I like your summary and hope you get modded up for it. Regardless, I think the events of 1913 deserve some mention -- the passage of the 16th amendment and the creation of the Federal Reserve system.
One thing I have always respected about the Bushies... they are very good with "impeachment insurance!" Bush 41 had his with Quayle. Bush 43 has his with Cheney. It also helps counter and ideas people may have about harming the President. Very astute I say. I wish Bush 43 were as astute in other areas.
Regardless, there may have been some cooling localized to the northern hemisphere due to "global dimming" from aerosol pollutants that was worse in the 1960s and 70s that today.
I run OpenOffice at my 9-5 job on my windows box at work. I have had documents open (Word and Excel) and allowed others to work at my desk to look at something or make a quick change and be completely unaware that they were not using MS Office. I find that amusing, and it illustrates your point.
Part of what makes his lies rather egregious is that a genuine doctoral program in theology is rather rigorous and requires mastery of a number of languages -- Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Latin, German, and French. I am thinking of programs like those at Yale or Princeton or Claremont -- even Fuller in Pasadena. They are generally more rigorous than most similar liberal arts doctorates. If this liar actually had the degrees he claimed, it would have been a good match.
But -- he can get away with these lies because there are so many sectarian theological schools which no one has heard of, that it makes it easy to make claims like this and not expect people to check them out. And, of course, the quality of the degree from these schools varies greatly.
The view that Jesus never existed is a minority view and does not agree with the current scholarly consensus. Please read the materials in the link I have provided if you don't believe me.
I am familiar with the field and can see right off that some of Price's statements make no sense. For example, All of the various Christian groups in the early centuries believed that Jesus was a real historical person, the fact that some believed that this Jesus was not made of "flesh" not withstanding. Price's use of that data is misleading. This is a minor example, but one that is easy to state. It is enough to doubt that Price is a very good source. There are better skeptical views in the site I reference above.
A possible problem, as I see it, is that properly configured clients will have to "retry". Doesn't this add to the processing required by non-spamming users? Or is it insignificant?
You are so right! We should not trust "regulators" to decide what balance means. Our constitution (the USAs) protects freedom of speech for that very reason. Our founders did not want the state to determine what kinds of speech were to be permitted. It did not matter what reason the speech was restricted -- let the people decided what is fair, and what to listen to and what to ignore.
There was a state interest in encouraging many voices using the fairness doctrine back when broadcast TV was essentially limited to three stations -- NBC, CBS and ABC. But in an age when we have dozens or even hundreds of stations, it has out lived its usefulness. Now any such doctrine can only be an instrument of censorship. The solution now is to encourage diversity by first opening up the broadcast spectrum in radio (see this Open Spectrum FAQ..
With a Fairness Doctrine, Rush Limbaugh can't have a show.
That is the problem with your fascist viewpoint. It is not "fair". I believe you think your are well meaning and want to restore sanity to political discussion in the media -- remove all the smoke, etc. But, in fact, you leave it to government regulators selected by politicians who you may or may not like to determine what is "fact" and what is "FUD", what is "smoke" and what is "fire", and in the process you will lock out voices like Limbaugh's who, like it or not, represents the viewpoint of tens of millions and a huge chunk of AM radio listeners. (He does not represent my view, I find him dull, and I am significantly more liberal/libertarian.)
In our system, Rush should have the right to broadcast, and people should have the right to listen -- that is the essence of free speech. If you don't like him, you do not have to listen to him. It is not your business to shut him down or to interfere with the rights of others to listen to him or not as they choose.
There is a state interest in encouraging diversity in radio, but the solution is to limit the number of stations large firms like Clear-Channel can own in a given market, to encourage public radio, and to open up the broadcast spectrum. It is not your facistic anti-free speech prior restraint group think ideology that pushes "fairness" at the expense of freedom.
The Fairness doctrine is pure evil! And a real threat to free speech. It is government censorship of free speech.
Yeah, it was needed, perhaps, when we had three choices in each market -- ABC, NBC and CBS. In that market, a fairness doctrine was needed to ensure access of a range of widely held viewpoints to the rather limited media we had at that time. That served the interest of free speech. But now we have a dozens of channels or hundreds of channels. If you don't like FOX, then listen to CNN or watch PBS. There is plenty of diversity. There is no need for a fairness doctrine anymore. It is unconstitutional, since it would only to give government the power of prior restraint and not advance free speech rights.
If you don't all oppose this vigorously now, then what will you do when government fairness monitors regulate speech on the internet? Do you really want that?
A lot of you misguided liberals will support the fairness doctrine because of the success of right-wing talk radio and the absurdities of FOX. Yeah, things will be great in a few years after Hillary is elected (I think she probably will be, really), and the Democrats control Congress. And a lot of good will be done in that time -- but if you allow the fairness doctrine to take hold -- what will happen when the wheel turns again and Republicans come back in power? Do you really want some later incarnation of Bush to weld the fairness doctrine on your media? Do you really think that the Web will be exempt if this gets started up again? It you think talk radio has become something of a conservative monopoly due Clear Channel, etc. -- How about just breaking up those chains and opening up the radio spectrum? Not institute government regulation of speech. That is a bad bad bad bad idea. Don't be fooled.
But -- many environmentalists are of no help in persuading the public. Many of them are "wackos" which is too bad. If you don't believe me, check out this Penn and Teller Bullshit episode.
... the problem with articles like these is that the criticism is not always fair.
I see nothing wrong with the first two celebrity comments.
"Why should I allow my body or my children to be filled with man-made chemicals, when I don't know what the health effects of these substances will be?"
Melinda Messenger is criticized for this because small amounts of man-made chemicals are present in the body at all times. But Melinda's remark does not deny this or address that issue at all. Her comment is about unspecified "large doses" (i.e. being "filled with") man-made chemicals. The question is perfectly fair. The implication of her remark is that the general population is being exposed to excessive dosages of toxic man-made chemicals. That by itself, is likely to be true in many cases. Yes, she should give specifics. We need to see the context of her remarks. But the above snippet is not self evidentially false, and is a perfectly fair question and concern.
"...he was in serious pain, just below the knee, and I felt the area above had been traumatised. I started feeling and I'd say within 20 minutes, he was walking again. It took away the pain."
Once again, no context is given. Chris De Burgh is singled out for what? Related the facts of what happened? Truthfully? And the scientist critic believes that what he said was true? And gave a plausible explanation of the cause? What falsehoods did Chris De Burgh communicate? I don't see that he made any claim to have healed the underlying injury. Maybe he did in the greater context of his comments, but the comment above as quoted is perfectly OK.
The other criticisms seem correct to me, but this kind of reporting bugs me because it is does not seem to me to be fair or cogent.
I believe that you have done a much better thing than Monckton by highlighting that report. It is very interesting.
I admit, however, that the summary from that article shows pretty convincingly why climate scientists believe that global warming is very real and caused by human activity. Look at the graph on Page 2 in the summary of that report and observe what is happening after 1900.
Here is a quote from that summary regarding medieval global temperatures:
Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since 900 A.D.
Regarding the medieval warming period. The data on that graph does show a warmer period in the early middle ages, but this does not clear Monckton or show that he is credible. Monckton represented the whole middle ages as substantially warmer that now, even to the extent of having an ice free Arctic Ocean in the 15th century. That is patently false. The same data shows much cooler average temperatures in the 15th century than now. The report you highlighted further demonstrates Monckton's lack of credibility.
By destroying the credibility of the Monckton article in several of its major assertions, it makes any claim by Monckton suspect. This is basic skepticism 101.
Do you remember the principle, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?" The Monckton article is at the extraordinary end of the scale because he is a journalist making claims that run contrary to the consensus of climate scientists. To be credible, his evidence has to be impeccable and virtually irrefutable. Monckton did well for a pseudo-scientist, getting a normally credible, but known to be biased widely read mainstream British newspaper, to print his claims. When I read the original article, I thought to myself that he may have some valid points, and raised some interesting questions. I judged it likely that he was wrong -- the scientific consensus is not easily overturned -- but I was opened minded to his views to some degree. Now that Monboit has shown several of Monckton's claims to be not only wrong, but an egregious misrepresentation of the facts, now I know that he is not credible. His somewhat extraordinary claims have weak or no evidence that we can believe, so his claims should be rejected by reasonable people. In this way Monboit, by answering some major claims convincingly as shown that we can believe nothing really that Monckton says on this issue and has refuted indirectly everything.
If someone else has a separate claim regarding some particulars that were mention in Monckton's original article, then they will have to show some somewhat extraordinary evidence for that claim, and to give us some good reasons to listen to them. It is not up to the rest of us to refute any more of Monckton's claims. He credibility is shot. Nor is there any need to congratulate him or give him further attention.
The State of California now requires a paper audit trail. I asked a friend of mine who works as a poll worker volunteer about the system used in Orange County, California. She gave me a detailed and intelligent response with specific information on how it works now. I posted these under another article, but it didn't the attention that I thought her remarks merited. I am also interested in any responses to them.
The "OC" uses voting machines with a paper audit trail system developed by Hart-Intercivic.
Here is what my friend had to say:
The current electronic voting machines consist of a Judge's Booth Controller (JBC) & a daisy chain of (usually) 8 electronic voting screens w/Voted Paper Audit Transaction Systems (VPATS). The JBC governs all of the screens, but is not connected to any VPATS, each of which is independent to its own voting screen. The entire system is completely self-contained -- it does not hook into any other computer system. It only hooks into the wall plug to give it power.
The first voter (a non-volunteering, random citizen who just happens to be first in line) signs the OPEN POLLS paper tape that verifies that no votes have been cast on the JBC for that election. Each voter is given a temporary access code that allows him/her to vote on an assigned electronic screen. The number is randomly assigned by the JBC volunteer & has no connection to the voter's identity. It expires as soon as the voter casts his/her ballot and/or a brief period of time elapses with no voting activity on the electronic screen. The voter enters his/her access code, then chooses his/her vote for each candidate/race on the electronic screen. When he/she is finished choosing, a review screen displays all of the choices & prints the same review on the attached VPAT, which the voter can see, but cannot touch (it is sealed inside the VPAT machine). When the voter verifies that this is his/her correctly voted ballot, the ballot is cast electronically & is reprinted on the VPAT (again, the voter can read it, but cannot access it).
No poll worker can access the VPATS (actually for the duration of the election & counting, neither can a ROV employee), nor can they change the electronic screen. If the voter makes a mistake, the entire ballot must be cancelled & the voter must start again. Once the voting day is finished, & the JBC prints out an additional summary of all the votes cast during the day at that polling place, everything is turned back into the ROV (through a system of manual labor all done by community volunteers, supervised by a ROV employee). The VPATS go to one location. The printed JBC summaries (beginning & ending) go to another location. The JBC goes to a third location. All votes are tallied (by a mixed group of employees & community volunteers) in each of the 3 locations, & compared. If there are discrepancies, the VPAT tally is generally preferred first, then the JBC printed summary, then the JBC electronic count. (There could be legitimate reasons to change the ranking, but I don't know what those are. They are printed out & available to the public.)
About absentee ballots (which I am using this time since we are working a polling place not near our own precinct) -- once they reach the Registrar of Voter's (ROV) office, the unopened envelope is recorded so that you cannot vote again by showing up at the polls, & then it is transferred to a completely different office before it is ever opened. The different office has no access to the list of registered voters. There the envelope is opened & the ballot is taken out & separated from the envelope. All the envelopes are isolated elsewhere, the ballots are bundled together & transferred to a different office, where they are counted by non-employee community citizen volunteers like me.
Personally, I have no confidence in any system without the paper audit trail requirements, and none in Diebold in particular.
I thought this would be of interest. I texted a friend of mine who works as a pole worker volunteer about the system used in Orange County California. The "OC" uses a paper audit trail system developed by Hart-Intercivic.
Here is what my friend had to say:
The current electronic voting machines consist of a Judge's Booth Controller (JBC) & a daisy chain of (usually) 8 electronic voting screens w/Voted Paper Audit Transaction Systems (VPATS). The JBC governs all of the screens, but is not connected to any VPATS, each of which is independent to its own voting screen. The entire system is completely self-contained -- it does not hook into any other computer system. It only hooks into the wall plug to give it power.
The first voter (a non-volunteering, random citizen who just happens to be first in line) signs the OPEN POLLS paper tape that verifies that no votes have been cast on the JBC for that election. Each voter is given a temporary access code that allows him/her to vote on an assigned electronic screen. The number is randomly assigned by the JBC volunteer & has no connection to the voter's identity. It expires as soon as the voter casts his/her ballot and/or a brief period of time elapses with no voting activity on the electronic screen. The voter enters his/her access code, then chooses his/her vote for each candidate/race on the electronic screen. When he/she is finished choosing, a review screen displays all of the choices & prints the same review on the attached VPAT, which the voter can see, but cannot touch (it is sealed inside the VPAT machine). When the voter verifies that this is his/her correctly voted ballot, the ballot is cast electronically & is reprinted on the VPAT (again, the voter can read it, but cannot access it).
No poll worker can access the VPATS (actually for the duration of the election & counting, neither can a ROV employee), nor can they change the electronic screen. If the voter makes a mistake, the entire ballot must be cancelled & the voter must start again. Once the voting day is finished, & the JBC prints out an additional summary of all the votes cast during the day at that polling place, everything is turned back into the ROV (through a system of manual labor all done by community volunteers, supervised by a ROV employee). The VPATS go to one location. The printed JBC summaries (beginning & ending) go to another location. The JBC goes to a third location. All votes are tallied (by a mixed group of employees & community volunteers) in each of the 3 locations, & compared. If there are discrepancies, the VPAT tally is generally preferred first, then the JBC printed summary, then the JBC electronic count. (There could be legitimate reasons to change the ranking, but I don't know what those are. They are printed out & available to the public.)
About absentee ballots (which I am using this time since we are working a polling place not near our own precinct) -- once they reach the Registrar of Voter's (ROV) office, the unopened envelope is recorded so that you cannot vote again by showing up at the polls, & then it is transferred to a completely different office before it is ever opened. The different office has no access to the list of registered voters. There the envelope is opened & the ballot is taken out & separated from the envelope. All the envelopes are isolated elsewhere, the ballots are bundled together & transferred to a different office, where they are counted by non-employee community citizen volunteers like me.
I am still undecided if the safeguards are sufficient, but this sounds pretty good. The "OC" is a Republican area, but the paper audit trail requirement reforms are due to requirements by the California Secretary of State, a Democrat.
Personally, I have no confidence in any system without the p
They have now successfully co-opted what they could not buy: Linux and GPL'd software. In essence they own GPL software now and can extract license fees from us at their will and pleasure.
I think Linux will survive and do well thanks to other large companies with an interest in Linux's survival. I am thinking of IBM in particular. If MS tries to use their patent portfolio to wipe out Linux entirely, then I think they could expect IBM to go after MS in turn. So, I think Linux has some level of protection. The bigger threat is to companies like Red Hat.
I have been using SUSE 10.0 for quite awhile now. I have no problems myself with using proprietary components, but this behavior is a threat to FOSS and Linux. I guess it is time to switch.
What does partnering with Novell get them that they didn't have before?
Legal cover from anti-trust action.
If MS tries to use patent law to shutdown Red Hat, it open's them up to anti-trust litigation. Now, they can counter that by saying that there is a legal alternative -- SUSE. The agreement frees them up to use their patent portfolio as a weapon against Linux distributors like Red Hat.
The implication Balmer's remarks about getting "a version of Linux that respects our intellectual property" is that all Linux distributions now are violating Microsoft patents. Microsoft's problem was that they could not sue over these violations without incurring more anti-monopoly legal action. Now the latter threat is diffused because of this agreement. It frees up Microsoft to sue or just threaten to sue Linux competitors like Red Hat.
Note that large corporations typically build up patent portfolios to use as weapons in the market place. These are normally defensive. I.e. Microsoft will not sue IBM over patent infringements so long as IBM does not sue Microsoft. But, the patents are also used as weapons of intimidation against smaller competitors to limit them or drive them out of business.
This is a gross exaggeration. I live in Southern California and I know of no "Mexicans" who work for $0.25 an hour. Most of the "illegals" still work for at least minimum wage or higher. They are often preferred to gringos, because they work much harder -- not uncommon for immigrant refuges from poorer areas of the world. Most Latino children are learning English and assimilating just like past immigrant populations.
I regard myself as conservative on immigration issues. I want the border shut-down and to have immigration controlled much more than it is, because of the burden that large scale immigration of poor people to our country is having on our infrastructure and standard of living. Your characterization is a sterotype that gets views like mine catagorized as being racist and is a disservice.
I don't think over time that Latino immigrants will be any different than past waves of immigrants and that we will ultimately be a better and richer country for it.
Slashdot Mirror
I like your summary and hope you get modded up for it. Regardless, I think the events of 1913 deserve some mention -- the passage of the 16th amendment and the creation of the Federal Reserve system.
One thing I have always respected about the Bushies ... they are very good with "impeachment insurance!" Bush 41 had his with Quayle. Bush 43 has his with Cheney. It also helps counter and ideas people may have about harming the President. Very astute I say. I wish Bush 43 were as astute in other areas.
Global Cooling is a myth.
Regardless, there may have been some cooling localized to the northern hemisphere due to "global dimming" from aerosol pollutants that was worse in the 1960s and 70s that today.I run OpenOffice at my 9-5 job on my windows box at work. I have had documents open (Word and Excel) and allowed others to work at my desk to look at something or make a quick change and be completely unaware that they were not using MS Office. I find that amusing, and it illustrates your point.
Part of what makes his lies rather egregious is that a genuine doctoral program in theology is rather rigorous and requires mastery of a number of languages -- Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Latin, German, and French. I am thinking of programs like those at Yale or Princeton or Claremont -- even Fuller in Pasadena. They are generally more rigorous than most similar liberal arts doctorates. If this liar actually had the degrees he claimed, it would have been a good match.
But -- he can get away with these lies because there are so many sectarian theological schools which no one has heard of, that it makes it easy to make claims like this and not expect people to check them out. And, of course, the quality of the degree from these schools varies greatly.
Yes, this is off-topic, but ....
Here is a site with a wealth of links and views on the historical Jesus:
Historical Jesus Theories
A couple points:
The view that Jesus never existed is a minority view and does not agree with the current scholarly consensus. Please read the materials in the link I have provided if you don't believe me.
I am familiar with the field and can see right off that some of Price's statements make no sense. For example, All of the various Christian groups in the early centuries believed that Jesus was a real historical person, the fact that some believed that this Jesus was not made of "flesh" not withstanding. Price's use of that data is misleading. This is a minor example, but one that is easy to state. It is enough to doubt that Price is a very good source. There are better skeptical views in the site I reference above.
A possible problem, as I see it, is that properly configured clients will have to "retry". Doesn't this add to the processing required by non-spamming users? Or is it insignificant?
Thanks.
You are so right! We should not trust "regulators" to decide what balance means. Our constitution (the USAs) protects freedom of speech for that very reason. Our founders did not want the state to determine what kinds of speech were to be permitted. It did not matter what reason the speech was restricted -- let the people decided what is fair, and what to listen to and what to ignore.
There was a state interest in encouraging many voices using the fairness doctrine back when broadcast TV was essentially limited to three stations -- NBC, CBS and ABC. But in an age when we have dozens or even hundreds of stations, it has out lived its usefulness. Now any such doctrine can only be an instrument of censorship. The solution now is to encourage diversity by first opening up the broadcast spectrum in radio (see this Open Spectrum FAQ..
With a Fairness Doctrine, Rush Limbaugh can't have a show.
That is the problem with your fascist viewpoint. It is not "fair". I believe you think your are well meaning and want to restore sanity to political discussion in the media -- remove all the smoke, etc. But, in fact, you leave it to government regulators selected by politicians who you may or may not like to determine what is "fact" and what is "FUD", what is "smoke" and what is "fire", and in the process you will lock out voices like Limbaugh's who, like it or not, represents the viewpoint of tens of millions and a huge chunk of AM radio listeners. (He does not represent my view, I find him dull, and I am significantly more liberal/libertarian.)
In our system, Rush should have the right to broadcast, and people should have the right to listen -- that is the essence of free speech. If you don't like him, you do not have to listen to him. It is not your business to shut him down or to interfere with the rights of others to listen to him or not as they choose.
There is a state interest in encouraging diversity in radio, but the solution is to limit the number of stations large firms like Clear-Channel can own in a given market, to encourage public radio, and to open up the broadcast spectrum. It is not your facistic anti-free speech prior restraint group think ideology that pushes "fairness" at the expense of freedom.
The Fairness doctrine is pure evil! And a real threat to free speech. It is government censorship of free speech.
Yeah, it was needed, perhaps, when we had three choices in each market -- ABC, NBC and CBS. In that market, a fairness doctrine was needed to ensure access of a range of widely held viewpoints to the rather limited media we had at that time. That served the interest of free speech. But now we have a dozens of channels or hundreds of channels. If you don't like FOX, then listen to CNN or watch PBS. There is plenty of diversity. There is no need for a fairness doctrine anymore. It is unconstitutional, since it would only to give government the power of prior restraint and not advance free speech rights.
If you don't all oppose this vigorously now, then what will you do when government fairness monitors regulate speech on the internet? Do you really want that?
A lot of you misguided liberals will support the fairness doctrine because of the success of right-wing talk radio and the absurdities of FOX. Yeah, things will be great in a few years after Hillary is elected (I think she probably will be, really), and the Democrats control Congress. And a lot of good will be done in that time -- but if you allow the fairness doctrine to take hold -- what will happen when the wheel turns again and Republicans come back in power? Do you really want some later incarnation of Bush to weld the fairness doctrine on your media? Do you really think that the Web will be exempt if this gets started up again? It you think talk radio has become something of a conservative monopoly due Clear Channel, etc. -- How about just breaking up those chains and opening up the radio spectrum? Not institute government regulation of speech. That is a bad bad bad bad idea. Don't be fooled.
I agree with you. Global warming is a fact.
But -- many environmentalists are of no help in persuading the public. Many of them are "wackos" which is too bad. If you don't believe me, check out this Penn and Teller Bullshit episode.
... the problem with articles like these is that the criticism is not always fair.
I see nothing wrong with the first two celebrity comments.
"Why should I allow my body or my children to be filled with man-made chemicals, when I don't know what the health effects of these substances will be?"
Melinda Messenger is criticized for this because small amounts of man-made chemicals are present in the body at all times. But Melinda's remark does not deny this or address that issue at all. Her comment is about unspecified "large doses" (i.e. being "filled with") man-made chemicals. The question is perfectly fair. The implication of her remark is that the general population is being exposed to excessive dosages of toxic man-made chemicals. That by itself, is likely to be true in many cases. Yes, she should give specifics. We need to see the context of her remarks. But the above snippet is not self evidentially false, and is a perfectly fair question and concern.
"...he was in serious pain, just below the knee, and I felt the area above had been traumatised. I started feeling and I'd say within 20 minutes, he was walking again. It took away the pain."
Once again, no context is given. Chris De Burgh is singled out for what? Related the facts of what happened? Truthfully? And the scientist critic believes that what he said was true? And gave a plausible explanation of the cause? What falsehoods did Chris De Burgh communicate? I don't see that he made any claim to have healed the underlying injury. Maybe he did in the greater context of his comments, but the comment above as quoted is perfectly OK.
The other criticisms seem correct to me, but this kind of reporting bugs me because it is does not seem to me to be fair or cogent.
I applaud you for your common sense!
Yes, and what about the 0.002 cents? 1/500th of a penny? Get 1,000 of those and we will have more that our two cents worth in precious metals.
I hate you
You hate me
Let's hang Barney from a tree
With a stab in the back
And a bullet to the head
Aren't you glad that Barney's dead?
I believe that you have done a much better thing than Monckton by highlighting that report. It is very interesting.
I admit, however, that the summary from that article shows pretty convincingly why climate scientists believe that global warming is very real and caused by human activity. Look at the graph on Page 2 in the summary of that report and observe what is happening after 1900.
Here is a quote from that summary regarding medieval global temperatures:
Regarding the medieval warming period. The data on that graph does show a warmer period in the early middle ages, but this does not clear Monckton or show that he is credible. Monckton represented the whole middle ages as substantially warmer that now, even to the extent of having an ice free Arctic Ocean in the 15th century. That is patently false. The same data shows much cooler average temperatures in the 15th century than now. The report you highlighted further demonstrates Monckton's lack of credibility.
How?
By destroying the credibility of the Monckton article in several of its major assertions, it makes any claim by Monckton suspect. This is basic skepticism 101.
Do you remember the principle, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?" The Monckton article is at the extraordinary end of the scale because he is a journalist making claims that run contrary to the consensus of climate scientists. To be credible, his evidence has to be impeccable and virtually irrefutable. Monckton did well for a pseudo-scientist, getting a normally credible, but known to be biased widely read mainstream British newspaper, to print his claims. When I read the original article, I thought to myself that he may have some valid points, and raised some interesting questions. I judged it likely that he was wrong -- the scientific consensus is not easily overturned -- but I was opened minded to his views to some degree. Now that Monboit has shown several of Monckton's claims to be not only wrong, but an egregious misrepresentation of the facts, now I know that he is not credible. His somewhat extraordinary claims have weak or no evidence that we can believe, so his claims should be rejected by reasonable people. In this way Monboit, by answering some major claims convincingly as shown that we can believe nothing really that Monckton says on this issue and has refuted indirectly everything.
If someone else has a separate claim regarding some particulars that were mention in Monckton's original article, then they will have to show some somewhat extraordinary evidence for that claim, and to give us some good reasons to listen to them. It is not up to the rest of us to refute any more of Monckton's claims. He credibility is shot. Nor is there any need to congratulate him or give him further attention.
Very good point. I hope you get modded up.
The State of California now requires a paper audit trail. I asked a friend of mine who works as a poll worker volunteer about the system used in Orange County, California. She gave me a detailed and intelligent response with specific information on how it works now. I posted these under another article, but it didn't the attention that I thought her remarks merited. I am also interested in any responses to them.
The "OC" uses voting machines with a paper audit trail system developed by Hart-Intercivic.
Here is what my friend had to say:
Personally, I have no confidence in any system without the paper audit trail requirements, and none in Diebold in particular.
Dvorak's column does not seem to be coherent to me.
I thought this would be of interest. I texted a friend of mine who works as a pole worker volunteer about the system used in Orange County California. The "OC" uses a paper audit trail system developed by Hart-Intercivic.
Here is what my friend had to say:
I am still undecided if the safeguards are sufficient, but this sounds pretty good. The "OC" is a Republican area, but the paper audit trail requirement reforms are due to requirements by the California Secretary of State, a Democrat.
Personally, I have no confidence in any system without the p
I think Linux will survive and do well thanks to other large companies with an interest in Linux's survival. I am thinking of IBM in particular. If MS tries to use their patent portfolio to wipe out Linux entirely, then I think they could expect IBM to go after MS in turn. So, I think Linux has some level of protection. The bigger threat is to companies like Red Hat.
I have been using SUSE 10.0 for quite awhile now. I have no problems myself with using proprietary components, but this behavior is a threat to FOSS and Linux. I guess it is time to switch.
Legal cover from anti-trust action.
If MS tries to use patent law to shutdown Red Hat, it open's them up to anti-trust litigation. Now, they can counter that by saying that there is a legal alternative -- SUSE. The agreement frees them up to use their patent portfolio as a weapon against Linux distributors like Red Hat.
The implication Balmer's remarks about getting "a version of Linux that respects our intellectual property" is that all Linux distributions now are violating Microsoft patents. Microsoft's problem was that they could not sue over these violations without incurring more anti-monopoly legal action. Now the latter threat is diffused because of this agreement. It frees up Microsoft to sue or just threaten to sue Linux competitors like Red Hat.
Note that large corporations typically build up patent portfolios to use as weapons in the market place. These are normally defensive. I.e. Microsoft will not sue IBM over patent infringements so long as IBM does not sue Microsoft. But, the patents are also used as weapons of intimidation against smaller competitors to limit them or drive them out of business.
This is a gross exaggeration. I live in Southern California and I know of no "Mexicans" who work for $0.25 an hour. Most of the "illegals" still work for at least minimum wage or higher. They are often preferred to gringos, because they work much harder -- not uncommon for immigrant refuges from poorer areas of the world. Most Latino children are learning English and assimilating just like past immigrant populations. I regard myself as conservative on immigration issues. I want the border shut-down and to have immigration controlled much more than it is, because of the burden that large scale immigration of poor people to our country is having on our infrastructure and standard of living. Your characterization is a sterotype that gets views like mine catagorized as being racist and is a disservice. I don't think over time that Latino immigrants will be any different than past waves of immigrants and that we will ultimately be a better and richer country for it.