Yes, I do believe we have an absolute right to free speech. At least, insofar as such a right is expressed in terms of property rights. The first amendment guarantees your right to use your press to say whatever you want, but not somebody else's.

This article explains things pretty well.

I don't get the new "itsatrap" meme that's showed up in the article tags. I know it came from Admiral Ackbar. First or second time I saw it, it actually seemed to fit the context. Now I'm seeing it all over the place. What is it, and how in the world could it have arisen?

This was proposed in a 1937 article as a 22nd amendment to the Constitution: part one part two

So, come on you red pinko, join the ranks of the liberty lovers!

(This is a very informative article; I just happened to have picked the most entertaining line. :) )

Because I'm posting it as an anonymous coward:

I have a suggestion for all of you who stay up at night worrying about what "we" are teaching "our" kids: have your own kids and teach them what you want, and leave everybody else alone. You can prepare your kids to outpace everybody else in the next generation, and then they will be tomorrow's leaders.

This whole "it takes a village" crap is getting old. My kids are going to have chemistry sets and electrical sets and all sorts of stuff. We're not going to sit around and hope the state decides to give them what they need in the schools. I would never leave my children's education subject to a majority vote of the populace, and I can't think of anything more foolhardy.

Plus, this avoids all the problems of one size fits all. Even if there aren't people "scared of science" out there voting on what your kids should be taught, even if we're all agreed that science is important, there's still plenty to disagree on: shall we teach one year of chemistry at the high school level and two years of physics, or two years of chemistry and one year of physics? What if your school just doesn't offer the exact program you need? Are you going to sit around and subject your kids to a substandard education just on principle?

What really bugs me is people who insist that they, personally, do not want to have kids, but still want to be part of all of society talking about how "we" teach "our" kids. No, these kids aren't yours. If you want some of your own, have some. If you can't have some, adopt. If you acknowledge that you don't want kids, that's great; just stay out of it for the rest of us. But my real point is that there shouldn't be an "all of society" talk on the "one right way" to raise our kids. That completely defeats survival of the fittest and the ability to innovate.

It's interesting to see these different answers about the possibility of a housing bubble from a real person and the national association of realtors.

My wife got her first slashdot mod points today.

How are you going to use your extra hour?

I tagged this article as "mistaggedaswikiinsteadofwikipedia". Why do people persist in calling Wikipedia "Wiki," as if that were its name? It's like calling the Encyclopedia Britainnica "Book."

I guess it could be tagged as "wiki" because it is an article about a particular wiki, but it disturbs me that that's the first thing that came up.

I tagged this article as "misuseofbegsthequestion."

For a long time now I've marked people as friend when I see insightful comments. Since I give a +1 to comments by friends, this resulted in me slowly seeing a more and more interesting slashdot to read. Basically, everytime I saw a post that I would have moderated up if I'd had mod points, I friended the author.

(Of course, it didn't take me too long to hit the limit of 200 friends. So nowadays I rarely pick a new friend, and when I do there's a bit of a struggle as I pick through the list and try to eliminate someone who is not an active poster.)

But never until now have I found anyone on slashdot that made me want to read every post they make in every thread. I have found dada21 to be quite insightful and always a good read, and I'm actually checking every day to read his new posts. It's almost enough to make me want to subscribe.

I don't know who I kicked off of my friends list, but it was definitely a trade up.

Today I smarted off to a complaining slashdotter with a four digit ID.

But I went back and checked, and discovered something. For post #3, I went and looked at my settings, and the karma bonus modifier was set at 0. That surprised me; I changed it and hit save. At the same time I also changed my "No karma bonus when posting" flag, which has been annoying me since its introduction when I somehow got it set backward from where I wanted it. Then I made post #3, for which I also do not see a karma bonus.

Upon seeing your post, I went at looked at my settings again. Hmm, karma bonus modifier is 0! I changed it again and clicked save, thinking, "Maybe I hit restore defaults?" But, no, my other settings are there, including the karma bonus when posting flag now the way I want it. But after hitting save, I still have a karma bonus modifier of 0. I've hit it repeatedly, and it's not changing.

Something is stuck.

My previous signature was:

I browse at +4 and add bonuses to friends(+1) and fans(+3), picking friends who've previously made insightful comments.

My new signature will be:

Why should I have to tell people whether I am a lawyer or not?