Or we've taught people to paranoid in the absence of evidence.

Frankly, I've found it strange that people are so much more suspicious of Obama than they were of Bush. I shouldn't be surprised, the country has the attention span of a kitten with a bad coke habit. Still, just on credibility alone, Obama (a real pragmatist) should have it.

The bottom line is, there is no substitute for actual critical thinking. Slashdot and other communities are, unfortunately, very prone to groupthink.

Actually, the percentage of poor and unemployed is on the decline, in the short term at least.

And more and better infrastructure tends to benefit everyone, even if that infrastructure only directly impacts a particular class. I don't generally buy into trickle down economics, but infrastructure sets the stage for new businesses to grow.

Uh, remember how congress are the ones writing and passing legislation? That might be important before you shoot your mouth off about how this is lip service.

The occupant of the white house is just responding to last November. This country wants more GOP-like policies and its wants more business friends policy. If you didn't want to have to pay extra for your pron you should've voted last fall.

Look, I understand the ideal you're going for, but the world isn't cookie cutter perfect. Are you really going to adhere to your ideals when real lives are at stake?

In addition, I'm concerned with the fragile peace in Iraq. It may be inevitable that Iraq will descend into civil war, but the cables probably don't help matters.

I get that this may be further appealed again, but it does seem like the right decision. I might have ideological problems with bots like Glider, but secondary infringement? Really?

Then again, there is still part of the decision I'm not a fan of with the violation of:

The first provision, 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)(A), is a general
prohibition against “circumventing a technological measure
that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the
Copyright Act].”

Though the court is right, it was violated. Its just a bad law.

Yeah, I'm not sure I really understand the idea behind purposed research. I mean, I guess you can focus on the problem you're trying to solve, but isn't this more of an engineering issue than a research problem?

I think you might be taking a small amount of information about councilors and extrapolating a little too much.

Talk therapy does help people. Its a valid and constructive coping mechanism. And it helps to have someone who isn't a friend to talk to. You get a more objective response and you don't lose friends because you're always dumping on them.

No there aren't any magic answers, and any answer has to come from you. You have to put the work in, you have to endure the hard times and the pain that is changing your life. Still it helps to have someone there who can confirm, "Yeah what you're doing now is going to lead you somewhere good."

Probably yeah. Because the context is pretty weak tea. Dems have confirmed some pretty sucko Republican nominees.

In this world their are those who take advantage (Republicans), those who try to stop them (Democrats), and those who are too stupid to tell the difference (you).

Significant body of legal scholarship? She was a Dean at Harvard.

Wow, that's kind of a fresh and interesting interpretation. Sort of makes me like the film a little more which, at risk of getting flamed/downmodded, I found kind of mediocre. No I don't agree with Armond White or anything, but I do think the reviewer who said, "I can't see what all the excitement is about" summed up my feelings.

Oh yeah, and for what its worth, I've studied film and literary criticism before.

I have no idea why you are being downvoted. You're absolutely right.

*sigh* I think the day I realized there were white supremacists on slashdot was the day I realized Prince is right. The internet is dead.

Pretty much right on all accounts. To be fair, Moffat has enough interesting things happening that the hand waving is tolerable for me, but its still pretty juvenile. I know, I know, target audience. But...we could aspire to more. It'd be nice if there were some actual hard science fiction shows on television. And it'd be nice if, given that Doctor Who can't possibly be one now, it at least incorporated some of those elements, stopped introducing new techno-elements and gave you a reason to watch.

Also, exploring history can be that reason. I'm having trouble articulating what I think the right way to do that is, but I would say it was achieved in 'Vincent and the Doctor' but not in 'Vampires of Venice'.

Anyways, if Smith does leave, an older more serious actor might be interesting. Just a thought.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say China believes they're shooting down spy satellites. And China might be right.

I know Lucas bashing is fun, and its easier than thinking about what's actually being discussed, but the look of the thing combined with what its designed to do and way its being marketted basically means that Lucas *must* attempt to defend his copyright.

On an unrelated note, these things are dangerous as heck. People are going to blind themselves accidentally or worse. Really ought to be regulated. Definitely not something kids should be allowed to play with. There was a previous slashdot article about this.

Obviously there are some pragmatic issues (making sure the whole thing isn't gamed by one bot voting a million times), but it is an interesting attempt at allowing people to have a truely populist option for their representation.

In the past, true populism was very tough to come by...it was easy for an elected official to become 'out of touch'. However now, a more perfect representation of the views of the moment of people can be had, thanks to technology.

Of course, the other question is, is that even a good thing. Populism isn't always right. Slavery in the US was popular, it took Lincoln's strong leadership to move away from it. Many wars are unpopular, but some of them may be necessary (conversely, some wars may be popular but unnecessary, see US/Iraq Gulf War II).