Linux Not Supported For Democratic Convention Video 794
bucketoftruth writes "If you browse to the Democratic Convention website and attempt to check out any of their upcoming streams, you bump into the following limitation: 'We're sorry, but the Democratic Convention video web site isn't compatible with your operating system and/or browser. Please try again on a computer with the following Compatible operating systems: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or a Mac with Tiger (OS 10.4) or Leopard (OS 10.5). Compatible browsers: Internet Explorer (version 6 or later), Firefox (version 2), or, if you are on a Mac, Safari (version 3.1) also works.'"
OS Related? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get it. If they say they're compatible with Firefox - as in web browser - why does that browser need to run on a particular operating system? Since invention of flash video we are free from unnecessary plugins and related burden. Just enter address, and let it play.
But I guess politicians never opt for easy solutions.
Who Cares??!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
This might be considered a good thing. The conventions are nothing but a big ad for the parties. It's an outdated, useless vehicle in the age of cable news, Internet, blogs, etc.
Anyone considering watching these things have their minds made up, and are just joining a circle-jerk.
User agent (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how the website might respond if you spoof the browser's user agent string. Would it function well enough, or is their notice legitimate?
Re:Priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
I do not want the Democratic party wasting its money on a partisan Operating System war by supporting a fringe OS that has less than 1% share of the desktop.
So you'd rather have them spend their money actively blocking it?
Re:Obama hates linux! (Score:4, Insightful)
McCain hates Net Neutrality.
There really isn't a win here.
I never understand why (Score:2, Insightful)
Tech Savvy Convention (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? If it were the "most technologically-savvy event" wouldn't it at least make an effort to support ALL operating systems, especially the one used mostly by the "technologically-savvy" people. It isn't a difficult feat to use technology which is supported by the three major OSes on the market. This isn't acceptable in this day and age. =/
What's a better option? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Tech Savvy Convention (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Contributions?
Re:Silverlight (Score:1, Insightful)
Ugh. What could these possibly offer that couldn't be done with, say, Flash?
DRM
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
agreed. This is the exact same setup as the olympics. Gotta hand it to microsoft, when they lock people out from anything other than their own solution, they go all the way.
Re:And so... ? Many websites don't do Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Rather than complaining on Slashdot, send the Democratic Convention people an Email at tell THEM you are not happy. I did. Took about 2 minutes to compose a polite and informative message.
Linux/*ix users might be in the minority, but they do tend to be more vocal.... and often it works (to my utter surprise)
Re:Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's be serious here - nobody's spending money to block anything. The DNC didn't build anything themselves, nor should they - they're a political party, not a software shop. They chose a vendor to build out and operate a video infrastructure for the convention, and that vendor happens to have built on Silverlight (that's where incentives and support from MS likely came in, not directly to the DNC). Why the vendor did that, I have no idea.
I'm a pretty big believer that these things should be built on open technologies, not the least of the reasons being that it's GOOD for political parties to have their content built upon and reused (that's much of what fuels political blogs). As such I'm a little miffed that they chose a vendor that didn't support open technologies, but my guess is that someone's list of questions didn't extend past "can you run it on a Mac" (thereby showing that they're not part of the old Windows-only generation, they're part of the new Mac generation). Given the size of the Linux market, I think the use of content question is much bigger than the runs-on-a-particular-OS question.
Re:Tech Savvy Convention (Score:1, Insightful)
>"especially the one used mostly by the "technologically-savvy" people." Why do you say this?
I'm supposing because, of all known open-source and capital-F Free operating systems, Linux has the most support for, well, everything. It may be more unstable than other Free OSes (eg: BSD), but apart from that, I doubt you could point me to a Free OS that runs on more things, supports more peripherals, and has more crazy options in its kernel. :-)
If things like that don't attract techsavvy people, what does?
Re:Priorities (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd rather see them showing another form of commitment to open governance, by making sure their communications are in open and non-encumbered formats. Not to mention not aiding and abetting a convicted monopolist in continuing and extending their monopoly.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Free (as in beer) web design and hosting was probably enough to buy them out.
Re:Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
The DNC didn't build anything themselves, nor should they... They chose a vendor....
First, we do agree that they chose this vendor -- so they probably should have gone with a different vendor, right?
Second, whether it's the DNC, some vendor, or Microsoft itself, there was, at some point, someone who made a choice to spend a bit of extra work on "choosing an OS"... which implies that money was spent (somewhere, somehow) to block that OS, instead of letting the site fail (or succeed!) on that OS.
Silverlight does exist for Linux. Perhaps not in a usable form, but it does exist. Because of the user-agent detection here, someone would not only have to get Moonlight working, they'd also have to spoof their user-agent -- which, among other things, tells the DNC that they have no Linux users.
Now, what's the alternative? sakusha was implying that getting Linux support would mean spending extra money, but you've made it very clear -- it would, instead, be about choosing a vendor who's already implemented Linux support (or simply Flash support).
I believe it would be worth it, even if there was some cost. But I don't think there would be.
Re:NASA too (Score:3, Insightful)
It should really be troll rather than flamebait. As far as "wasting" mod points though: AC or otherwise, modding the crap down is as important as modding the good stuff up. And come on, you get 15 of the fuckers these days, you can spare 1 to put a troll in his place.
Re:Priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
Leapin' Lizards!
Who in their right mind CARES? You pick a well-supported standard format: Um... let's see, MPEG, XVID, VIDX, AVI container, MPEG container, MP3 sound, AC3 sound, whatever... and put the video up.
What? They didn't do that? They picked a new format for some reason; one that requires a platform refresh, and unholy amount of effort. Didn't even use (gasp) FLASH video?
Why on Earth would anyone do that?
The only 'splaining here is why a Political Party that will (most likely) be running the most powerful country on the planet is actually allowed to get a rim-job from a private company. Not that *I* could care -- but that is pushing the classic boundary commonly known a facist. Along with the rim-jobs the US gov' received from terrestrial radio, And etc.
Oh -- I here you saying "But the Dems didn't get a rim-job from Microsoft! They did it by themselves!" In which case, I think it's worse -- they SHOULD have held out for lots of plums before forcing that move.
Me? I don't care; enjoy yourselves!
Vote Democrat! Vote Microsoft! Vote Republican! Vote Microsoft! Just be sure to Vote!
Not everything political is, well, political. (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, I'm not a big fan of the Democrats, but you guys need to chill out. Not every single thing the party does is a political statement of some kind and people need to stop getting so heads up into politics that they would think this is the case. What's next, there's some statement about Charmin because they used that kind of toilet paper?
It used be that the DNC was probably a really good time (this conservative notes that liberals are always fun to party with) but the interests of political correctness has completely turned into a horrible sounding green statement with terrible food and multiple warnings about drinking too much.
Seriously, just because a drunk delegate takes a gas guzzling cab to get back to the hotel doesn't mean that they aren't in favor of raising CAFE standards.
Re:Priorities (Score:2, Insightful)
in an effort to be totally fair to the Candidate B. Hussein Obama, they are not blocking Linux, they just want DRM so we can't post embarrassing video on youtube or paste a jackass's head on the candidate or chop the speach apart and paste back together into something insanely funny.
Re:Furthermore (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm.
McCain is old, yet:
-it's Obama who needs a week-long vacation
-it's Obama who thinks there are 57 or 58 states
-it's Obama who is afraid to debate McCain at 10 town-hall style meetings, after saying he would debate him anywhere and anytime.
McCain doesn't know his position on issues, yet Obama:
-After his initial weaselly response on the Russian-Georgian conflict, then condemns Russia, deciding that it is better to sound like McCain.
-was the only IL state senator to speak out on the statehouse floor against a measure that would prohibit "finishing an abortion" in the case of a botched abortion where the child was actually born alive, and still thinks the question of when life begins is above his pay grade.
Good lord.
I'm not necessarily a McCain supporter, but if you're going to criticize him, please come up with something better than that.
Tho I'm sure Obama knows where his house is, too. Right next door to a convicted felon. Tell me again why Gov Blago isn't speaking at the convention this week?
-john
Re:Priorities (Score:2, Insightful)
.
Let's get real here.
Firefox gained visibility and market share after being ported to Windows and not before.
I would not be in the least surprised if its Linux origins have been more or less forgotten - if the majority of Windows users were ever conciously aware of them at all.
Re:Furthermore (Score:4, Insightful)
He's 71 years old. Its really really highly unlikely that somebody with the ammount of money he has (think nutrition, health care, etc.) is going to develop dimentia at his age.
Because, it's not like Reagan developed Alzheimer's [wikipedia.org] or anything in his 80s... especially since he was such a poor, sedentary guy his entire adult life and couldn't afford the best health care during his senior years.
Totally preposterous idea...
Re:Don't forget... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OS Related? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:But the server runs RedHat (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well it certainly wasn't because they care about openness. I suggest next time you offer a more plausible reason they chose this technology, rather than just dismissing what is at least a mildly plausible explanation as kooky.
I can't think of one that doesn't make them come off as flakes, though. YMMV.
-hobo
Re:Don't forget... (Score:1, Insightful)
Or, as in the other party, just charge it to the national debt and let someone else figure out how to pay for it.
Re:OS Related? (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2004 that would have been great. ;)
Re:The party is screwed up (Score:5, Insightful)
one more reason to vote republican, eh?
Ummmm.... help me out here.... I looked through the grandparent post trying to find your "one reason", but I was unable to locate it.
Lets see... Obama reluctantly voted for telecom immunity?
McCain was not only FOR telecom immunity but some of his staffers were the ones running around lobbying congress to manufacture legislation to grant that immunity in the first place.
Lets see, Obama being anti-tech?
They botches this issue on their website, but Obama is FAR FAR more favorable to our side on these issues than McCain.
Lets see, Obama being clueless on tech?
Again, yeah they botched this issue on their website, but McCain may as well be Ted Steven's grandpa. McCain LITERALLY needs a few good lessons from Ted Stevens teaching him how to use e-mail.
Lets see, conventions where they don't take real input from the masses?
Buahahahahaha. Yeah, McCain is real big on that. Snicker. The closest McCain comes to "taking input" is to run and cover his ass when he gets caught out as pro-life-pandering-bullshit-artist after leaking Tom Ridge for VP.
So ahhh, perhaps you could help me out and be a little more specific? What exactly is the one reason you had in mind to vote republican instead? I must have overlooked it.
-
Re:No, Security Related (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, I thought it was the hackers [2600.com] who needed to be protected from the political parties.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you have to ask someone else you may never know...
But on the other hand the fact that Microsoft might think Linux running on the same hardware that Windows generally runs on is a bigger threat than over priced MAC hardware running OSX is interesting enough for me.
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, who else can a freedom concerned individual vote?
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes the truth hurts.
Re:Furthermore (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny you should say that since I use Thunderbird to extract email out of Outlook's PDB format into an mbox file so I can do something useful with it.
In other words, it already stores the mail in a lowest common denominator format. Of course, since it performs decently well with an IMAP server, you can just push it all up that way if necessary.
In contrast, Outlook offers to throw away half of the relevant metadata and excrete a tab delimited mess.
What I posted to their technical "contact" address (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there any reason, any reason whatsoever that you have made your web site and videos inaccessible from anything other than a machine running Microsoft Windows? I had to go over to my neighbours house just to write this. It's ridiculous. When I made a donation to the ACLU earlier, they had no such requirement. I also heard Sen Biden is against network neutrality. Perhaps it's time to pop over to johnmccain.com. I do notice his videos are available in flash which works everywhere. Careful democratic party- you are showing a bit of plumbers crack and revealing your true allegiances. Fix this, fix it now.
Re:So what? (Score:1, Insightful)
No. Mac is just a tiny blip on the radar and nothing really to worry about. Linux is the real scare. Mac has exactly zero in the server space. Mac has exactly zero in the embedded space. Mac has exactly zero in the supercomputing space. Linux has very close to half in the server space. Linux rules (97+%) in the supercomputer space. Linux has more than 1/4 of the embedded space (and rising). The desktop is of less worry to MS. Linux and Mac combined have about 5%. Mac is a brick and mortar company Microsoft understands. Linux is a multi-headed hydra that gives them fits (and last year was the first year that Linux had more developers than Microsoft). Mac is looking more and more like a proprietary Unix (the last of them). Microsoft already beat all the others. Linux is not like that. Microsoft has already run all of the simulations. They are running a best-case strategy right now, and they know they can't win. Time isn't on their side.
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you should read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes [wikipedia.org]
I really don't think that was the bad part of his speech. The bad part was:
"an Internet was sent by my staff"
This from the guy who is supposed to be overseeing the ISPs.
Re:OS Related? (Score:3, Insightful)
Moonlight is the open source version that runs on mono. Silverlight runs on .net.
Last I checked it didn't work 100% yet, but seems promising. They are making an attempt.
Re:Furthermore (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to find out what Joe Biden or John McCain think about something go to anywhere you like and it is more likely to be accurate than Declan. In that piece he uses two other pieces he wrote to bolster his story but somehow forgets to mention he wrote them.
Biden is quoted as saying that there is no need to legislate net.neutrality because "any bit-filtering violations would provoke such a huge public ruckus they'd have to hold congressional hearings anyway--and they'd be standing-room only."
In other words, he said we will legislate that bridge when we come to it. Which is in fact what is starting to happen. The FCC is taking a pro-neutrality line.
That is the way the Senate likes to work on technology issues, they wait until the problem has become real and then they write legislation. Most often the problem never occurs. In many cases what people imagined was the problem was not the problem. Early on we had Time magazine pimping censorship legislation with their 'cyberporn' story. The result, COPA is still being litigated.
Re:Furthermore (Score:1, Insightful)
Will a video do? [youtube.com]
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean this part?
Stevens' speech was analyzed by Princeton computer science professor Edward Felten, who said that he disagreed with Stevens' argument but felt that the language "series of tubes" was entirely reasonable as a non-technical explanation given off-the-cuff in a meeting.
Clearly not at his most lucid, but it's obvious that he meant "email".
As I said, I'm not a fan of Ted Stevens, and I'll go further and say I don't want him in charge of the Commerce committee. But I still fail to see why this basically sound—if ineptly and overexcitedly delivered—part of his speech is more than a simple malapropism, or why /.ers continue to find it so blindingly hilarious two years after the fact.
"Impressed with Silverlight" (Score:5, Insightful)
"I'm no Microsoft fanboy or anything, but I've been pretty impressed with Silverlight."
There's this bullshite meme here on dotslash that supposes Microsoft does nothing right. But while they've had their legendary failures(who hasn't? Hello, Apple Newton), we don't give them enough credit for what they do right. For all it's instability, Windows 95 was a lot of fun, and 98 was a pretty good game platform. Windows 2000 was a very good OS with what has become an almost cult following. Face it, once the first service pack arrived, Windows XP was pretty fast, pretty stable, and pretty useful. Their servers since 2000 have been very popular with the enterprise, and those people just love Sharepoint, all for good reasons. They're great products. Office got it's foot in the door because of the OS monopoly, but it eventually beat out Wordperfect because it became better than Wordperfect.
They made good games even before they bought Bungie, and just about everyone can agree that their hardware is top notch. It ought not to be a Karma sin here to give them credit when they actually earn it.
Re:They're not supporting Macs, either (Score:3, Insightful)
By "Mac" in the requirements they mean *Intel Mac* so if you have a Mac that's ancient (over 2 and a half years old) then it doesn't count as a Mac because Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 beta won't run on it.
I feel like the democratic party is giving the finger to families who can't afford to upgrade their computer every three years. I thought the democrats were supposed to help the little guy.
I even installed Silverlight 1.0 hoping it would work (I also have a Mac running Tiger, Safari 3.1, and Firefox 3) but no. Makes it impossible to get excited it.
Re:Furthermore (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say a Mac running OSX and Firefox is a much larger enemy to Microsoft than Linux is, given the install base, but what do I know?
Apple is no threat to Microsoft in the server arena. Linux is no threat to Microsoft in the desktop arena. Microsoft uses both markets to leverage each other. IIS supports proprietary extensions and it just so happens that IE supports them as well.
LK
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know what the internet is, but this pile of money has led me to the following conclusions...
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:1, Insightful)
B. How is throwing tax breaks at the issues going to be a cure-all? We've all seen big budgets blown and shitty products produced.
Obama Technology policy (Score:2, Insightful)
One of the things that always makes politicians look untrustworthy is saying one thing, and doing another.
If you look at Obama's technology platform, he is quite clear about what an "open internet" means. See http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/#open-internet. A small extract from this statement follows
"Making government data available online in universally accessible formats to allow citizens to make use of that data to comment, derive value, and take action in their own communities."
To me, using a technology such as Silverlight is NOT a "universally available format". It assumes one is using a specific type of operating system and/or browser combination, and the particular technologies required are neither freely available, nor universal.
I don't doubt that Obama means what he says in his policy statement, but SOMEONE has to follow through with making sure this actually happens. I am not a US citizen, but if I was, I would probably vote for him because he is more likely (I think) to follow through on the sorts of statements contained in his technology statement than a certain other contender for the job. But you have to mean what you say, and you have to make sure it happens.
Re:"Impressed with Silverlight" (Score:3, Insightful)
the only problem is these were all 10 years after someone else already had product better. they didn't win by being better, they won by locking in the people installing the software, the OEMs. They put Netscape out of business by paying people to shovel MS Internet Explorer on every customer. They are not paying customers to force MS Silverlight on their customers customers computers.
So saying 10 years late that they have good product is the short view because the innovators who initially created most of it were robbed of their profits and just rewards by Microsoft's anti-competitive practices by way of leveraging their position.
Please don't worship false idols.
LoB
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:4, Insightful)
It's unfortunate that the "series of tubes" phrase is what everybody pounced on. Network connections have been referred to as "pipes" for years; it's a useful metaphor.
The trouble is, Stevens didn't use the metaphor correctly. I was going to post a reply essentially agreeing with you about the "series of tubes" thing, but then I actually listened to the rest of what he said [publicknowledge.org], and it quickly became clear that he really doesn't understand what he's talking about, but he can make it sound like he is fighting for rights of the average consumer while advocating a policy of laissez-faire.
Some of the juicier bits:
And what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10:00 in the morning on Friday; I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things that are going on the Internet commercially! [...]
And here we have this one situation where enormous entities want to use the Internet for their purpose, to save money doing what they're doing now. They use FedEx, they use delivery services, they use the mail, they deliver in other ways, but they want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet, and again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on - it's not a big truck, it's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled, and if they're filled, when you put your message in it gets in line; it's gonna be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material - enormous amounts of material. [...]
Maybe there is a place for a commercial net. But it's not using what the consumers use everyday. It's not using the messaging service that I think is essential, I think, to small business, it's essential to our operation of families - the whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there's something that's been done that really is a violation of Net Neutrality that is you and me.
Stevens is saying that commercial use of the Internet (to do things like offer video streaming to paying customers) is clogging up the Internet, causing the rest of us (individuals, families, small businesses) who rely on the Internet for communication to have our e-mail delayed just like his was, and that maybe the companies who want to offer these kinds of services should go build their own network and leave ours alone. After all, the Department of Defense has its own network - why? Because they can't afford to rely on the same Internet the rest of us use, in case it should be clogged up by whatever it is that big corporations our polluting the Internet with.
So what's the solution to this? The solution is to not pass legislation to require Network Neutrality, because there haven't been any actual violations of Network Neutrality yet - or rather, there haven't been any that directly affect "you and me". Instead, we should say "no" to the greedy corporations that support NN, and revisit the issue if not having NN starts causing problems that Stevens can actually understand.
Unbelievable.
I want this man out of my Senate. I wish he could be kicked out for this, but if he loses his seat for lying about the bribes he's been taking instead, I guess that will have to do.
Re:Linux can't do it (Score:3, Insightful)
Wonderful. I love progress that involves government supporting a monopoly instead of non-proprietary, open standards. Oh, and they definitely need Digital Rights Management. I mean, it's really crucial that people don't freely copy these convention videos.
Nevermind the big, gaping analog hole. All they are doing is inconveniencing people and pandering to corporations.
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:4, Insightful)
You persist in misquoting him. Again, he did not say that he "created" the Internet.
Really, go read the Wikipedia article I mentioned earlier. Read the statements by Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, Newt Gingrich, et al. And learn a little more history. Gore's initiative in the Senate didn't begin with the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991; it went all the way back to his work as a representative in the 1970s. Note, for example, a few tidbits from this statement [nettime.org] from Vint Cert and Bob Kahn (you should read the whole thing):
Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development... No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time... The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening... As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept...
And it goes on like that.
The facile, misquoted interpretation you are regurgitating is exactly the sort of distortion that was used to undermine Gore back in 2000.
Re:The party is screwed up (Score:4, Insightful)
"there are more pressing issues". And yet you thought that immunity for Telcos was more important than social justice, patriot act abuses, guantanamo, iraq, afghanistan, healthcare, missile defence?
Re:OS Related? (Score:3, Insightful)
find me an easy way to install it and ill prefer moonlight to flash anyday. but as it is i can install flash10b but moonlight with media support requires me to actually get a clue, which i just cant be arsed to do for some crappy video feed.
Im sure i dont need much of a clue but then again i have a short attention span. i think i need to
1) download svn moonlight
2) download a valid mediaplayers source (mplayer only i think)
3) tell moonlight where mplayer is
4) sword fight while waiting for moonlight to compile
5) watch crappy video
be aware that im from the ooh ubuntu 5.10, 'just click to add shiny' generation of linux users so a step like 3 will require me a lengthy blog.
(all this was true at the time of euro08)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
No big surprise here (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:4, Insightful)
You totally misunderstand Network neutrality.
NN is about making sure that individuals have equal access to all parts of the net, and not letting the big corps providing big services pay extra money to the access providers to have their traffic take precedence over hobbyist sites, etc.
Its about making sure that the access providers (AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Verizon) can't set up protection rackets where if you are a website (hobbyist, small business, nonprofit), unless you pay them to use 'their pipes' then the access providers customers cant access your site. Its about ensuring that when you, as an individual, or even as a company, pay for 'Internet access' you actually get full and equal access to every other network on the Internet, as opposed to only the ones that might want to pay your ISP to get access to you. Any person or organization with a website already pays *THEIR* ISP/webhost for access, why should they have to also pay the other ISP's to allow that ISP's customers to access their site?
If they were honest... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Now you have a point that Bush is not the smartest man on the earth but then you mention greed, terror and imply that he is evil. I would like to point out to you that he didn't try to seize power and stay in office after his two terms like Chavez did in Venezuela. He also has never squashed his critics and in fact the Unites States still has the freedom of speech and it is one of the few countries to have it. Therefore I have to argue that you mentioning greed, terror and evilness are disingenuous arguments if not simply for matters of scale. He's not infallible and makes mistakes but he is far from evil.
Then you say that Obama would not be a total disaster. But is not experience mostly how we look towards the future and this is the most inexperienced candidate in the history of the Presidency. He is also the most liberal in the history of the Presidency. I'd be very afraid of disastrous consequences if Obama wins.
Then you go on to compare McCain to Bush using the already false assumption that Bush is obsessed with power (that is why he is stepping down in February 2009 right?). Secondly you say that McCain wants to destroy all Democrats but he is THE ONLY Republican that has stepped across the isle to create legislation as many times as he has. So your argument makes no sense. In fact he may still declare a Democrat as his VP candidate.
Now is he taking stabs at some of the Dems stupid policies? Of course! This is an election year and yet the Democrats are doing some stupid shit. For instance they are trying to say all that stuff you learn in Economics 101 is a lie and that the laws of Supply and Demand are a fraud. They repeatedly say that drilling for more oil will not lower the price of crude. This is an all out lie on their part. If they want to argue against drilling for another reason then fine but to attack the intelligence of the American People is moronic and dangerous.
Lastly, I actually hate Diebold or whatever they changed their name to now and I want votes to count for real even if my candidate doesn't win.
Re:Protecting chidlren from the RIAA? (Score:3, Insightful)
What does porn teach young men?
That the really desirable women are the vapid horny girls with whom no real emotional need to be met. It teaches 'empty sex' and in doing so it will stunt a kids healthy sexual development. There is more to sex than where you stick your penis, if it were that easy parents everywhere could breath a huge sigh of relief. But weather or not you want your kid to wait until marriage I hope you want them to have sex with people with whom they actually have an emotional connection.
What does porn teach young women?
Porn, and the reaction to it among young men teaches young girls and women that if they want that guy to like them that they have to be sexually flirtatious. To the point where there have been studies showing more girls willing to make out with other girls (for attention) as it becomes more likely in our cultural references. Girls are left with the social impression that they are a vagina and giving it up will get them the attention and assurance they seek from male counterparts.
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Porn is very harmful *especially* in kids who are sexually developing...
Re:Protecting chidlren from the RIAA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps this is just my 70's showing, but I still fail to see any real tangible harm being done. Even your supposed study shows nothing more than that girls will do stupid shit to get guys attention. (Duh)
Whenever I see this talk all I can hear is "We slipped up and let the sexual revolution happen. Now nobody's feeling guilty so we can't manipulate them anymore. Perhaps we can undo it slowly with a bunch of psycobable."
For example there's this:
As long as nobody gets diseased or pregnant or commits a criminal offense, why is it my business at all how someone else felt about their sex partner at the time? And why earth would *you* care if I care? It most assuredly isn't *your* business.
I'll agree that if someone were to look to pron material for relationship advice, the results would be pretty disasterous (not to mention the immense competition there'd be for the position of Pizza Delivery Boy). However, I'm pretty sure my kids aren't that dumb. They don't seem to be getting their physics from Looney Tunes, or their self-defense pointers from Jacky Chan, so I'll take my chances on this one, if its all the same to you.
Re:Doesn't matter to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Only on Slashdot could you post something to morally repugnant and get away with it with not even a flinch by the readers.