Why is everyone forgetting the First Amendment? Row vs. Wade was the right decision for the wrong reason. The Supremes cited the Fourth Amendment, but the real issue is the First Amendment. The Democrats will never win the support of the majority if they continue to overlook this key point. It covers Gay marrage, abortion, privacy rights -- a host of issues where the Religious Right has hijacked the Republicans to great effect:

Whether homosexuals should marry is a "moral" issue. Whether women should be allowed to have abortions (e.g., whether abortion is murder) is a "moral" issue. Whether the Goverment has any business snooping within the walls of your house is a "moral" issue, when the reason they're snooping is to uncover "immoral" activity (adultry, fornication, dope smoking, etc.). The bottom line on "moral" issues is that there is no scientific evidence to support or reject either position. Science shows us that an unborn fetus can, under certain circumstances, survive outside the womb. But prior to that point (3 months, 4 months, 5 months, whatever) there is no scientific evidence that the fetus can survive, and no scientific evidence that the fetus is sentient -- i.e., alive. So belief that life begins at conception -- or even before, in the case of the Catholic church ("don't spill your seed") -- is exactly that, belief. As is belief that homosexuality is wrong. As is belief that the poor are poor because God is punishing them and thus our government should not help them. As is any other thing you care to believe.

Now, the thing about the First Amendment is that, despite arguements to the contrary ("the words 'seperation of church and state' don't appear anywhere in the First Amendment"), its purpose is to ensure that the Government does not tell people what to believe. That's why freedom of the press is in there with freedom of religion. It's about beliefs and values, not about religion or the press. It's saying that you can disagree with your government; your government cannot tell you what to think.

So, if the government says abortion is wrong, or homosexuality is wrong, or oral or anal sex is wrong, or sex out of wedlock is wrong, or smoking dope is wrong, or any of the hundreds of "moral values" the Republicans wish to impose upon us, THEY ARE VIOLATING THE FIRST AMENDMENT! The government cannot make you pray to the government's god, or follow that god's laws. It cannot and must not -- that's what the First Amendment is all about.

Now, I'm not defending any of these actions. I even consider some of them wrong myself. But the government has no business telling anyone that they are right or wrong -- that's a belief and it's up to each person to obtain their beliefs on their own. Your family can influence you, your church can influence you, your community's values can influence you, but your government's laws must not!

OK, I'm rambling, but my point is that John Kerry came close when he stated that he opposed abortion but couldn't force his views on others. He didn't really explain himself well, and it got maybe 10 minutes coverage in the whole, several month long campaign. The democrats have to do a better job of this. They have to own the First Amendment the way the NRA owns the Second Amendment. They have to get people voting the First Amendment as their #1 issue the way the NRA gets people to vote gun laws as their #1 issue. When the republicans complain about "activist judges" the dems need to respond that those judges are just defending the First Amendment.

I dunno. Maybe the Dems get it and assume everyone else does, too. But they don't, and I sorta doubt the Dems get it, either. Abortion is a Freedom of Religion issue. Homosexual marrage is a Freedom of Religion issue. The Democrats need to embrace the First Amendment and become the party that defends Freedom of Religion, not the party that defends homosexuals and abortionists. They need to portray the Republicans as the Party of Intolerance, which ought to be very easy to do. I know that would win them far more of Middle America than they got in this past election.

I know I'm bitching a lot lately, but with the election and all I'm pretty pissed, so I'm venting here I guess.

I've had a Yahoo! email account for quite a while now, mostly so I could use Yahoo! IM (and that was because my Brother-In-Law used it because it worked through his firewall while other IM didn't, so he got the whole family hooked on Yahoo! IM). But now I'm dropping it and not looking back. Why? Because I got phished via Yahoo! mail and NOBODY at Yahoo! will talk to me about it. Yahoo! mail is a free service, and they don't support their free service. So I get email that looks like it came from Yahoo! but it sure seems like it's phishing to me, and there's nobody at Yahoo! who will confirm or deny that this is a legitimate Yahoo! email. Their voicemail hell system directs you to on-line customer care, which is frankly broken -- I entered my question in ascii and it came out mangled and unintelligible, and the "help" it pointed me to had nothing to do with my question. I guess their autobots don't know what "phishing" is. I doubt their humans would, either. I guess I got what I paid for. Of course, their free email is supposed to build Good Will, so naturally this move has lost them all previous Good Will with me. One Aw, shit! wipes out all previous Attaboys.

As much as I hate outsourcing, I'd rather talk with a Dell rep I can barely understand through their Indian accent than talk to Yahoo!'s voicemail blank wall.

There! I've! vented! about! Yahoo! But! I! don't! feel! any! better! At! least! their! damn! software! is! off! my! PC!

I've used Dell OptiPlex workstations and Latitude laptops at work (since replaced by the Precison line), and I've found them to be rock solid reliable. But they won't sell those to the likes of you and me. Oh, no. For us they offer the Dimension desktops and Inspiron laptops. Which, I've learned the hard way, suck.

Not able to buy Latitude laptops, my wife and I bought Inspirons. What a mistake. My hard drive failed. OK, that's not Dell's fault, hard drives fail, right? They replaced it under warranty, so they've done all that can be expected, right? Wrong. I had to re-load everything, of course, so I first re-loaded Windows. That went smoothly, although my video was stuck at 800x600x16. Then I put in the Dell drivers disk.

First, let me say their menu system is confusing at best, listing drivers I didn't need (with helpful if unexplained check marks next to some of them). Guessing, I clicked on the ones with checkmarks. So far, so good -- at least I got my video back to the full 1024x768. But there were no drivers for either the built-in 10/100 ethernet or the USB port. They did, however, have drivers for the built-in 802.11b ethernet THAT DELL SAYS DOES NOT EXIST. Specifically listed my model number, too. For hardware that Dell refuses to sell me, claiming it doesn't exist.

But the best part is Dell support, who tell me the drivers I need are on their web site (they are -- at least they got that right). But how am I supposed to get them without a functioning ethernet connection? Load a trial AOL account and use the modem?

Fortunately I have a PCMCIA network card that Windows supports, so I was able to get things working again, but geeze, you shouldn't have to be a computer professional with a box of spare hardware just to get the damn drivers loaded -- they should all come on the Driver CD that comes with the computer out-of-the-box!

Last Dell I ever buy.

Well, I've submitted another story. We'll see how long it takes to reject this one. The last one was stuck in "pending" for months...

Update: It was rejected in a matter of minutes. Wow, that's quite an improvement in response time!

On the off chance that anyone bothers to read my journal, my question is about data recovery. I'm in the middle of YetAnother DataRecoveryProject, and I'm wondering what's the best file system if eventual data recovery is the primary goal? In my experience, hard drive failure is a question of when, not if, so I might as well be ready for it. Yeah, I know -- backups. But what filesystem should I use for the backups? I'm leaning toward RAID, but I have zero experience with it. Given that I have IDE drives, should I put them on different controllers or doesn't that matter? What's the best RAID software for a nubie like me? I lean toward OpenBSD so that means RAIDframe, but is that the best for a beginner? Is any RAID software solution good for a beginner? Inquiring minds want to know!

I submitted a story on October 3, and it's still pending. I'll bet it remains so indefinately.

I should re-submit it, but it was so long ago I forget exactly what I wrote. FYI, it was an Ask Slashdot wondering how many here own their tools. I've worked exclusively at Fortune 500 companies, and they've all had a policy requiring use of corporate computers and software and forbiding personal tools (editors, IDEs, testing tools, laptops, etc.). At the same time, in their factories these same companies required workers to provide their own tools. I'm talking the sklled trades -- electricians, plumbers, mechanics, etc. I guess IT isn't a skilled trade. So, is this because IT tools are not standardized the way a plumber's or electrician's are? Or is it a holdover attitude from the Big Iron days?

Am I the only one who hasn't been offered Metamoderation in a few days? I used to MM every day, but it's been a while and now I wonder what I said to piss off the editors.

I sumitted a story two weeks ago, and it's status is still "pending." Geeze, what are they waiting for? How long can it take to reject a story?

Update: Nov.3,2003 - now it's been exactly one month. Does anyone at Slashdot even read these things?

Geeze, what the fuck is up with the /. "lameness filter"? It's pretty damn lame itself, now. I just posted a quick one-liner. It didn't take long to write, and when I hit "submit" guess what?

Slow down, cowboy!

Slashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.

It's been 19 seconds since you hit 'reply'!

OK, one second too fast. Big deal. Hit the "back" button and try again, right? WRONG! The text of my comment is GONE! Well, it was just a one-liner, so I re-type it and hit "submit".?

Slow down, cowboy!

Slashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.

It's been 12 seconds since you hit 'reply'!

Sheesh! So now they wipe out what you've typed and re-set the timer? THIS IS LAME!

Fucking /. Makes you think they don't want anyone posting here. "This would be much more fun if all these lamers would go away" -- well, guess what, Taco? If you want a Blog, get one. If you want participation -- a community -- then you'll just have to put up with people snapping off a quick one-liner every once in a while, or you'll piss off all the "excellent" karma contributors and be left with the AC scum.

Or maybe that's what he wants.

Oh My God! I've now posted 666 comments to Slashdot! I feel so evil >-)