Holding an election for 500-600 positions at the same time would take a lot of time and probably cost tens of billions of dollars or more.

Also, it would be irrelevant, because the people voted to replace them would be voted in based upon:

1) Are they the same party as me?
2) Do they promote my religious and personal selfish interests above anything else?

They're still going to take just as much of your money. Maybe more. And all those services will continue, because only the services that actually benefit you in any way are deemed "non-essential". Essential programs that violate civil liberties will continue. This doesn't last very long, they get all the money they need, ultimately, and shit goes back to normal.

Its the job of an intelligent citizen to not depend on the government to provide them with things and to stop saying "cut spending... OH NO DON'T TOUCH SHIT I CARE ABOUT!".

Everyone needs to suck it up and make cuts and then, maybe, they can afford to do some things they care about with their own money when it is kept in their own bank accounts.

You apparently have never heard of the European Union.

It isn't a crises. The government shuts down most services for a couple weeks. Big fucking deal. We've done it before. We survived. Cities didn't burn to ashes and the world didn't end.

Fuck the democrats for the mandated healthcare bullshit; fuck the republicans for this bullshit maneuver in dealing with it. Fuck all politicians for being so disrespectful with the income of the people they are supposed to represent and their addiction to pork.

*gasp*... You mean, leave the cushy government jobs that have to be maintained for life, because the role of the government is apparently to create government jobs for employment? That's crazy talk!

PS: Yes, it sucks for the individual, but maybe we should be axing "non-essential" government positions more often to avoid budget issues in the first place.

I'm all for shutting down non-essential government services, to get our budget under control and even give some relief to tax-payers. Of course, this will only happen for a week or two and will do nothing (they'll make it up over the year). The real non-essential "services" they should be cutting are the last dozen years and the next dozen years of stirring up more future terrorists in the middle east for the sake of pipelines and corporate contracts rebuilding nations in Gen. Wesley Clark's list of seven.

Of course, that would impact corporations. Can't do that. Instead, we're going to move on prominent programs that garner a lot of sympathy, to really make tax-payers and voters feel bad. Cutting off their nose to spite *our* face.

Cue the slashdot Apologists who will tell you that any conversation and any activity you engage in outside of your own private home off-the-internet with your shades drawn is "public" and has no expectation of "privacy" and therefore it is completely fair to be eavesdropped on, recorded, and archived.

I remember the "replacements for google reader" thread here, on Slashdot at the beginning of 2013 and I was shocked at how many people claimed to use iGoogle as their main page. I tried using that for awhile, but it was such an ugly clunky pile of crap. It felt incredibly dated and if they weren't going to renovate it, ditching it seems to make the most sense.

Not saying it had no value -- just my opinion of iGoogle when I tried to use it for a few months. It really was quite a surprise to hear so many here upset that it was being yanked.

Likewise, you wouldn't confuse two groups with "scouts" in their name, when one is for making stuff and the other is for camping in the woods and survival stuff (well, theoretically -- when I was in scouts, we had women den leaders and we spent our time making christmas ornaments and mother's day cards).

There is no confusion to be had and confusion only to be *asserted* by a biased affinity for the BSA.

I completely agree. They have a legitimate concern that someone might confuse boys building 3D printers and setting up wireless networks for the homophobic religious organization full of child molesters. They are obligated by law to defend their bigoted child-fiddling reputation.

You can usually accomplish this with Adblock, too. I block out anything using disqus or similar commenting systems (which seemed to hit mass popularity about the time that discussion on the internet hit the absolute lowest, ever).

You're nuts. You really don't have anything to gain from insane discussions with lunatics and when the foundation of their points are fanatical, you might as well be talking to a brick wall. I mean, really, who around here is thinking "what I need is another abortion/gun/immigration/gay-marriage/climate discussion"? Even a child's incessant "why?" to every sentence is more informative and produces better results.

I think there are places to have discussions and places not to have them.

I can't imagine why, for example, CBS affiliate's would have comment sections on their news articles. What is the point? I don't understand why the NYT or Washington Post would, either. That isn't to say the content is not worth discussing, but why does it have to be *there*? And why does it have to be directly on the same page as the actual article? It detracts from the content and refocuses it to anything *but* the content.

I am put off by "use your real identity", but I have no problem with "fuck it, we're not having comments at all, then". In fact, when your site (Yahoo!, CBS, etc) is almost nothing but "Durr durr, republithugs and libtards durr durr durr!" or "this news article involves a non-white person, therefore they are all monkeys and should be kicked out of the country and let the race wars begin you guys! also, fuck all the atheists and non-Christians and you too whatever political affiliation you have that is not mine!" . . . . then it's probably the best decision you can ever make.