Again, I will take the bad Karma hit by championing truth over partizan politics.

For those outside the US, let me explain a few details that make this all misleading.

1. Although the recent elections heavily were in favor of the republicans, the change of power has not occurred yet. The democrats are still in charge of the senate. This means that they decide which bills are even allowed to be introduced. In fact, the democrats have been using this power quite effectively to block all sorts of republican sponsored legislation in the past several years. In order for the bill to be introduced, it had to have the blessing of the democrat majority leader.
,br> 2. The person who technically introduced the bill was a democrat.

3. It was true this vote, like so many votes recently went straight down party lines. Personally, I think this is an absolute tragedy and evil committed by both parties.

4. Many of the republicans who voted to stop the bill, believed that while change is needed, it was too sweeping. I fully appreciate any cynicism on this point, but in a healthy republic, this would be a valid, intelligent point. There really is a line between engulfing too much freedom (as is the case now) to leaving yourself too vulnerable in the harsh light of reality.

5. The democrats have had the power to push through any legislation they want, and could not be stopped for much of the last 8 years. If they really were champions of freedom, as is implied here, they could have done this earlier. Taking all this together, this is yet another gamesmanship type move to grasp power in the most cynical way. I have no patience for either party when they do this crap.

For those inside America, who claim to be smart (i.e. slashdot readers) this is all stuff you should know and should have pointed out, if you were intellectually honest at all. You are not, so I will take my negative mod, again.

When I read this, all I could think of was pre wwii Stalin Russia. When the dictator, Stalin, rose to power, he purged the military of its talented officers, because they were most likely to be able to mount an effective resistance to him. When WWII came, the Germans faced a very weak officer core, and were able to run over the Soviets fairly easily. It took an abnormally early winter to save them from that blunder.

In an eerily similar fashion, many top US generals have been encouraged to resign in the last several years. Now, with the rise of ISIS, a newly expansionist Russia, and the spectra of a waking dragon, the US officer core is saying weather is our biggest threat.
Wake up and do the math /.

Personally, I would disagree with the Russian Federation's decision about how to view and treat gay people. However, the reflexive leftism and consequent lack of logic found yet again in modern slashdot really disturbs me The same group, who universally heralded the coming out of Tim Cook as a positive thing and helpful for society, is now stating that having prominent gay figures has no impact. I have to ask, how fucking intellectually dishonest are you? The logic of the Russian Federations government is sound, much for the same reason slashdot championed cook. It DOES matter that their are heroes and figures in key roles. It lends legitimacy to gayness. It makes it seem more normal. And yes, to the dumb-asses who so snidely quipped about gay be contagious, in a sociological way, yes, it absolutely is. If you have a society that suppresses gayness, guess what, you get less. If you have a society that is more open, then you will see more. Why? Because it is thought of as more normal. Those with impulses and curiosity will be more likely to try. I won't even get into the whole, "as a PC liberal, I believe that all cultures are equal and should be celebrated...except the when they disagree with me bullshit. Though, I should. Now, on slashdot, one would hope to find a higher level of discussion, such as, do societies that accept gayness maintain stability in the long term. Are their positive or negative economic consequences. Does it effect marriage and birth rates? These are all worthy questions worthy of exploration, and even fact finding. That would be a productive conversation to be had. This is the mental equivalent of saying, "cool story bro." Be better guys.

So, you are a libertarian that believes the fate of your money should be decided by others, and should be used by large government to fund incredibly expensive programs?

To quote Fezzik from the princess bride, "I don't think you know what that words means."

For those who are living in SF, good for you! It is a very beautiful city, and I enjoyed it when I lived there.

That said, I am not sure how this self congratulation piece actually passes for news on slashdot. It did not happen after some major breakthrough happened in the Bay area. There were no earth shattering events. In fact, the only thing of note is that it is Pi day, and I am fairly sure SF had little to do with that.

In fact, to say it is under a current Renaissance would be a horrible stretch. In fact, I am not sure an there has been anything of note that is new produced in the bay area in a decade. At best, you could claim that people who develop tech elsewhere, like to move to moderate climates when they get money. Remind which of those start-ups these 70 hour code monkeys that you are referring too actually amounted to anything?
As for enlightened? I know people in SF and who like to post on slashdot like to feel they are. But in reality, these "enlightened" philosophies are becoming increasingly exposed for the totalitarian darkness that they inevitably are. Wasn't there another article this weak about how Facebook (not created in SF, btw) wash shocked that the politicians of the "enlightened" actually were the Palpatinesque people behind the drones and NSA spying?

That great period in Italy brought us lasting art and philosophy. By comparison, 400 years from now, i see no equal achievements of such magnitude from the bay area.

Hmmm, I always looked at as half the country is listening to the facist line; fed to them through the filter of specious arguments of a stance as close to absolute fiction as can be delivered by a brainwashing mass media with an agenda.

See, I have delivered as much fact as you have in my statement. Except, I will be modded down since this is modern slashdot where untruths are propagated and rewarded as long as you are of the right religion, not based upon the quality of your arguments. Whether you agree with global warming or not, the above post HAS NO BUSINESS BEING ABOVE A ZERO. Be better slashdot. Be better.

The group think about digital rights on slashdot always makes me scratch my head. As near as I can tell, people on these forums are upset that authors of content wish to profit from their content, and not just give it away. Anyone who comes up with a way to secure content or use it, is considered to be something close to the anti-christ, or worse. IE, you feel you should have movies, music, and books for free.

Take the other slashdot groupthink darling, Serenity. On these forums it is considered to be one of the culminations of human story telling. To make this grand work of art, it took hundreds of people and cost $40,000,000 to make. Now, on slashdot we take it as an article of faith this was sci fi at its best. There are 3.5 million monthly readers on slashdot, and we know from these forums every poster has a girlfriend/significant other. At $10 a ticket this means that Serenity should have made $70,000,000 from zealous slash dotters alone. However, it only grossed $25.5 million.

WTF

This masterpiece of fiction, this creme de la creme actually lost money.

So, less than 1/3 of all slash dotters went to the theatre and paid money? Yet, from the posts here we KNOW more than 1/3 have seen it. Which is sadly funny considering that these forums are against content providers actually charging for their content. In effect, we can conclude that most slashdot readers are selfish bastards who want other people to donate their time to you for your benefit.

So, my question to the community is, how much of your professional time and life do you donate for free?

If you look into the theory of chemtrails, one of the first thing you learn is that they are different from contrails. They last longer, disperse in unusual ways. It was these differences that made people look into them. There are attempts to read them using various forms of elemental analysis, with some interesting findings. .

No one is quite sure why the spraying is occurring (if it is at all). In your very unscientific approach to dismissal, you posit why not just have the government make the trails invisible. You say this because you have automatically assumed it is all unreal or imaginary, without looking into this yourself. Otherwise, you would understand the chemtrails people are not claiming they government is spraying the air with imaginarium or some Avengers made up compound, but real materials with known physical properties. It would not be invisible because nothing really is..

I have not investigated chemtrails first hand. I have not run a spectrograph of one. I do not KNOW if the results are real or not. That said, I can routinely find made up results in most scientific journals, so I have a healthy dose of much of the "science" that is in play today. (As a practicing bioengineer, what I see published at times alarms me). So, I am not as fast to dismiss what is made fun of as fringe science as fast as the average reader on this forum. I believe in experiment and results, no matter where it leads. I prejudge nothing.

More to the point, in an age where we find the NSA is spying on us all, which was just a few years ago laughed at as a fringe idea by many, you would think the intelligent people who read slashdot would get past the pejoratives and take a look at things for themselves with open mind. .

FYI: from the US patent office about HAARP:.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4,686,605.PN.&OS=PN/4,686,605&RS=PN/4,686,605 .

The physics are interesting. Perhaps read? .

-TM

The phrase I believe or I remember does not require attribution, since I am the source of the information. You can choose to believe that source or not. This is rhetoric 101. I would argue if you were as clever as you feel that you are, you should understand this.

That said, if I must:

http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2007/09/when_was_the_exact_day_slashdo.html

There ya go. B-slapped much?

I humbly suggest that read and think more before knee jerk posting. The world is more complicated than you think. You think a certain way. You speak a certain way, because someone has crafted a message for you. Instead of being so vitriolic when someone suggests a counter argument or differing world view, take some time and explore.

Its really the height of irony that those who pride themselves on challenging the status quo and excepted "truth" are the last ones to ever do so when it comes to their beliefs. I mean you, gratuitously liberal slashdot poster. When something becomes an ideology, you leave the realm of rationality. This is true for religion, right wing and yes, even left wing politics.

Now, to shut down your reply. It depends on what you mean by own. Rupert Murdoch does not completely own his various media outlets, but has a controlling share. Similarly, Soros has a controlling and influential stake in many things. The difference is you turn a blind eye to later. That is a sad thing.

By name calling like a 5 year old, this makes you more correct? By having no examples, no evidence, just emotion this is a good argument? By attributing statements too me that I never said, this makes you intellectually honest? Yet, this gets moded up to 3, and I get a troll. Again, modern slashdot has become a poor, disgraceful thing. Again, I still remember the heady days when it was an arena of ideas. Not a sandpit of childishness and ignorance. Be better slashdot. Be better.

This is yet another example of how the once great Slashdot has fallen. I can remember a time where to be moded up, you needed to have great depth in your thought or informative support with links, or really, really clever/funny. Now, apparently you just have to be gratuitously liberal.

Let me bite the cough, interesting troll for a second. How is Murdoch trying to destroy the US? By providing an alternative point of view than offered by the other 4 networks? That is bad why? I thought smart, informed people, like people who read this forum seem to think they are, LIKE to see differing viewpoints then weigh them. I thought smart, informed people would be against just a small group of people controlling all thought. It doesn't bother you that most media members with a near monolithic bias control what you read, see, hear? You want there to be less choice?

Or is it, you think Fox news is inherently more inaccurate. Like say, in the Trayvon Martin case where NBC altered the 911 tape to make it sound like Zimmerman said something racist, when he did not? Not to mention the other 3 letter networks biasing opinion by showing a picture of a sweeter Trayvon when he was younger, not the larger man he grew into. Or, failing to mention he was suspended from school, his racists facebook presence, or the fact that the neighborhood in question had been terrorized by recent crime and he was walking near windows? In the whole debacle, on Fox got it right and reported something near the truth. (whether the shooting was justified is another matter. Shouldn't we at least have the correct facts?"

Or, if you hate the uber-rich using their money so much to influence media, then can you explain the absence of complaining on these forums about George Soros giving million in grants to fund left leaning journalists. Not to mention the undue influence and bias of Hollywood/tv elite doing the same thing. Or, is it just only bad in your "mind" when people from outside your narrow perspective do these things?

Perhaps you should look in the mirror first. Perhaps YOU are the shallow minded one, who only reads from biased, dishonest sources. Perhaps YOU need to broaden your outlook to other forms of thought, and not be so very scared of challenging ideas. Perhaps YOU should understand that the US needs far more saving from the likes of NBC than FOX.

Or, perhaps I should stop even dreaming about it because this is modern slashdot, where ideas and support does not matter.

-Maize

Ps. Notice the supporting links I used were from more liberal sources?