Stats from the last congressional election:

o 14% approval rate -- that was a poll
o 94% re-election rate -- that was actual voters.
o In the same election, national turnout was 36.3%.

I think the advent of the net's new accessibility to information outside of the laundered and agitprop driven channels, the money-based reasoning of SCOTUS, the lobbyist factor, the obvious malfeasance of Fox news, MSNBC, the blatantly unconstitutional legislation coming out of congress... and so on... all combine to give a very large portion of the people who might otherwise vote a sense that the system is so massively corrupt that there just is no point to it.

When you ask them -- polling asks them -- they tell you that. That's why the 14% approval rate.

But the only people voting are the droolers who watch MSNBC and Fox. They're agenda- and plank-driven (abortion! guns! perverts! terrorists! taxes! etc.) and that's driving them to or from one party or the other. And *they* are controlling the narrative here; that's why the polls just aren't -- and won't be -- working in the current context.

It's just an idea. But the data is hard data. Something has to explain it. It's too skewed to be any kind of random happening.

I actually do vote, but I have to say, it's pretty damned fruitless. This is a red (very red) state, and so that's the way the pendulum swings here, regardless of how I vote. If I vote progressive on something, it's not going to happen. If I vote conservative on something, it would have happened any way. This is not encouraging.

The only thing less productive than voting for progressive ideas here is voting for a third party candidate. Neither one does any good at all in terms of biasing the political system, but at least the progressive vote isn't buried or simply not mentioned. Sneered at, I think might be the most accurate term around here, actually. But they at least talk about it.

-1? Plus five ironic, more like. :)

If you want to open a business in a free country like the United States and advertise your business as a communication platform there is NO problem requiring that business allow open communication by all.

"Private." "Requiring." I do not think those words mean what you seem to think they mean. Free speech, as the constitution mentions it, applies to what the feds are not allowed to do with regard to the speech of the citizens. It's not a mandate enabling them to force the citizens to participate in things they aren't interested in. It just means that the government can't stifle you. A private entity is something else entirely. You may not like it, but there it is.

You should go read Facebook's terms of service. It'll be educational. I promise.

I didn't come here to read what Dice wrote. I came here to read what you wrote.

For better or worse, slashdot attracts a collection of some very smart, and well-informed, and funny, people. And trolls, but hell, trolls are everywhere. Many places seem to only have trolls.

Knights. Huh. Not for me. I'm just a

shrubber

What hump?

So. How is life in a bubble?

You don't believe me? Good grief, it's been illegal to consider all manner of things when hiring for years, all over the place. Not to mention there are questions you can't even ask.

I didn't do anything of the kind. I substituted an act for an act. I pointed out a general truth that applies across the board. That's all.

Seriously, it's like some of you never made it through English class.

Oh, FFS. Look. No matter *what* I chose, the point, which you completely missed, was that one malfeasance is in no way made less by the existence of others.

By concentrating on the particulars -- which named no one and drew no level of equivalence except withing the example, as without -- you failed.

The example is the same if it is stealing from the cookie jar or shoplifting -- or murder -- or twisting the truth. That's the WHOLE POINT. That's the whooshing sound you heard.

The slashdotter below you screws up and makes some dumb remark about my post, missing the point? Doesn't excuse you doing it at all. How's that? A little closer to home?

No it shouldn't. If gender is a predictor of ability then the probability distributions are BY DEFINITION not independent. If therefore you use the knowledge of gender after evaluating ability then you are treating them as independent variables when you combine them. This is mathematically bogus.

Actually, that's just mathematically simplistic. Here's what your reasoning does not account for: There are leanings, abilities and competencies that do not exist in isolation from other influences. Gender can be one of those. Therefore, to the extent that affect is possible, it is a valid consideration.

It could be a positive for either sex.

For instance, the air force has definitively determined that females are significantly better at maintaining more comprehensive situational awareness in complex aerial situations. This is because of a real world gender-based difference in information processing.

On the other hand, if one was hiring a bouncer, the competencies lean strongly the other way.

There will be outliers, of course, but that's why we need to think about these things rather than operate by rote. The law, unfortunately, but needfully (due to blind prejudice), specifies decision by rote. This is why many parts of the decision making process have gone missing from public view.

See here

What evil is Google perpetrating, exactly?

In this case (there are certainly others), they are using deceptive reporting to mislead people on the current state of affairs. Ask yourself why they would do this. The answer isn't "because they are angels."

What they should do is publish relevant and clear statistics on the issue instead of attempting to obfuscate the relevant issues at hand.

Try to keep up. It's really not that difficult.

Am I right, or am I right?

You seem fringe left to me. But hey, perhaps you're just trolling. Difficult to tell.