An under-reported story from 2010 was the apparent proliferation of paid political trolls. Some of us have suspected this was going on, but some recent leaks coming out of Right-Wing political action committees confirms that this is happening on a bigger scale than thought.

This phenomena goes back at least as far as 2002, when it was discovered that an internet lobbying outfit called the "Bivings Group" was found to have created at least two false identities, "Mary Murphy" and "Andura Smetacek", that were used to post a prodigious number of posts attacking research showing widespread contamination of corn by genetically-modified bee pollen. Bivings was working for Monsanto at the time. It was widely reported that the McCain campaign did this during the 2008 campaign, but the new paid trolling is taking on new forms and attacking more than the regular political online communities.

A very interesting film, (Astro)Turf Wars, a documentary by Taki Oldham, has a scene that was secretly videotaped during a training session organized by a right-wing libertarian outfit called "American Majority". During this session, the trainer instructed Tea Party members as follows:

âoeHereâ(TM)s what I do. I get on Amazon; I type in âoeLiberal Booksâ. I go through and I say âoeone star, one star, one starâ. The flipside is you go to a conservative/ libertarian whatever, go to their products and give them five stars. ⦠This is where your kids get information: Rotten Tomatoes, Flixster. These are places where you can rate movies. So when you type in âoeMovies on Healthcareâ, I donâ(TM)t want Michael Mooreâ(TM)s to come up, so I always give it bad ratings. I spend about 30 minutes a day, just click, click, click, click. ⦠If thereâ(TM)s a place to comment, a place to rate, a place to share information, you have to do it. Thatâ(TM)s how you control the online dialogue and give our ideas a fighting chance.â

From some of the clips I've seen, this (Astro) Turf Wars film seems like it might be interesting to anyone who has been suspicious of the seemingly organized commenting/moderating activity here on Slashdot.

I agree that we've pretty much both said a good amount for our piece each. I appreciate the civil discourse, and the insight you offer me into your frame of mind. I wouldn't call it alien, and I understand the desires and hopes that you wish to accomplish, just have different weights on what matters. :)

So, to sum up, "Thanks"

It's amazing how some people are so quick to talk about rationing and "death panels" that will kill people after the Government takes over healthcare, yet they fail to recognize the death panels that are already operating.

A woman operating under Medicaid--the insurance granted to people who are too poor to provide for their own healthcare--was dealing with liver failure and needed a transplant. After being forced to convert to a private healthcare plan as part of an overhaul that seems to be a large part of the anti-socialist agenda of taking every public service and turning it into a for-profit private industry, Alisa Wilson was continuously denied the transplant that was medically necessary to save her life.

Would this poor woman still be alive today if we had a universal healthcare system? This isn't something that can truly be answered, because there are a hojillion factors that go into who gets a transplant and who does not. However, we could at least be sure that this woman's care would have been provided on a per-need basis, rather than a profit basis.

Life and Death choices are made all the time by doctors, and insurance providers. It's absolutely ridiculous to pretend like "death panels" will spontaneously pop into existence under universal healthcare... they already exist, and they're being run by profit mongering corporatists right now.

There are a few different ways to run commands on groups or clusters of remote nodes, depending upon how complex the command.

Assuming your machines are named "node01" - "node10" :

# Run a command in parallel on all remote nodes
# results come back in random order as they are received.
pdsh â"w "node[01-22]" df

# pdsh allows some more complex listings of hosts
pdsh â"w "node04,node[06-09]" reboot

# Run a command sequentially on all remote nodes
# slow, but results come back in order
seq â"w 1 22 | xargs â"I '{}' ssh node'{}' df

# Run a command in parallel on all remote nodes without pdsh
seq â"w 1 22 | xargs â"P 22 â"I '{}' ssh node'{}' df

# Run a command in parallel needing pipes on the remote host
# Otherwise, pipes are processed locally
seq â"w 1 22 | xargs â"P 22 â"I '{}' ssh node'{}' \
"ps afx > \`hostname\`.txt"

# Run a command in parallel needing root
# sudo requires a tty, hence we pop up xterm windows
seq â"w 1 22 | xargs â"P 22 â"I '{}' xterm â"e \
"ssh -t node'{}' sudo gdm-restart"

# Run a command in parallel needing root and pipes on the remote host
seq â"w 1 22 | xargs â"P 22 â"I '{}' xterm â"e \
"ssh -t node'{}' sudo bash â"c \"echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches\""

Here's a way to get a list of files read by any application, so you can use readahead to preload those files optimally from disk:

CMD=firefox
strace -fe open $CMD 2>&1 | sed 's/.*open("\(.*\)".*/\1/' > $CMD.preload

# you can sift through that $CMD.preload file to look for things that don't belong

readahead $CMD.preload # preloads all those files into cache

time $CMD # should now start quite a bit faster, without much disk activity

## to clear disk cache as root (useful for testing / benchmarking)
echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

If it works, you might want to append the contents of the .preload files for your commonly-used apps to /etc/readahead.d/default.later , so they are automatically loaded on startup (RAM size permitting)

EVERY party in the United States has some socialist policies.

This is an undeniable fact.

Labeling the Democrats as "Socialist" however does a number of things:
a) it steps on the toes of the Socialist Party of the United States, and all the other socialist parties. But that's a third party, so who cares.
b) the socialist parties all agree that the Democrats aren't socialist enough.
c) the people who openly call themselves socialists don't consider Democrats socialists.
d) nobody but the people on the right seem to think that Democrats are socialists.

So, defining Democrats as socialists just muddies the waters and makes an already overloaded term even more overloaded, and makes it impossible to keep shit straight.

"But I can quote some obscure French guy who says socialism is blah, which I can shoehorn into applying to blah."

God damn it, you're fucking playing semantics games. The people who proudly wear the term "Socialist" don't think Democrats are socialist enough to be "Socialist". How more clearly can I put this? Ideas and plans, and programs, all of these can be socialist, or at least a part of socialism, and the whole god damn United States is already chock full of socialist programs, many of which the right openly support as well.

The United States is already partly a socialist country. We practice some socialism here. This is again, undeniable fact. Are Democrats pushing us towards more socialism rather than less? Well, yeah, they are. But to those of us standing squarely in the "fucking dissolve all corporations and hand over the reigns to the workers" Socialists are still going to bitch and moan every god damn time you call the Democrats socialists, because either you're making a statement that applies to every god damn politician in the country, or you're equating them to us... and we think they're nearly as bat-shit crazy right-wing as you are.

So, let's stop arguing about people being socialist or not, because the term applies as well to Republicans as to Democrats. Let's label people Socialists when they're part of a Socialist party, and we can get to discussing PROGRAMS and governmental actions that are either socialist or not.

Beyond all of which, WHY WOULD THE RIGHT FUCKING CARE if the Democrats are socialists or not? I only care that people call them socialists, because they're not a fucking Socialist party. You know what? Republicans are also democrats! Because you know, they advocate a form of democratic government. And Democrats are republicans, because you know, they advocate for a republican form of government.

These party terms are so fucking overloaded that they can't be used anymore. And what fucking politician in the United States is not a die hard democrat, republican and socialist? Of course, only some of them are Democrats, Republicans or Socialists. So, we confine our discussion to those party names, not to the generic ideas, because seriously... pudge? You're a fucking democrat, too.

From Captain Splendid, I was made aware that pudge made a response to my most recent journal entry, funny thing, even though the journal entry was posted yesterday, it already seems to be archived, meaning no one can post any new comments to it. Funny how someone with admin rights of a blog can fuck with the rules for his own purposes...

Anyways, in this newest JE, he presents an alternative definition to socialism from the one that I had presented, which was then used to craft the valid statement (under that definition): "Obama is a socialist."

First of all, get this straight, I don't think "socialist" is an epithet, so playing semantic games just to throw a label on someone, is kind of retarded. This is similar to Marxist Hacker 42 in his most recent journal labeling "tax cuts" as a "liberal" idea, and then using this to throw the label of "liberal" onto Reagan. I responded in his particular JE about how retarded this is, as every single politician in the US currently could thusly be cast as "liberal", thus negating any use of the term.

So, let's take a look at the definition of "socialism" that pudge provides from Bastait:

Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole -- with their common aim of legal plunder -- constitute socialism.

So, let's look here. Every single politician of the United States since its inception has vouched for one or another of these ideas. So thus, under the definition afforded by pudge, George Washington was a socialist. George W. Bush is a socialist. EVERYONE is a god-damned socialist.

So, thus, this raises the question... what use does this term hold? I mean, at least "human being" doesn't describe every animal on the planet. "Animal" excludes plants from life forms, and even "life forms" excludes inanimate objects from the universe of discourse. But when your universe of discourse is "politics", and your term applies to EVERY SINGLE ENTITY within that set... why not just label it the universal term: "politics"?

But no... we'd rather find a term that applies to every single entity in the universe of discourse, thus we can apply it to anyone we dislike... like say... an personally unpopular president. Bonus points, when the term is widely regarded as a epithet, because of a fear-mongering witch-hunt driving crackpot.

So, congratulations pudge! You've managed to construct a definition of "socialism" broadly enough that you can include Obama as a socialist... too bad you've made the hole so big that Bush II is now a socialist. (Remember all that work he did trying to fix public schools?)

Rather, let's actually take a look at what Bastait was likely trying to drive at here: Programs and ideas are socialist, sure, of course. But being for just a single socialist idea doesn't make you a socialist, otherwise the term loses all meaning. Nothing good comes of using a term that can be so broadly applied that it applies to anything and everything relevant to the discussion. So, we need a better definition of "socialist" rather than just "Is for at least one idea that is a part of socialism".

So, let's go back to the list, and look at them in detail:
* tariffs: nearly every politician supports this. In particular, the Constitution puts exclusive rights to tariffs with the Federal Government. The Founding Fathers were socialists?
* protection: broad category... does military defense apply? I presume protectionism: I'm against it. But conservatives are for
* benefits: broad category, what doesn't apply? I presume work benefits: I may be in a minority here, who thinks it's a good thing that jobs provide healthcare, vacation time, and sick leave. I know, I've got those CRAZY socialist ideas...
* subsidies: sometimes good, sometimes bad. Even conservatives have subsidies that they're behind
* encouragements: again, another super broad term. What doesn't apply? Aren't there encouragements for marriage? Focus on the Family and National Organization for Marriage are socialist organizations!?
* progressive taxation: yes, I hold the super crazy idea that people with more money should be paying more taxes. There is a minimum amount of money required to live, and for anyone living around or near that amount of money, every dollar matters more. You think Bill Gates would notice a $1,000 extra tax burden? Do you think Jane Doe working as single mom at a minimum wage job would notice?
* public schools: Show me a politician in the US who thinks we should ditch public schools entirely (and all public funds to education), and I will show you an unelectable politician.
* guaranteed jobs: maybe I'm crazy to think that if someone wants to work, that they should be able to have a job. I also don't think that the employer should hold as much power over employees as they do. Leaving a job means being without support until one finds a new job. So, you can't just quit a job that is harmful to you. And being forced to stay in a current job that is harmful, while looking for a new job, and until said new job has been found, is intolerably cruel. If one could be guaranteed a position at another company, or ANYWHERE that would support them after they leave a harmful job... well, then I think the world would be a better place, because employees would actually jump ship from a harmful job, and put the company out of business... the invisible hand of self interest cannot work for employees as long as there is not a surplus of jobs in their field.
* guaranteed profits: entirely against them. One needs a way to weed out bad companies.
* minimum wages: I may be crazy, but I think that people deserve a living wage. See above comments about guaranteed jobs. If I'm working for only 50 cents an hour, then my employer is abusing me. "So just leave!" says the free marketeer... yet, then I'm making 0 cents an hour. Awesome, you just killed my entire income.
* right to relief: Burton's Legal Thesaurus seems to point me to "cause of action". So... anyone in favor of being able to go to courts to receive fair compensation for injury and harm should be labeled a socialist? "Your Honor, the defendant asked me to borrow $1,000. I loaned him the money under the understanding that he would return that value, with interest of $100, in two years time. Here is the signed and notarized contract." The judge: "Excuse me plaintiff, but it seems you're a SOCIALIST... case dismissed."
* a right to the tools of labor: I'm sure the author had something specific in mind here, but I seriously have no clue what he's going on about...
* free credit: Perhaps he means credit without interest? Or credit granted to people who don't deserve it? I find the idea a poor one. I would not expect anyone to grant me a credit line (except the federal government for a student loan, because they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy without some serious hardship.) Anyone who does would have to realize that they're throwing away money... so, I suppose if they want to be idiots enough to hand me free money, I won't complain...
* and so on, and so on: finishing up the broad categories of socialism with the indeterminate phrase of "there's a ton more here, than I care to list, but since the above list covers everyone already, why the hell do I think it necessary to make the list seem longer?" *shrug*

So, this entire list is bogus in the first place. The author is just throwing every conceivable thing that he disagrees with and labeling it "socialism". What a wonderful word... taxes are now "legal plunder" so they are socialism. Even taxing people to pay for the common defense of the states is now socialism... YAY! Sure there are things that are not socialism: criminal offenses of the law, punishing criminals, the common defense of the states ITSELF... but how are you going to pay for any of this? That's right... through LEGAL PLUNDER. A government cannot do anything at all without LEGAL PLUNDER... that is, unless it's using ILLEGAL plunder, but then who would hold them accountable? You with your AR-15 rifle and about 5 magazines of ammo, against tanks and smart bombs, and worse? HAHAHAHhahahahaha... "second amendment resolutions" for the lose.

I'm going to make up a list of things that I'm against, and I'm going to label it... "bullshit". Everything that I disagree with is now "bullshit", and anyone who is for even one of those ideas is now an "asshole". Congratulations pudge, you're ab asshole... oh, and Captain Splendid, I love you man, and I think you're great, but you disagree with me on at least one topic, so you're an asshole as well. HOLY CRAP, my own mom is an asshole!!! This world is going to hell in a handbasket, because everyone disagrees with me about at least one thing, I mean, because everyone but me is an asshole. I must be the ONLY sane person left in the world, wtf?!?!?!!?

Sarcasm aside... defining things so broadly it refers effectively to everyone and then using it to apply it to a single person you're against belies the point that you're referring to EVERYONE anymore. Hey, pudge! You're a real human being... And you breathe oxygen. And I really can't believe that you eat food. It's just disgraceful.

But only after "socio-economic parity" has been achieved.....

A socialist purports social policies that directly attack the exploitation of the haves against the have nots. The Rich should have higher taxes, they have a higher moral obligation to provide to the social good, because they've benefited more from the social good. Employers should not have the power in a corporation, the EMPLOYEES should have all the power.

There will come a time, where running a corporation through any other means than a democratically elected republican management will be viewed in the same way that we view dictatorships... HARSHLY.

Obama does not stand for this idea, and is FOR THAT REASON not a socialist. It's a moderate, a centrist. That he's proposing support systems to protect HUMAN DIGNITY against tarnish is not a sign of socialism. Republicans agree that slavery is a tarnish against Human Dignity. That one must be paid for their work, and that humans cannot be owned.

It is a common exercise in Ethics classes to consider the situation of a starving child stealing a loaf of bread in order to stave off starvation. Is the child justified? Ethics finds this to be a grey area. How has our society decided to resolve this situation? If you are unable to afford food, then we will grant you public money to purchase food, so that you do not have to steal that food, even though it could be argued as justified under the legal doctrine of necessity.

Go on, I dare you. Argue the side that claims that people do not deserve by Human Dignity to be fed (not on filet mignon, but just fed). That they do not deserve by Human Dignity to have housing, safety, protection from fire, prevention of life-threatening medical conditions. All of these policies are implemented openly and "happily" all but unanimously by Americans.

Now, I want you to load of up a picture of the most pity-worthy starving child in Africa. I want you to ask yourself: "What does this person deserve to have, just because they are human?" Food? Somewhere to be protected from the elements? If they're coughing and sick, don't they deserve to be seen by a doctor? Who could argue against the natural human social behavior of empathy to provide for those in need?

Now, when you talk about denying healthcare to someone, just because they can't afford it... I want you to ask yourself... Who the fuck are you to deny humanity from another human being? What's next, stealing candy from a baby, because it didn't pay for it?

Six Brits arrested for burning Qurans

Many commentators seem to believe that the Tea Party represents a net minus for the GOP because of the split between them and the existing establishment. This criticism seems oddly familiar to me. Many people predicted that the drawn out fight between Hillary and Obama would be the death of the Democrats in 2008. As it turned out, that extended fight kept them in the news for months and built up the ground networks that helped Obama carry the day in states that normally be out of reach for a Democrat. Take Indiana, where Obama carried the state by ~28k votes. Does that happen without the ground operation built for the primary and the name recognition/publicity gained from it? Impossible to say, but I think it's clear that the intra-party squabbling was a net positive for the Democrats in the end.

It seems likely to me that the Tea Party will have the same impact on the GOP. They may well prove to be a net minus in selected races (Delaware) but the enthusiasm they've generated and the new people they've brought into the political process will more than balance that out come November.

Worked the NYS primary election today. We had higher turnout for this mid-term primary than I've ever seen -- more than we did for the Presidential Primary in 2008. I'm only one poll worker in a single district but I've never seen this kind of enthusiasm for a primary before. We had 44% turnout for our GOP voters and 30% for the Democrats.

Paladino looks to have crushed Rick Lazio. I called this race at 10pm -- Paladino ran up a much higher margin (93% in Erie and Niagara counties, all districts reporting) with his base than Lazio did with his (60-65% in Suffolk and Nassau counties, 60% of districts reporting) . Paladino beat Lazio in some downstate counties (Dutchess and Orange) that should have been more familiar with Lazio. He looks to have edged him out with 50-55% of the vote in most other upstate counties, though we'll have to wait for tomorrow for the final numbers.

With this kind of turn out for a primary I'm betting that November is going to be huge. It wouldn't surprise me if we beat our numbers for 2008 -- we had a 60% turnout that year.

Pamela Geller is despicable.
  I mean really despicable. If this country is or was ever great, than 9/11 should be no more than a triviality compared to its greatness. Compared to what this country represents, the fact that 19 lunatics with boxcutters flew planes into some buildings and killed 3000 people should be nothing but a blip on our history.

Instead, we've got people like Geller trying to make it the American Reichstag. I've never been more ashamed of other Americans than I am of Geller and Gingrich and Reid and anybody who's tried to turn the building of a community center into something ugly. Even if the people behind this community center were everything they're being accused of, it still does not excuse the kind of behavior I've seen these past few weeks.

I've never felt so disgusted with other Americans. I wish I could pass myself off as Canadian, honest to god. I wish I could get a goddamn visa to live in Finland or Belgium or evem goddamned Serbia. Anything but a country where people like Geller and Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved get treated like patriots for (and despite!) denigrating such basic, founding principles as freedom of religion and property rights. They say things like "oh, it's not about freedom of religion and property rights, it's about good taste". Good taste! Now the standard for freedom of speech is supposed to be good taste. And they say "oh, the muslim group must compromise". If they "must" then it's not a goddamn compromise. I don't care if you hate the idea of a community center with a mosque built near ground zero or near your house. If you go on television and try to compare it to Nazis putting signs up at Auschwitz, that makes you the scum of the Earth. You share a hell with the religious fundamentalists that perpetrated the crime in the first place.

So ten years after the fact, this bunch is going to turn into a bunch of drama queens over 9/11, turn the site of the Twin Towers into hallowed ground (or, as Ben Quale says, "hollowed ground"). Is the USA such a flimsy society? Are Americans such weak sisters that they're going to turn a tragedy into a pyre on which to burn each other (yes, the people who want to build the community center are Americans. Yes, there are bombs being thrown at mosques throughout the US in the last few days. Yes, there are "Americans" burning korans in Wal-Mart parking lots. Fucking mutts). I'm so tired of you, America. Never missing a chance to tell the world how great you are, how superior, how above the behavior of "terrorists" but the veneer of your Christian "reformation" turns out to be pretty goddamned thin, after all.

Things like this make me wish there actually was an afterlife where people were judged for their behavior on Earth. I'm willing to do the time for my crimes, as long as I can do it with the knowledge that people who've tried to spread this kind of ugliness were going to do the time for theirs. I'm so tired of you, America.

Well, I got my Droid-X. Imagine my surprise when my $550 phone failed to properly communicate with my employer's Exchange server. Turns out the Droid-X has some software glitches relating to Exchange. Push e-mail will not work at all with Exchange 2003 and only works intermittently with 2007 and 2010. Polling e-mail may work but there are also issues with the notification system. Your phone might download messages off Exchange but fail to notify you about them until some time has passed.

Motorola is providing a free license for a third party app called TouchDown to anyone who writes in and complains about this issue. This app normally goes for $20. It is without a doubt the best mobile Exchange client that I've ever seen. It offers features above and beyond the stock Motorola application. I would encourage anybody who needs to use Exchange to get this application -- even if you aren't dealing with the push e-mail/notification bugs. It would be worth paying for, IMHO. Getting it for free because Motorola couldn't run their Exchange application past QA before launching the Droid-X is an added bonus.

Rewriting history textbooks isn't nearly enough for the Religious Right. It appears that the "conservative alternative to Wikipedia, "Conservapedia" has some serious issues with Einstein, too.

The first note in the references section of the Conservapedia entry on "Counter-examples to Relativity" will be of special interest to any physicists out there.

I guess that Colbert's throwaway joke about "reality having a liberal bias" was truer than he knew.