I love F/OSS, but the Stallmans of the world are simply living in a wishywashy black and white fantasy land.
Any legitimacy you might have had, poof! Gone in one sentence so internally contradictory is sounds as if it was spewed by the Palintroid.
There's NOTHING "wishy-washy" about Richard Stallman. It seems on some dim level you already know this as you ratchet the words "black and white fantasy land" immediately, if obliviously, after the words that preceded them. Here's a clue: when trying to be cute, cut down on the doublethink unless irony and sarcasm is OBVIOUS.
Your knob-polishing of GNOME (Miguel's Microsoft project) has buried your reason so deeply under the ideology of convenience that it appears you'll love just about anything. Your pronouncement of love doesn't sound like a passion for F/OSS, or even a remotely basic understanding of what it actually *is*; it comes comes across as an overture to work in Redmond with Miguel.
Be about it, then; as others have noted, GNOME has sucked for a long time, and derivatives of Silverlight won't lift it out of Suckville in any case. Go your own way; just don't pretend the result will truly be FOSS because we certainly won't.
Whoa. Marvel is not, nor has it *ever* been, a source of "alternative media". If you want "alternate" comics, find some Slow Death, Love and Rockets, hell, even Cerebus (or perhaps The Boys, if you're into superhero meta-commentary/farce.)
I don't know what is more depressing: that you seem to think Marvel produces "alternative" comics or that they are alternative "media". Marvel is NEITHER; they are about PRODUCT, as is Disney. The two corporation were made for each other.
That being said, I'm dropping any Marvel titles I might have been following--I truly loathe Disney, and won't have any part of their "Disneyification" of culture. That's not a great loss, though: since Garth Ennis left Punisher, what does Marvel have to offer, anyway?
I believe the majority of what you say is bullshit. You're thinking of the department of Homeland Security, specifically the ICE. But modern cops do tend to be clueless about electronic crime.
Umm, are you even remotely aware of A Clockwork Orange? The idea explicated there, and seemingly jumping from the page into our little gravity well every moment, is nearly fifty years old now, so the original poster's contention that many stupid thugs find their way into law enforcement is not even a new or original observation of emerging social trends. If anything, ACO didn't go far enough in its speculation of how near-term "law enforcement" might look. It's a sad thing when fictional near-future-dystopias are outstripped by "reality".
But, more to the point, how many smart, or even reasonable intelligent cops have you ran across? If you've enough experience with Johnny Law to state how "clueless" they are when concerned with computer crime, surely you have some experiential anecdote that would validate that view, as well as invalidate the contention that street cops are one step removed from knuckle-dragging stormtroopers? And, sorry, articles posted on
From a soldier's point of view it is rather easy to understand why all of the population might appear to be an enemy. Often that is an outright fact.
Yeah, that particularly happens when the soldier is part of an invading occupation force with dubious intention. AND the soldier is conditioned to believe they are (racially, religiously, socially) superior to the locals they are "defending". AND they are products of a militarized culture that glorifies violence as it cynically prattles about honor and respect.
Perhaps, just maybe, if foreign policy of oppressors such as the Washington Consensus were attacked and done away with by the people responsible for them (you know, the supposedly "free" people who stand on the sidelines as their killers are loosed on the world), the ethics of creating killing machines more efficient than Special Forces or Airborne soldiers wouldn't be debated by arrested adolescents (who've never smelled the burning flesh of their "enemies") in meaningless online forums.
In such a world, your utter bankruptcy of anything decent would be appropriately pilloried for the imperial apologia it is. I guess, as it stands, you'll just have to settle for my contempt....
Find a place a majority of the group agree the testing can take place and the rest will get it blocked. The simple matter is that there are times when the "possible" harm to marine life must be acceptable.
So, what say we "test" some DU in the load bearing members of your house to "firm up the foundation" and "protect you from external threat". Even more, let's say you have NO SAY WHATSOEVER in such implementation, because, quite frankly, you don't count as a rational being that anyone should care about (I sure as hell don't care about you.) That sound about right to you?
Will Bush Cancel The 2008 Election?
by Harvey Wasserman & Bob Fitrakis
It is time to think about the unthinkable.
The Bush Administration has both the inclination and the power to cancel the 2008 election.
The Future of Music Coalition — an advocacy group of musicians that fought radio consolidation — is assembling a lineup of name bands, such as R.E.M. and Death Cab for Cutie, to join the fight to keep the net neutral. The group will join net neutrality advocate Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) for a teleconference today to kick off the campaign, which is called "Rock the Net." The campaign will include a petition and a series of concerts. The coalition fears that if companies are allowed to charge for faster access to the Internet, it will hurt the ability of musicians to get their music out to their fans, especially small, indie bands.
"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines." -- Bertrand Russell