MS is guilty of making the "next/next/next/finish" administrators who don't know wtf they're doing. MS, with this proliferation of "dumb" admins (yes, I called them dumb cuz they are) are what have provided the world with a very nice DDoS farm waiting to receive such things as codered. That thing will never go away cuz there are still boxes out there on the public network that are unpatched cuz the next/next admins don't even realize they're running an IIS server!!! This is a mind-boggling fact. The MS "Options Pack" CD (or whatever it was called) for NT4 server came ready to go with IIS and one had to do little more than next/next/finish their way through setting it up, and voila! a webserver you don't even realize is running (btw, everything has a friggin webserver on it these don't it?). Administration should be hard (are you listening microsoft?), and the fact that Microsoft has both dumbed it down and then built an insecure OS riddled with holes and wherein everything is connected to everything (MSTD) has created this cacaphony. We patch, we AV protect, we do it all to still have our large switches about once a year peg out at 100% (network goes down) cuz of some new worm broadcasting to the world, and it's due to the root-assumption of windows that they're just now trying to do something about (omg, i gotta stop cuz I'm gonna rant, ramble and roll).

Second and final point I want to make, is after considering all of the above, you then have to consider the fact that microsoft is an incredible PR machine/marketing machine. They control so much spin, and most upper IT managers get their talking points from these microsoft influenced "CIO Magazine" type crap. So, we little guys in the trenches meet with the big guys who already know what the "truth" is as microsoft has spun it. Thus, Linux is indeed not free, Firefox will be JUST AS BAD as IE once enough people use it, and Squirrelmail isn't really an email server cuz no real email server would be called "Squirrelmail."

My one haven is Dilbert. Dilbert isn't funny. It's a religious experience....

Having a major in English lit and having studied linguistics, semantics and all that shit that I don't use to make a living now, and doing my best to be objective (read my journal), I must say that this issue of Al Gore's famous words regarding the Internet continues to fascinate me.

The mere fact that people defend, vehemently, what he said reveals to me that there's something to it. I.e., "me thinks he doeth protest too much," as one of Shakespeare's characters put it. Which means, the fact that there's all this buzz -- that we can't even discuss the Internet's history without 90% of that discussion going toward Gore -- tells me that surely there's "something rotten in the state of Denmark" (ugh, I'm wearing out the Shakespeare quotes).

1st and foremost, Gore did indeed contribute, perhaps more than any other in his day, to the Internet's development. Now, that means, as a government representative he did what his position could do and did more than any other.

So, did Gore tell the truth? Yes, there was truth in what he said (there's also truth in a joke, a lie, a heresy, and indeed in the truth itself), did his political opponents use his famous words to smear him? Yes. Did they find a weakness and exploit it? Yes. All of this is true.

As I see it, he was speaking the truth regarding some factual happenings, but he was also self-aggrandizing and exaggerating, and that's what bit him in the ass. He broke a cardinal rule of politics and he knew better, so no one should feel sorry for him or, really, defend him any longer (please, let's let this die). Always let your political enemies bury themselves when wounded. Always let your political friends defend you when possible, and always, ALWAYS, let your political friends puff your record. You should come across as humble, kind, gracious, etc. Gore puffed himself for himself all by himself and it cost him greatly. Good job in this thread on explaining the "truth" of the matter, but live with the fact that he screwed the political pooch otherwise....

I voted for Bush only because I knew Nader didn't have a chance. I am most impressed with the zealot underdogs such as Nader, libertines, etc. My basic assumption (having spent 10 years in the university system studying liberal arts and history) is that socialism is a failure. The new oligarchy is a failure too (corporatism -- as Nader tries to combat). The two prime evils -- representing socialism on the one hand and corporatism on the other -- is taxation and labor abuse (the workin' man and his struggles). Both have to be dealt with. Of the two I see taxation as the greatest evil. It is #2 on Gibbon's reason for the fall of Rome. Taxes do not work (it is the middle class who eventually suffers from taxation, not the rich). "Name a country that has taxed itself to prosperity." You cannot. Abusing labor doesn't work either, but is more easily dealt with IMO (lots to be said here, but I digress). All of this being said, there have been tangible results to a Bush administration and that is less taxes (yes, there are many negatives too, but they are out-weighed IMO). I know, cuz I paid less taxes now. From my experience and time (I'm highly political around the year and not just during elections -- I am 36 years old and have been voting since I legally could), the democratic party both raises taxes and bows to corporatism whereas the republican party only does the former (Bush Sr.'s tax hike not-withstanding; also, note the accomplishments of Reaganomics which rejuvinated the economy while at the same time workers died from lack of proper government regulations at factories -- a tragedy and testimony to corporatism, but highlights the balance needed). In any event, it is a mixed issue for me, and had Kerry won I would not have been upset, but I feel both corporatism and socialism would have thrived during his administration. My decision to vote as I did was not 100% ... not even close. I will say this: such pejorative remarks as you make does nothing but help what you hate. I sat through an entire interview of Bill Press on his new book and was fascinated by points he made. I was darn near ready to buy the book and read it ("10 Reasons Bush Must Go" or whathaveyou), when at the end of the interview he stated that only idiots vote republican. With that comment, I had no desire to learn anything else he had to say. You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as they say. In any event, there is no substance to your 4 types that vote for Bush. Believe it or not, thoughtful people vote for each candidate. I do not hate anyone who voted for Kerry. As a matter of fact, I respect them. Learn from Voltaire who said, "I disagree with what you say, but I would fight to the death your right to say it...." Also, attack an idea, grapple with it, struggle with it, force it into submission, but do not attack the person holding that idea. Only a socialist or an oligarchist would do that, and I'm sure you wish to be neither. Always remember the axiom of Socrates and his student Plato: "The unexamined life is not worth living...." Be the gadfly. Don't be the one who kills it (the death of Socrates)....

I checked the FCC's website, and regulations against profanity/obscenity when it comes to CB radio usage is covered under the general regulations for broadcasting that all broadcast devices must adhere to whilst using the airwaves.

I remember working at a retail, hardware store years back and we all had radios. Truckers would often drive down the nearby state highway and our radios would pick them up -- cursing and swearing included. One manager would get on the radio and tell them they were violating FCC regulations, and the truckers would laugh....

Other-natural, supernatural: these are simply words to describe what is not yet known, understood or comprehended.

Personal beliefs should have no part in finding truth -- objective truth. If there's anything one learns as life goes on and the speed bumps and pot holes have riddled ya to death, it's to not be zealous over anything. The liberal ends up a conservative, the conservative a liberal, the atheist a theist, etc.

We adhere to much/most of what the founders of Western civilization believed. If Plato is our model we have little problem with his sense of government, society -- if Aristotle then his sense of potential and physics. Yet, both believed in a force behind it all -- the demiurge, the "people worker" -- something driving everything. The one difference between the Greeks and us is that there is an aversion among serious thinkers -- academic-types -- and those who may make the same claims as the Greek founders of western thought regarding the demiurge. Why is this?

Lawyers teach us everything (tongue and cheek there), but I once argued with a lawyer who wanted his client to have something out of the agreement and who claimed that the something he wanted "didn't matter anyhow" -- I argued with him, "well, if it doesn't matter then let me have it." And he says, "no" and I said, "but you said it didn't matter" (no one ended up with it btw).

Since we can't know there is a God, then he must not be. Is this not the 6-pack thought on the matter? If we don't know then he could also -- be. Not mattering is the same as not knowing. It proves nothing and gets no one nothing. It doesn't get the atheist a single thing, nor the theist and both should be ashamed to have claimed any victory -- especially personal....

Dear journal. Today, I was modded a troll. It hurts. Therapy sessions will be interesting next week:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=103134&cid=8786783