I was not applying some sort of rhetorical strategy. What anon was alleging is that you cannot have any meaningful conversation with some progressives because they try to mislead people, and that they do not tell the whole story. I was merely bringing up the reality that no one wants to have an honest conversation. Further: It's misleading statements like that that turn off moderates (who can easily google the federal budget) from believing in the good intentions of us on the left. I would assert that neither side has "good intentions" but merely their own interests at heart. Each side sort of has to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda and hope that the way they frame things wins out.

Imagine if a (real not Koch-brothers-fake) community action group approached regulars on the street with a whitepaper and said: Here in these 50 pages we outline the background behind Social Security and provide statistics that reinforce our belief that everyone needs to contribute 37% more. What would those people do?

Is using bcache really this hard? I didn't see any mention of setting up bcache during an initial system install. Essentially like: install everything to /dev/sda and use /dev/sdb as cache? Couldn't this be done if /dev/sda1 was a LVM w/ / on it, maybe with /dev/sda2 as /boot?

Do you mean to say that those on the right never say statements that are misleading? That the big ag lobby never misrepresents the tremendous aid they get from the farm bill, while the pawns in the house try to cut spending on nutrition programs? That we do not comply with our free trade agreements - and that those other nations are merely trying to lash out at us unfairly? (I listen to ag radio, you wouldn't believe the nonsense. One day the corn lobby is complaining about the EPA relaxing the ethanol mandate; the next the beef lobby is saying how great it is since they have had to buy that over priced corn and have seen some red ink the last couple years. All the while no one cares about this particular case where government is regulating a free market?) You can pick another sector if you want, food alone is just so easy to refute you with. So please step off your soap box and review the situation(s) in the real world.

You are correct. I would like to add: the basic problem is that ACA doesn't lower health care costs. It also now puts lots of people into these idiotic high deductible plans. Bush did that too there just wasn't as many people complaining because everyone didn't have to switch to a high deductible plan all at the same time - it was gradual. It also now lets the govt spend a bunch on failed federal and state IT projects. So they replaced high insurance company profit with wasteful govt spending we don't as easily notice? All of these guys need a comprehensive audit a year or so from now. How much is/was being spent, to what benefit, and is it any better now than when the (horrible) insurance companies had all the waste? Did the govt bureaucracy just want a cut of the waste? Questions. All we have are questions and shitty expensive health care. The irony is that this is what Obama is clinging to for his legacy.

I think what this may be alluding to is the debt acting as a tax shield. I am not an accountant... I just pay attention when I read the news, this happens all the time with mergers. I have not paid too much attention to this Nokia-MS deal though and I might be wrong.

Oversimplification: Windows Firefox Download is 22.9MB and the SeaMonkey download is 23.3MB. And SeaMonkey has better default configuration options. And tries to maintain a normal semblance of configurable preferences without the go away shoo tactics of the about:config area 51. And has a suite of a few other programs. And doesn't have that nasty google smell. But OMG it must be so bloated!

My take is that SeaMonkey is a breath of fresh air. A reminder that you are using a real computer instead of a wannabe tablet.

Fair Judges? Those same fair judges that the Chamber of Commerce chooses for us? Or those fair judges that get kicked out once called "activist judges" for making otherwise perfectly normal decisions that some member of the "business" community hates? Tell me again who the highest bidder is? This stuff isn't trying to read tea leaves...

Is that like the bug reports asking why the prompt for closing multiple tabs comes up when users have already told firefox not to warn when closing multiple tabs? Those go nowhere because some UX nazi cares so much about a user fat fingering the Right-Click-Close-Other tabs button. But hey, please now go read the bugzilla thread because its so informative!? Oh wait, its fixed since there is a second option in about:config, that kiss on our boo-boo makes it all better right?! Firefox UX design is basically: take options away, be more like chrome, put it all into about:config. Boring.

You mean like happened to Sarah Palin's page the night before she was chosen to be the VP candidate? Or on any other such page where there is a desire to scrub past or present? I am at least happy that we have a relatively transparent view into the history of these articles - but it has already been completely undermined.

(Didn't post this yesterday because offtopic...)

Why couldn't they have such legislation? There is already this legislation in place forcing the plebs to buy this thing from companies.

Or doesn't know how to program. Not saying I'm one of those, but there is a place in this world for nurses and cooks and carpenters who know their trades quite well but not how to construct an algorithm in a computer.

Or were you trolling?

See, that's exactly how the U.S. should do it. It is moronic that we have to pay 3rd parties to submit data and money to the government. But we are responsible if the data is wrong, not the bad programmers.

I'm not following this. Software (I use TaxAct) is quite good at making sure to ask you a lot of detailed questions about your life events and situation. Software can make sure to ask these questions and not forget one like a human can. If you, the end-user, neglect to check a box that says (for example), "I donated a car this year", then that's your fault not the software's. If you're trying to say the accountant would ask "Hey, are you sure you didn't donate a car?" and you respond "Oh yeah...you're right, I did," then OK, the human is better at coaxing info out of you (or inducing you to lie.) Personally, I'll stick to software.

• Can we get someone on the Slashdot staff that has actually some experience of the operating system in use by 96% of the population please?

It's not even correct for the other 4%. On Mac OS X, Silverlight absolutely alerts the user that their version is out of date and a single "OK" click will download the new version for them.

Funny, I had the same reaction when I read it. He seemed like a salesman for Google or something.