself - is illegitimate or is of questionable legitimacy, there is no better means of expressing this determination on the ballot than by abstaining from voting in federal elections or even in all elections. Until the ballot contains a "NO" option - "NO" to every candidate, "NO" to the system - they are left with NO option.
Perhaps you would prefer to make voting mandatory, punishable by a fine or even jail time?
Would you have railed against Iraqis who would have abstained from voting when Saddam was in power given the option?
Detractors can say that it is pretentious or childish or whatever they wish, but let there be no doubt: voting lends legitimacy to the system. If that system is illegitimate, then the act of voting lends legitimacy to an illegitimate system. Even dictators hold elections, often with mandatory participation. They use their high turnout figures to defend the legitimacy of their systems.
What better way to vote against the system than to join the 45-60% of elligible voters who consistently choose to abstain from voting federal elections?
And yet I would encourage these individuals to consider their participation in state and local elections independently. Your representation at the federal level diminishes every year as the white country club that is the Senate remains static as population increases. Likewise with increasing corporate influence, gerrymandering, and outright fraud and bribery. Yet hopefully your representation at the state or at least local level remains strong. Do not overlook these elections even if you abstain from federal elections.
You think this is just a move to alter political perception?
Why make your political opponents seen in a bad light when you can make them not seen at all?
I doubt the Bush administration vehemently argued for and got the ability to declare U.S. citizens on U.S. soil enemy combatants for providing "material support" to terrorist organizations, not to use it.
More or less all the administration has to do is accuse this man of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization - quite reasonable considering his actions - and they can ship him off to Git'mo indefinitely. They now "can" bring these prisoners to trial. But they don't have to. They can hold him there indefinitely and release him out in the Virginia countryside after the 2008 election and have done no legal wrong.
Providing "material support" to a terrorist organization is now enough to get you declared any enemy combatant, U.S. citizen on U.S. soil or not. Let's hope for your sake you are a U.S. citizen. If you're not, you might end up kidnapped into the extraordinary rendition program instead of in Git'mo. And they don't have to bring you to trial. They "can" now bring you to trial, but they can hold you for the rest of your life if they so choose. You might never see your family again.
You don't think they are serious or that they will notice you? These are the same people who show up at children's school when they make obviously childish threats at the president on their MySpace site.
If you ask me - and I know you didn't - these are not people to screw with.
I want CD quality album downloads through iTunes so I don't have to keep buying CDs in the first place.
New Flash RIAA: If I want a CD of the album I and most everyone else in the U.S. can burn CDs ourselves. They sound just as good as the ones you make. And when they get scratched we just burn new ones.
Slashdot Mirror
"Not voting is not neutral: It is supporting the majority or plurality (not incumbents)."
You are employing a very unusual and ethically dubious definition of "supporting".
I have abstained from voting in many races; I am proud of it, I tell others that I do it, why I do it, and I will keep doing it.
Captors have tied you and your family to chairs. You are told to choose whether your wife or your child shall be shot. If you fail to choose, your wife shall be shot, you are told. You tell those fuckers exactly what you think of them. They shoot your wife. Did you support killing your wife?
"Voting isn't about getting everything you want on every single issue. That doesn't happen in a democracy -- you'll have to become dictator of your own nation to realize that little fantasy."
Your snide remark is incorrect. To get your way all the time you must simply share the opinion of a sufficient representative majority on every issue you care about.
And most people are only particularly interested in a handful of national issues.
You also fail to account for positions of principal or conscience. Given a choice only between, say, two pro-life or two pro-choice candidates, it would not surprise me were a considerable number of people to simply abstain from voting in that race. I know people who would never under any circumstances vote for a pro-life candidate. And I know people who would never under any circumstances vote for a pro-choice candidate. Similarly I would not object to a pacifist choosing to abstain from voting in a race given a choice between only pro-military candidates.
A vote to many people is not merely another utilitarian calculus, but rather a personal endorsement of a candidate's character, intelligence, and values.
And to others, a vote lends legitimacy to a system they deem illegitimate. This is also a stance I respect.
How you understand voting is your prerogative, but I encourage others to stick to their convictions rather than be pressured into taking an action they believe to be ethically objectionable. Abstaining from voting is your right. And in a nation where mid-term elections frequently see less than 50% turnout, the votes of those who choose to abstain speak more loudly than those who choose to participate.
From the article:
"As the verdict was read, Saddam yelled out, "Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!""
"Later, his lawyer said the former dictator called on Iraqis to reject sectarian violence and refrain from revenge against U.S. forces."
Somehow... somehow I really doubt that, unless Saddam had a remarkable complete turnabout, this lawyer is not accurately representing his client.
The message from the lawyer sounds more like something planted by a U.S. propaganda ministry than what Saddam would have said.
Also of interest:
I see that some of the defendants were convicted of... torture. Will the trials for torture by the Bush regime and its agents be held before Bush leaves office, or after? The answer is: Never. For those not paying attention, Congress has already passed into law the legislation essentially pardoning the Bush regime for its agents from its illegal torture and other human rights abuses. While the Iraqi people are seeing this Saddam regime brought to justice, the American people have already handed over their right to bring the Bush regime to justice.
So in exchange for constant government monitoring and at a cost of 3/4 of the crime prevention budget, people see a reduction in vehicle crimes but no significant reduction in violent crimes.
Either the people of the UK really, really like their cars, of they do not value their privacy and freedom from government intrusion.
Well at least they get some benefit from it... in the U.S.A. we give up our freedoms in exchange for the "feeling" of being safe from terrorist attacks.
"Okay, so we have a story on a political website ("Friends of Liberty") with a link only to published comments by another political website ("PapersPlease.org") concerning a proposal where the original RFP [gpo.gov] was posted July 14 of this year. Where was the outrage then, where was the irate Slashdot article then?"
Indeed:
"Absurd! How dare they bring this up a week before midterm elections! Why, we've been conspiring to strip them of these rights for a good 6 months now!"
The Democracts are going to take the House. They WILL launch myriad investigations into this irresponsible, corrupt, fascist regime.
Republics are right to be scared. They are scared shitless. WHY do you think it was so important to Bush to pass the Military Commisions Act of 2006 pardoning all the war criminals before the election?
Personally I think we should wait until Bush is out of office so that fucker can't pardon them when the Congressional committee comes knocking.
"If a can of tuna went for $300 dollars because of a tuna shortage, I bet a lot of people would start cutting back on their tuna consumption."
a sty-flesh. You can't just say, oh, "the price of tuna will increase proportionately," wave your hands, and chalk up another victory for the market. Have you considered a career in homeopathy? [insert hand waving].
...catastrophy smastrophy, AMIRITE?!
That may be, but outside of an anarcho-capitalist wet dream - out here in reality - the Free Market does not obey the law of don't-harvest-that-animal-to-extinction-for-its-t
Why on earth would you think otherwise? What mechanism do you propose that binds the free market value of tuna to not harvesting tuna beyond its capacity to recover? Yes, the price of seafood would likely increase as fish become increasingly scarce, but we simply have no reason to believe that we can throw caution and depend on the Free Market to ensure that when the population of tuna is at the threshold beyond which recovery is unlikely, the price of tuna will "therefore" be such as to reduce the rate of consumption to below the rate of recovery. There is simply no reason to trust that this will happen. There is no "therefore".
Now, if you were a *good* Libertarian you would say, "The problem with the oceans is because they are not privately owned, no one has an incentive to protect them. If the oceans were privately owned, then their owners would protect them to ensure their continued vitality. Therefore, to save the oceans, we must parcel out the oceans - or at least the tasty-fish-stock - to private landowners."
See? Even I know that one. That's a neat trick, isn't it?
But you know what, that private landowner doesn't give a shit what impact his actions will have on the world 50 - much less 100 - years from now, and he certainly doesn't give a shit about the ecological impact on what he does not own, nor on that which is not profitable.
There is no "therefore", and a future that "tends toward" not being an ecological catastrophy isn't exactly the sort of world we should be leaving for our grandchildren.
But hey, so long as you make a few bucks off 'a it
Why can politicians get away with making claims such as, "If the Democrats gain control of Congress, the Terrorists have won"? Or consider one I heard recently in a House candidate debate: "[Candidate X] voted against making it a crime to operate a meth lab near children, and voted against notifying parents when out of state sex offenders move into their neighborhood." Come. On.
What kind of idiots do these politicians take us for?
It isn't just that we let them get away with it, we shout and cheer them on!
Where's the sanity check? Don't people think, "Wait a second... Either this candidate took special interest money from the powerful meth-lab lobby (laugh), or there's probably more to this story"? Don't people think, "Wait a second... isn't it already absolutely, amazingly illegal to run a meth lab *anywhere*?" "Is this candidate really batshit crazy and against notifying parents when dangerous sex offenders move in next door, or is there more to this story?"
Or, "Wait a second, this is a political add not Freddy vs. Jason III. I shouldn't conclude this candidate is Hitler Jr. just because the picture is dark and the voice is scary." Please? Anyone?
What kind of idiots to these politicians take us for? The idiots that we are, apparently.
They keep doing it because it works.
The machines that count the fucking votes are not more important than vague "wrenches" like "primaries, party politics, and campaign financing"?
"primaries" and "party politics"? What the hell are you talking about?
If we can not trust that the votes are being counted correctly, nothing else counts for shit. And private corporations like Diebold and former CEO Walden "everything in my power to guarantee a Bush victory" O'Dell are the very last parties we should trust to count them.
You better believe we care. We care because George W Bush was determined the winner of the 2000 election on a technicality - a glitch. A "technicality" can make a world of difference. A "technicality" can impact the lives of billions of people around the world. You better believe we care when our votes aren't counted due to a "technicality". If we can not trust that device to count our votes - no measure of convenience can make it anything other than what it is: a subversion of our democratic system of government.
Due to a technicality George W. Bush was counted the winner despite his opponent being the selection of the people of this nation. Not only did Al Gore win the popular vote, but when all the votes in Florida were recounted following any legal standard for the counting of contested ballots, Al Gore was clearly identified as the democratically selected President of this nation.
We care because the War in Iraq is the result of a technicality - an accident. If George W. Bush had not been determined the winner of the 2000 election on a technicality, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians would not be dead today. We would not have sullied the good name of the United States of America in every corner of the world. We would not be kidnapping and torturing foreign nationals in violation of the Geneva Conventions. We would not have mass-pardoned government officials and military officers who ordered and obeyed the orders to torture.
And we would not be suffering through 4 more years now. That's why we care.
But Comedy Central does potentially have an interest in controlling content on YouTube.
If you didn't know, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are both available as subscriptions (well, "multi-pass") through iTunes at a price of $9.99 for 16 episodes.
Now, people putting full episodes up on YouTube at quality that isn't that much less tolerable, obviously directly competes with this product.
So I think we will see Viacom restricting the length of clips or the number of clips available for a single episode available on YouTube.
I don't have cable as an option and I'm not willing to pay for dish. Until subscriptions were launched on iTunes, I watched both shows through YouTube and usually had no problem finding or piecing together complete, current episodes.
I for one welcome this advance in voting technology.
Our constituents have complained about feeling compelled to vote for Democrats as a matter of intellectual honesty - even conscience. In recent elections some have even reported unwittingly voting for Democrats. We must not allow our system of government to be subverted by the will of the ignorant masses.
The introduction of self-correcting voting machines will see to it that this doesn't happen again. Voters who mistakenly vote for Democrats will have their vote automatically changed to a vote for the correct candidate: the Republican.
This advancement will usher in a new age of democracy. Scientists tell me that in the future we may even be able to limit the need to involve voters: we'll just have the machines vote for the correct candidate in the first place!
According to the studies linked from the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph) it seems that while the test has a high false positive rate, the false negative rate is lower than one would expect of random chance. Does anyone read it otherwise?
While I think it would be abhorrent to allow such a device to be used against a defendant in our criminal justice system, it the above is true it doesn't seem to me so unreasonable at all that it be used in the hiring of FBI and CIA agents and the like.
A better chance of keeping Russian and Chinese spies out of our security forces may very well outweigh turning away candidates incorrectly classified as deceitful.
Whereas in matters of criminal justice most seem to agree it is better that 10 guilty men should go free than that 1 innocent man should be condemned.
Also, I've always wondered whether this isn't really more of a "nervousness test" than anything else.
"Why can't these be on one desktop? Why is it better that they're on 9 separate ones? Seems to unnecessarily complicate matters."
While this fellow seems to have gone overboard, virtual desktops provide a number of advantages.
First, so long as you avoid window overlap and also consistently put the same windows on the same desktops, as I imagine most virtual desktop fans do, you more or less have hotkey access to every running application. Once you have memorized that your email client is on, say, desktop 4, you just hit CTRL+ALT+4 or Win+4 or whatever the case may be. I find this to be far and away better than hunting through an overcrowded taskbar to pick up the window I.
Second, frequently windows fall into logical groups. Say, if you always or nearly always want the application log output window next to the application you are debugging or testing. If you didn't isolate them from other windows on a virtual desktop, you would then need to hunt TWO windows out of that overcrowded taskbar. With virtual desktops it's just a key combo and they're there.
The term "virtual desktop" doesn't do a very good job of conveying how the function is used. Virtual desktops can probably be better thought of as "window groups". OS X uses this concept in a limited way. On OS X ALT+Tab switches between window groups - window groups are just unfortunately hard coded to be all windows of the same application.
Boy does Blizzard ever have you by the balls.
I think they should have given better odds of getting prizes, just enough so that, say, spending $100 or $200 on cards would likely get you something. Why? Because people like you would pay for it. The more money Blizzard gets, the more they have available to reinvest in R&D. And if you can't resist the "gotta catch 'em all urge", you probably deserve to be milked like this.
There were already many examples of items in WoW that could no longer be obtained. And there are many more examples of items that 99% of players will never obtain eventhough they could if they spent a year or more raiding.
I mean, don't you think it's a little pathetic that you as a grown man are whining about this?
It's like a tax on idiocy.
"Doesn't matter what crime, so long as the kid is terrorized sufficiently. I mean, there are so many laws on the books nowadays that everyone, and I mean everyone, is guilty of something and can be nailed to a cross for little reason, or no reason at all."
Terrorized indeed. The terrorists who now threaten our freedom and way of life are not abroad hiding in mosques, but here in our midst hiding in the halls of the institutions of our democracy.
We are in the heart of an occupation. We must win back the hearts and minds of the people of this land, to stand up, to go to the polls in 2006 and 2008 and send the message that we will be intimidated no longer, that under no circumstances will we turn over one liberty more, that we reject the Campaign of Terror this government is waging against its own people, that we choose Freedom over Fear.
That brings up a good point.
The central claim to legitimacy of this administration is that it has kept us safe from another attack.
Now, despite their threat levels and their vague disclosures, there is no evidence that anyone or any group has been anywhere near executing a new attack on U.S. soil.
ALL this administration has done to back up its claim of keeping us safe is a long list of fear mongering activities: terror alerts, alert levels, banning TOOTHPASTE, etc.
All this administration has going for it is the public perception that the things it is doing are keeping us safe. And what this guy did was a direct challenge to their authority and their record.
It doesn't matter that we aren't actually safer. It doesn't matter that the Bush administration has not stopped a single legitimate terror plot against the fatherland. All that matters is that the public believe they have.
Contribute to his defense fund and before you know it you are "providing material support to a terrorist organization".
All it takes is for Bush to give the approval for a charge with those magic words, and you can be declared an enemy combatant, tortured and shipped off to Gitmo indeterminately - being a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil means nothing. They wouldn't have pushed the Congress so hard for it if they didn't intend to use it.
Is it so inconceivable? Contributing money to an Islamic charity the provides relief to the wrong people can get you a charge of providing material support to a terrorist organization.
This man is engaging in conspiracy to provide forged documents to terrorists. I'd call that material support. Under the new policy, that's all the grounds Bush needs to declare him an enemy combatant.
Contributing to the defense fund of an enemy combatant might just get you the same.
You think 30-40 researchers and professors standing up together would deter the government?
They would raid the homes of the leaders, charge them, leaving the rest in a state of fear for their lives and their families. Any who dare speak out about their leaders being made an example of will face the same.
You think the people of our nation would listen to these researchers and professors? Professors and researchers are God-hating communists. They hate America. They hate our troops. They want to terrorists to win.
Haven't you heard?
Our society is caught up in a jingoistic, fascist hysteria. If anything the intellectuals who speak out as you suggest will be the first to go to Git'mo.
Our best bet is to hope Democrats pick up the House and pick up the Presidency in 2008. Although not the Senate. All 3 controlled by any one party is something to be afraid of. Unless of course our Democrats have the guts to come in in 2008 with both houses and the presidency and start trying this administration on war crimes. But I doubt they do.
Who applauds the government whistleblower? "Society applauds the whistleblower"? Not before, not after. Let's not kid ourselves.
Heck, the senator calling for his arrest in the story this follows up is a Democrat - Congressman Markey (D-Mass)! A Democrat!
Large segments of our society are caught up in a jingoistic, xenophobic, fascist hysteria.
They detest whistleblowers, particularly when the perpetrator is this administration. Rush Limbaugh listeners and O'Reilly Factor and Hannity viewers prove the point. If the government says this man is a dangerous criminal aiding the terrorists, then by golly he's a terrorist. Posters on Right-wing sites like FreeRepublic prove the point. The first reaction of these people is anger and the threat of violence against anyone who would dare to question this administration or show it with its metaphorical pants down.
You think they will support a whistleblower? These are people who HATE the ACLU, one of the few organizations that is fighting to keep this ship afloat long enough to get her back to harbor in 2008 still in one piece!
Their first reaction to a whistleblower? SHUT UP! SHUT UP!
Reality is painful. Reality reminds them that the administration they have put into power is plunging us into catastrophic, unrecoverable debt. Reality reminds them that they put into power the administration that is stripping us of personal privacy and persona liberties at every turn. Reality reminds them that the administration they put into power is rapidly and quietly consildating unprecedented power into the Office of the President - the Unitary Executive.
No, you can't count on society to stand up for the whistleblowers. We are in full on fingers-in-our-ears-yelling shut up, shut up, shut up, mode. 9/11 changed everything.
And to all you slashdotters posting in the previous story about this gentleman, hypothesizing about potential airline security vulnerabilities, even strategies... good luck. You could be next. Someone found his blog. Someone can find your post. You might just wake up Monday morning to the sound of your door being kicked in.
These people are dead serious.
So the President can deploy the military to enforce martial law whenever he "determines" "any other" of these things have occurred?
Just like he "determined" there were WMDs in Iraq.
Somehow I am not overwhelmed with trust and appreciation. The phrase "WMD-related program activities" comes to mind...
And don't forget that if we had an election system that wasn't an insult to every voting man and woman, George W. Bush would NEVER have become president in the first place.
There wouldn't have been an Iraq invasion. And we wouldn't be suffering through "4 more years!' as we speak because there wouldn't have been 4 years to have more of.
The People did choose their leader in 2000. But that didn't stop Bush from taking office.
If it weren't for our antiquated presidential election system, we would not be in Iraq today.
That is just astounding.
The Bush presidency is a miscarriage of democracy. And this isn't a flame about Florida. No one denies that Gore won the popular vote nationwide.
Terming it "apathy" isn't necessarily fair. I believe there is something to be said for abstaining from federal elections. Now, that isn't an excuse to ignore the issues. But I see nothing detestable about a principled position of closely following federal issues yet choosing to abstain from federal elections.
To those who believe we have regressed to a point where the ground rules - the system itself - is illegitimate or is of questionable legitimacy, there is no better means of expressing this determination on the ballot than by abstaining from voting in federal elections or even in all elections. Until the ballot contains a "NO" option - "NO" to every candidate, "NO" to the system - they are left with NO option.
Perhaps you would prefer to make voting mandatory, punishable by a fine or even jail time?
Would you have railed against Iraqis who would have abstained from voting when Saddam was in power given the option?
Detractors can say that it is pretentious or childish or whatever they wish, but let there be no doubt: voting lends legitimacy to the system. If that system is illegitimate, then the act of voting lends legitimacy to an illegitimate system. Even dictators hold elections, often with mandatory participation. They use their high turnout figures to defend the legitimacy of their systems.
What better way to vote against the system than to join the 45-60% of elligible voters who consistently choose to abstain from voting federal elections?
And yet I would encourage these individuals to consider their participation in state and local elections independently. Your representation at the federal level diminishes every year as the white country club that is the Senate remains static as population increases. Likewise with increasing corporate influence, gerrymandering, and outright fraud and bribery. Yet hopefully your representation at the state or at least local level remains strong. Do not overlook these elections even if you abstain from federal elections.
You think this is just a move to alter political perception?
Why make your political opponents seen in a bad light when you can make them not seen at all?
I doubt the Bush administration vehemently argued for and got the ability to declare U.S. citizens on U.S. soil enemy combatants for providing "material support" to terrorist organizations, not to use it.
More or less all the administration has to do is accuse this man of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization - quite reasonable considering his actions - and they can ship him off to Git'mo indefinitely. They now "can" bring these prisoners to trial. But they don't have to. They can hold him there indefinitely and release him out in the Virginia countryside after the 2008 election and have done no legal wrong.
Providing "material support" to a terrorist organization is now enough to get you declared any enemy combatant, U.S. citizen on U.S. soil or not. Let's hope for your sake you are a U.S. citizen. If you're not, you might end up kidnapped into the extraordinary rendition program instead of in Git'mo. And they don't have to bring you to trial. They "can" now bring you to trial, but they can hold you for the rest of your life if they so choose. You might never see your family again.
You don't think they are serious or that they will notice you? These are the same people who show up at children's school when they make obviously childish threats at the president on their MySpace site.
If you ask me - and I know you didn't - these are not people to screw with.
It's a good thing the Bush White House was able to bully the Congress into accepting its compromise.
This is all the evidence Bush legally needs to declare this man an enemy combatant (yes, despite the fact this he is a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil).
Whaddya say Dubya? Looks like a clear case of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization.
Declare this terrorist an enemy combatant and ship him off to Git'mo! God bless the U.S.A.!
I want CD quality album downloads through iTunes so I don't have to keep buying CDs in the first place.
New Flash RIAA: If I want a CD of the album I and most everyone else in the U.S. can burn CDs ourselves. They sound just as good as the ones you make. And when they get scratched we just burn new ones.