Obama Significantly Revises Technology Positions 940
method9455 writes "Barack Obama has edited his official website on many issues, including a huge revision on the technology page. Strangely it seems net neutrality is no longer as important as it was a few months ago, and the swaths of detail have been removed and replaced with fairly vague rhetoric. Many technologists were alarmed with the choice of Joe Biden before, and now it appears their fears might have been well founded." Update: 09/22 18:07 GMT by T : Julian Sanchez of Ars Technica passed on a statement from an Obama campaign representative who points out that the changes in wording highlighted by Versionista aren't the whole story, and that more Obama tech-plan details are now available in a PDF, saying "there is absolutely no substantive change to our policy - folks who want more information can click to get our full plan."
All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
When are people going to learn to assess politicians and parties on their actions, rather than their promises? Those that might have really introduced change have already been weeded out. Vote for the puppet of your choice, folks.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Interesting)
When are people going to learn to assess politicians and parties on their actions, rather than their promises? Those that might have really introduced change have already been weeded out. Vote for the puppet of your choice, folks.
Many have. Obama's tech-related voting record is certainly better than most candidates that come to mind. He's voted against telecom immunity, and FISA fairly vehemently in the past. Perhaps the vague language is merely a way to package both Biden/Obama's views into a single declaration? It was probably just a way to describe both of their technological goals without smearing their respective stances. Should that be the case, it's still the top of the ticket that calls the shots.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yay - rationalization that your "team" is okay, because, after all - they're your team.
Please folks, there's no way you're voting for a democrat and republican and *really* thinking you're going to get change. They're all part of the same party, they're all buddies, and they all have roughly the same goals - take lots of your money, waste it, pass laws to control your life, invade other countries.
The OP is correct, any candidate for change has already been eliminated (Ron Paul, Mike Gravel...)
Vote third party. Any third party, for that matter.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:4, Insightful)
Beyond that, I don't think that change for the sake of it is a good thing. I also don't agree with the continued path towards socialization in this country. I take more of a Libertarian stance, and am very much a fiscal conservative, which makes it hard for me to ever vote for a Democrat. This is why I ask.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
I take more of a Libertarian stance, and am very much a fiscal conservative, which makes it hard for me to ever vote for a Democrat.
Who's the last republican president that actually reduced spending? I wonder if you can name him. Google being the great equalizer, I assume you'll get it, but the point is that republicans haven't been a fiscally conservative party for a loooong time.
Here's a rather short, but interesting article [wordpress.com] that brings up some information that was surprising to me. It's almost like republicans get the reputation for being fiscally conservative just by claiming they are and yelling about how democrats are going to raise your taxes.
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Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
but it's a stretch to claim he supported the telecom immunity aspect of it when he supported all the attempts to remove telecom immunity from it.
How much more "for it" can you be than a YEA vote for a bill which contains it?
As a congress critter, if there is a part of a bill you don't like IT IS YOUR JOB TO VOTE AGAINST THE WHOLE THING!!!!
That's what the whole "checks and balances" thing is all about.
The immunity is unconstitutional (see ex post facto [wikipedia.org]) even without the 4th amendment violations.
Between FISA and the Patriot Act, why even have the 4th amendment any more?
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, nice dream world you live in. If "congress critters" actually did that then nothing would get passed.... though that might not be so bad :P
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't go voting for a bill which contains all of the things you were just voting AGAINST, and it's idiotic to think that there is any reason to believe this would ever be acceptable!
Here's a hypothetical situation for you; I draft a bill to reduce the criminal sentences for minor drug offences to fines (hefty fines, but still no prison time), and to revoke all patents on proven life-saving chemicals currently patented by multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies, but I include a clause which brings new legislation which states that terminally ill patients are not entitled to medical care of any kind, as it is quite simply a waste of resources.
If you're against the last statement, how can you, in good conscience, vote for bill which contains it? Voting for the bill in whole is exactly the same as voting for its constituent parts seperately. He should have voted against it until the parts he disagreed with were removed, and he's a coward for not sticking to his principles.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice try, but I think most people would agree that the last thing outweighs the first 2, making it more negative than positive.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:4, Insightful)
My point is that if you disagree with something strongly enough to vote against it every time the issue is raised, then "how can you, in good conscience, vote for bill which contains it? Voting for the bill in whole is exactly the same as voting for its constituent parts seperately."
Obama should have voted "Nay", and waited for it to be removed. All he's done is whinge for a while, then caved in and preached about the "lesser of two evils" or some rubbish.
Retroactive immunity should not exist, and he shouldn't have voted for it in any incarnation. End of.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:4, Informative)
It's also happened before; it's often called a 'poison pill'. There's been bills that even the original sponsor has turned against it due to an amendment that was attached.
Still, while this was a rather obvious version of it, how about something like option 3 is a renewal of the AWB? Some congresscritters will like it, some will be against it, and the NRA/libertarians like me will be screaming, even though before that we were meh of the bill beforehand.
Well, actually, the 2nd part would have had me reversing position - I'm all for legalizing drugs, but I DO believe drug patents are an important part of new development of drugs. It's essentially government confiscation of the company's assets. Now, adjusting patent rules, or restructuring the FDA/drug approval process, then we can talk. At least patents are extremely limited compared to copyrights today.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a question of degrees.
Imagine a bill were to be proposed which legalized marijuana, allowed for gay marriage, forbade "abstinence-only" sex-ed and created a federal mandate against teaching ID in science classrooms, created reasonable constraints on domestic surveillance, and placed tight limits on political lobbying ... but also happened to legalize curb-stomping puppies. I'd probably put in a lot of effort to get the puppy provision removed, but if my efforts failed I'd vote for the bill anyway. The bill would do more good than harm, so why withhold my vote?
I'm not familiar with the contents of the rest of the bill in question, so I can't comment on Obama's decision, but I can certainly see that there are many situations in which a person would feel compelled to vote for a bill which contains portions to which he is opposed.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
And if the immunity is unconstitutional it won't be a problem as SCOTUS will strike it down yeah?
The american constitution didn't even manage to remain an upheld document till it's 50th birthday. It's time to just deal.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
Attached to each one are hundreds of laws that cannot be passed.
Until this process is fixed so that this cannot happen, Congress MUST reject every single such law. No exceptions.
"just deal" is how we ended up with 8 years of bush.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me ask you a question. Do you ever vote in elections? When you do, are the guys you vote for positioned such that you agree with them on EVERY SINGLE TOPIC THEY STAND FOR?
If so, then I can only imagine you are a politician yourself, and the only box you check on the ballot is your own name.
If not, then you either don't vote (in which case, you just lost all ability to criticize how anybody else votes) or you vote for the candidate that overall most closely matches how you believe (which makes you a hypocrite)
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a different situation. There WILL be a president/whatever elected, so it's just a matter of who, and one can either have some influence on this or not. In the case of something like the recent FISA bill, it could have been voted against with NO bill coming through. Congress isn't electing people for a position, it's considering whether to add new things.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think this is the same thing. It's impossible to find a one-issue candidate, so it's probably impossible to find a candidate I agree with 100%.
It's NOT impossible to write a bill which only does one thing, and it makes no sense to cram 50 unrelated bills into one and present it as "all or nothing."
"Raising the defense spending" and "allocating money for a corn museum in Iowa" and "funding preschool programs" should not be on the same bill. They should be considered separately. And congresscritters should demand that.
But I think they mostly prefer to scratch each other's backs.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:4, Informative)
As I've pointed out elsewhere, the Republicans still control Congress, by keeping it from passing anything substantive. They have 49 votes in the Senate, which makes anything the Democratic thin majority (49 + 2 independents, one of them Lieberman) does subject to filibuster (the Senate rules say 60 votes are needed to stop discussion), and the President has veto power, which can only be overridden by a 2/3 majority in both houses, so again Senate Republicans can keep any change from happening. Beyond that, regulations and oversight are the job of the Executive Branch through its agencies.
As for Pelosi, given that she (as Speaker of the House) would be third in line for the presidency [wikipedia.org] should Bush and Cheney be impeached and lose their positions, I didn't blame her for saying it was off the table, as otherwise it would seem like a naked power grab by her. She hasn't, though, kept other Congresspeople from proposing impeachment. {ProfJonathan}
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Interesting)
But somehow it seems as though the democrats are failing at doing the same thing. Important bills (like FISA) that they should have been able to kill passed anyway.
If the republicans have the ability to stop things they don't like, why don't the democrats (with the same seat numbers) managed to do the same? The only reason I can think of is that they suck at standing together and being a useful opposition party.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:4, Informative)
IMO: Although the pile of democratic nations has been growing, when the ability of U.S. voters to influence their government is considered, the U.S. voter is close to the bottom of that pile!
Well, I'd like to point out that the United States is not a democracy, it's a republic. So, there's that.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that you can't vote on actions until after they've been taken.
Personally, I'm in favour of a nice, simple system where if a politician makes a promise before an election and then breaks it, a court can remove him or her from office. I imagine we'd soon see some changes in the way manifestos were presented, and perhaps those who are not just puppets and actually intend to act according to their stated principles would get a bit more recognition since voting for someone based on their campaign pledges would actually mean something. Those who just say whatever the current audience wants to hear but never really promise anything would stand out by a mile.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've also proposed this kind of system before (i.e. that a manifesto should be a legally-binding contract with the voters), but I suspect that the result would be candidates putting such fluffy terms in their pledges that the courts would never be able to determine whether they'd actually broken them or not.
Before New Labour (same as the old conservatives) came to power in the UK, they handed out 'pledge cards' with five election pledges on them. A very simple and powerful message. The Friday Night Armistice made a massive version of these, and each week in their first year crossed off the ones that they'd broken. It was depressing how quickly they all went away.
Democracy requires an informed electorate to function just as capitalism requires informed consumers. The same level of truth in advertising laws should apply.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
The "Contract with America" worked really well in the '94 elections, though.
Honestly, there are two reasons I can think of why politicians in the U.S. won't commit to anything:
1. If lobbyists know they are committed for/against what they are lobbying for, they won't shower the politician with contributions and "gifts."
2. Legislators often buy the votes of their colleagues by promising to vote for the colleague's legislation if their colleagues will vote for theirs.
And then we need to keep one other thing in mind: riders. Legislation that gets ONE vote often contains extra pieces of legislation that has nothing to do with the original legislation. This is why I agree with notion that the president should have a line-item veto power, and I feel that way regardless who is in office.
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Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, there is no room here that I see for a politician to honestly change their mind for the better.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would I feel betrayed? Bush wasn't part of the contract with America.
Bush has been a horrible president, and I'm voting third party. I've never much liked either of the mainstream parties or politics in Washington in general. If you want a real change, don't vote for Obama, vote for a third party.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would I feel betrayed? Bush wasn't part of the contract with America.
Bush has been a horrible president, and I'm voting third party. I've never much liked either of the mainstream parties or politics in Washington in general. If you want a real change, don't vote for Obama, vote for a third party.
Depends, if you vote Libertarian, i.e. Bob Barr, you're voting for Obama in a sense. If you vote for Nader, you're voting for McCain in a sense.
I'm not trying to be confrontational, but in this sad 2 party system - and yes it's still 2 party, the likely hood of a third party candidate getting the presidency is so unbelievable that it approaches zero.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, in voting for a third party, he is voting against the two party system which is the problem. Increasing the share the vote received by third parties reduces the consequences of the two party equilibrium. You'll never get a third choice so long as you keep accepting one of the first two you're offered.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is yet another great example of why voting third party is not a "wasted" vote.
I'm sick of people telling me I'm wasting my votes (it won't be the first time I voted for a third party), and yet the same people whine about how bad the government is.
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Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a pity there's no realistic way that the voting system will be changed in the states.
It really is the case that when faced with 2 crap mainstream choices you can screw yourself by voting for someone you're really like to see in rather than the lesser of the 2 evils.
Here we have a vastly superior voting system called Proportional representation.
I'm probably going to make a mess explaining this.
It's a little more complex.
You number your choices 1,2,3,4,etc
so say there was 4 choices:
Rep:Jack Johnson:
Dem:John Jackson:
3rd party: Joe:
3rd party: Jill:
I just number them
Joe:1
Jill:2
John Jackson:3
Now say after the 1st count
Joe has 1000 votes
Jill has 2000 votes
John Jackson has 10000 votes
Jack Johnson has 11000 votes
Under your system Jack Johnson would get the seat and the people who voted for joe and jill would be screwed if John Jacksons policies were slightly better for them than Jack Johnsons.
Under PR the limit is 12001 votes to get the seat.
Now when it comes time to count the vote it's clear that Joe isn't going to get in no matter what so he's removed and all the votes for him move to second choices.
jill still isn't going to get in so her votes are moved to their second or 3rd choice.
most of the people who voted for joe or jill would prefer John Jackson over Jack Johnson which pushes John Jackson over the 12001 limit and he gets in.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, I'm sick of third-party supporters telling me that the democrats are the republicans are "the same," which is an utter lie, and I'm also sick of being urged to vote for someone whose policies I detest (like Ron Paul) simply to make a statement.
I remember back in 2004 every political discussion devolved into people urging all of us to vote for the libertarian candidate, Michael Badnarik. It was ridiculous how much support he got here, and the idea was because he was a self-identified libertarian we should all jump on his bandwagon. Now if you did a little background checking you'd find out he was a paranoid conspiracy theorist who explicitly promised to violate the Constitution his first day of office, but that's the sort of background checking that people didn't want to do. Voting strictly along party lines is stupid, whether the candidate is democrat, republican, or part of a third party.
Important Differences (Score:5, Insightful)
These are guesses, or even hopes. I agree that any of the viable candidates are going to serve the corporate interest, but there are important differences.
1. Obama will engage in diplomacy with Iran, and hopefully in covert ways with Hezbollah, Hamas, and the nationalist Iraqi forces. If you're serious about ending terrorism, you have to engage the enemy dipomatically and address the conditions that lead to it. Protip: killing more muslims with western weapons isn't helping.
2. His Administration will sweep out the Bush/Reagan Administration, while McCain would probably keep a lot of it. That's worth my vote right there.
3. Obama does not pander to Jerry Falwell or any of his imitators. It's America, so he has to recognize the religious element, but he doesn't associate with the fundamentalist nutcases.
4. Obama has shown his distaste of the Bush and Clinton Dynasties. Change is good.
Most importantly, Obama is not McCain. McCain has turned from a moderate Republican, who I would have seriously considered voting for in 2000, to a complete shill, pandering to evangelicals, touting proto-fascist military slogans, and most importantly, has shown the same inability to engage in serious self-criticism that has truly frightened the rest of the world in regards to the Bush Administration. McCain also claims to believe that the Iraq war has something to do with counterterrorism or the spread of freedom, which to any serious observer, is total fucking nonsense.
Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king. (Score:5, Informative)
If you all (including the editor) would read the page, current as of 17 September, it specifically mentions Network Neutrality as a guiding principle.
Seriously, the whole commenting section is debating about something entirely wrong. RTFA!
It's not just NN (Score:5, Informative)
They've cut out about half the content, and large chunks about what they'll do for kids.
Either they've had advice that they shouldn't be promising definite things (makes it harder to weasel out of stuff later) or they're just cutting down the page size for some reason.
Either way, bit of a non story.
Politician changes mind, big whoop.
Re:It's not just NN (Score:4, Informative)
From my reviewing, it seems that they removed details/explanation to make it concise. The overall meaning and principles remain the same as before.
Re:It's not just NN (Score:5, Insightful)
The main page got changed, not the actual plan pdf, which is available at the bottom of the page, and is the exact same as the old page was.
It looks like they just cut down the word count for people who want to glance, and hid the details a layer under.
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/technology/Fact_Sheet_Innovation_and_Technology.pdf
Re:It's not just NN (Score:4, Informative)
Not only that, the page still contains
Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.
So I think all that is happening is that he edited the actual text to make it more readable, without substantial change in his position (atleast) on network neutrality. The summary is just an overreaction and an unfounded attack on the VP candidate.
Re:It's not just NN (Score:5, Informative)
"Politician changes mind, big whoop."
Except he hasn't changed his mind, he has simply edited several points to make them more readable.
Re:It's not just NN (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed, this is a non-story. The page still asserts that he's in favor of net neutrality. It looks like it's been edited; some new material was added and old material shortened to compensate.
There's no dramatic front-page worthy change of direction indicated.
Frankly, I think he should include a page on the details of various plans where possible, but the linked page is not that page. It's too long as is!
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"Change" is normal: Look at earlier campaigns. (Score:5, Informative)
I was watching campaign ads from previous American presidential elections here [livingroomcandidate.org] -- it starts with the Eisenhower campaign and works forward -- and I was struck by how many candidates used the same rhetoric. "Change" has been a staple campaign theme for a long, long time.
It seemed there were three major types of ads:
There might also have been a fourth, "Our candidate is a nice human being!"
Here are some examples of #2, "Change," below (I've quoted the last sentences from a number of the ads at the above URL):
"Change" is exactly what you can expect the opposition party to be selling in any election. The only reason Obama's campaign seems novel is that we have the collective memory and attention-span of a goldfish.
Re:It's not just NN (Score:4, Funny)
It's 'change you can believe in.'
That's Change IN WHICH YOU CAN BELIEVE!! If I ever run for president and try to appeal to urban elites, you can be sure I'll at least refrain from ending my campaign slogan in a preposition.
America vs Freedom (Score:5, Funny)
Every American election always reminds me of the phrase from Alien vs Predator.
"Whoever wins, we all lose." or something like that.
Re:America vs Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
10-second civics lesson for you: America has a president, not a dictator. Congress wields considerably more power. No single person, not Bush or McCain or Palin, not even Obama, has the capacity to wreck the country. Or to fix it, for that matter. Much less the entire world.
Re:America vs Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
sorry, but by the looks of it from the outside in you might as well have a dictator. Your president is ignoring the laws of his own country as though they did not exist (or at least do not apply to him), let's not even get started about the vice president.
That he has a lot of people enabling him goes without saying but it is a very serious situation nonetheless.
Re:America vs Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:America vs Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
For you to say 'Europe's ever-leftward growing interests' means that you have no clue about European politics.
There is a very strong right wing revival in Europe in full swing as you write this and it is a source of some concern.
As they say, 'education has a left wing bias', unfortunately the US of A does not even have a left wing to speak of. Nader, maybe... Not that he stands a chance of ever getting elected.
Winner takes all is the American way, this disenfranchises a very large part of the population, coalition government is the european way and it seems to work a lot better in getting some actual representation.
It's important... but... (Score:4, Insightful)
The technology stance is important, but there are a lot of substantially more important issues on the table right now.
We're looking at the candidate who has spoken for and stood for change and integrity from before his political career started, and the candidate who has resorted to making bald faced, demonstrably false and misleading lies that in a non-political context would be grounds for a successful slander/libel suit.
When considering technology specifically, your choices are Obama, who at least understands technology well enough to have created a successful social networking style community site, and McCain who admits he barely even knows how to turn his computer on. If you're voting technology, Obama is the clear superior choice to McCain.
I know, 3rd party candidate and all that. I'm a supporter of breaking the 2-party system we have here in the US because I think it really hurts us; but to be completely honest, in this election it is down to two candidates.
It is extremely unlikely that a 3rd party candidate will successfully run for president until there are a fair share of 3rd party candidates in congress who can prove their chops in a way that makes the lot of them look less crazy (some 3rd party candidates look that way, it gives the better ones a bad name). If you support this ideal, trying to support it top-down isn't the way to get it to happen, it's got to be bottom up - local, state, and federal officials.
In the mean time, support a candidate who has the ability and perspicacity to restore our good will with the rest of the world. The way the economy is going right now, in 2 or 4 years, net neutrality is going to be a lot less important than food on the table and whether or not our troops are committing war crimes abroad, and whether or not our government is committing anti-constitutional crimes domestically.
Net Neutrality Position Remains Unchanged (Score:5, Informative)
"Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet."
Barack is completely behind net neutrality, where as McCain is not [tmcnet.com], but don't let the facts get in the way of the way you try and put FUD out there.
WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
What the fuck are you talking about? It's THE VERY FIRST GODDAMN THING HE MENTIONS.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan
Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets
* Protect the Openness of the Internet
If you're a McCain supporter trying to weasel votes away on Slashdot, you need to say so.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, since the summary is clearly wrong, which is evident to anyone who actually clicked the link*, I have to assume the sole purpose was to troll. To be fair, though, I may have jumped to conclusions; it could just as easily be a libertarian troll. (Or even other politically motivated troll.)
* Verbatim from said link:
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Don your tinfoil hats, please...
It appears that the media have decided that it's time for Obama to lose the election. There is nothing in the news now directly about Obama, none of his own words, there is everything in the news about his campaign with words like "beleagured", "desperate", and this "vague rhetoric" stuff. Coming out of the Republican Convention there was the "rock star frenzy" about Sarah Palin, until facts started to reveal that she is really something of a Dan Quayle. There was a brief news cycle of fact discovery about Sarah Palin, and now things seem to be over to Dog Pile on Obama. By the way, notice how Iraq has pretty much disappeared from the news lately? The one thing I did hear is that the central government is beginning to arrest Sunnis, essentially dismantling the "Anhbar Awakening."
It's certainly good that we keep being told about our terrible Liberal Media, because I surely wouldn't have guessed it from what I've seen, lately.
I had thought the media were trying to keep this a tight horse-race, because that enhances their own status and ratings, by keeping us watching. That doesn't appear to be the case. Coming into the conventions, we had a Democratic rock-star candidate against a Republican whose own party had very little enthusiasm for him. Coming out we have an invisible Democratic candidate and an energized Republican party, and as far as I can tell, it's largely done with media coverage.
Oh, and we haven't even see this year's "October Surprise" yet.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess I'll take a little time to answer an AC.
I'll give one example - the Iraq War. There was little-to-no significant questioning of the Bush administrations "evidence" leading to the Iraq war, and after it came out that the evidence was defective, and very possibly cherry-picked, with some possibility of outright fabrication, there was still no investigation.
The nation has gone to war on false pretenses, done incredible damage to our prestige and trust overseas, and those who presided over it have received no significant account for their actions.
One way I heard it... Perhaps reporters may be left-wing, but somewhere up the management chain it turns solid right-wing.
The other way I've heard, from several sources, is that it's not a conspiracy, it's PROFIT. The media has become so revenue and profit oriented that investigative journalism has become a thing of the past. It's much cheaper and more profitable to accept press releases and report them as news.
In other words, in the USA the Press is broken, and has abdicated its duty, as conceived by the founders of our country.
Concise speech, soundbites (Score:5, Insightful)
I call bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
This post is pretty much pure bullshit.
If you look at the revisions, Obama has shortened some bullet points to make them more readable.
He still lists what he supports, but he does not going into massive detail in each one of them.
For instance, his current stance on network neutrality is now (emphasis mine):
"* Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet."
Instead of:
"* # Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet. Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices. They have a right to receive accurate and honest information about service plans. But these guarantees are not enough to prevent network providers from discriminating in ways that limit the freedom of expression on the Internet. Because most Americans only have a choice of only one or two broadband carriers, carriers are tempted to impose a toll charge on content and services, discriminating against websites that are unwilling to pay for equal treatment. This could create a two-tier Internet in which websites with the best relationships with network providers can get the fastest access to consumers, while all competing websites remain in a slower lane. Such a result would threaten innovation, the open tradition and architecture of the Internet, and competition among content and backbone providers. It would also threaten the equality of speech through which the Internet has begun to transform American political and cultural discourse. Barack Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. This principle will ensure that the new competitors, especially small or non-profit speakers, have the same opportunity as incumbents to innovate on the Internet and to reach large audiences. Obama will protect the Internetâ(TM)s traditional openness to innovation and creativity and ensure that it remains a platform for free speech and innovation that will benefit consumers and our democracy. "
So instead of a massive (and unreadable) paragraph, it is now a very simple bullet point saying that Obama strongly supports network neutrality. How on earth is this "downplaying" network neutrality?
Re:I call bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
There needs to be a way to mod a story down.
Give Obama a Break, and Your Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a right wing Republican whose endorsing John McCain but I am appalled at the way you liberals are once destroying yourselves and your candidate with your withering self doubt. We have on the right have a joke, that is, only Democrats could be so smart as to figure out a way to blow election after election and here you go again.
Can you please have some hope?
What Obama did with his web site was to basically rewrite it from the mishmash that it was into something more coherent. There is nothing substantively different about this restructuring. Obama has always been in favor of strong IP legislation, but, so what of it?
Do you really think that a man who spent his formative years arguing in favor of some form of socialism will suddenly turn his back on that?
Do you really believe that a man who has worked his entire life organizing his own liberal constituency into an election machine is suddenly going to come out looking like Reagan?
I mean, seriously, don't you think Michelle would kick his rear if he even thought of selling out?
I mean come on liberals. You are getting a guy whose is your best standard bearer for your commy liberalism in easily 40 years, if not since Roosevelt, and arguably all time. Obama knows well that which he argues and that's why on the right hate the son of a gun so much. If you are liberally inclined, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Obama is a committed idealist with the trappings of greatness about him and in spades. A minor shift in a political position or a rephrasing of a web site is not going to alter the overall thrust of this man's policy or his life.
So, don't lose faith because some staff member re-edited the web site. Obama is going to deliver for you liberals nearly everything that you believe in if he is elected. Obama is the real deal of liberalism. This is your chance. Don't f--- it up.
Now, quit whining, liberals, as you so often do, and get off your asses and vote for this guy. He's the best you'll have in your lifetime and now is the time to go for it.
"It's the Supreme Court, stupid..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, while I care about the candidates' views on technology, I think long-term impact will be felt far more strongly based on who they appoint to the Supreme Court ("SCOTUS"). The reason I say this is because, by-and-large, republican nominees have been more willing to clamp down on civil liberties, with special attention to interpretation of free speech. (Alas, they've all proved pretty wrong-headed when it came to Eldred v. Ashcroft, a/k/a the unfettered expansion of copyright... but that's where the difference between interpretation and legislation comes in, and, alas (for this case), the SCOTUS isn't nearly as revisionary as the fundies would have us believe.)
So, anyway, I care about McCain and Obmama's positions. But I care far more that the Court is becoming substantially unbalanced, and worry that a republican in office will have decades-long influence over most every freedom we currently take for granted.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Funny)
They're all rich white men
You mean, except the one black guy, right?
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Funny)
Ha, but you're forgetting one thing. Well two actually, he can dance [youtube.com] and he can jump [dummytv.com]! If that doesn't make him black, that makes him pretty fly for a rich white guy.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, well. He fulfills the requirements of 'blackness' for racial stereotyping, or at least he fills in the checkbox on two items on the list, for the camera.
Er, he also fits the white guy by racial stereotyping. Is it any wonder the blacks in America have such a crappy time if people question their "blackness" as soon as they start to achieve? It's like to be black is to fail from these posts.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Interesting)
His blackness was questioned by other black people. I believe the quote was about him "lacking slave blood." [Charles Kenzie Steele, Jr.] And let's not forget that by having a white mother he is just as much white as black.
Funny how both sides can simultaneously make race an issue and denounce race as an issue.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:4, Insightful)
true enough, but I would prefer a world without lawyers to one with 'good' lawyers and 'bad' lawyers.
I realize we need laws but the very large majority of the lawyers is simply parasitic to society.
It should be possible to get by with far far less of them then there currently are.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the legal profession is a bit like a priesthood, it actually thrives on obscure interpretations of language and on serious consequences of failing such interpretations. It's like an arms race, if your opponent has a lawyer then you'd better get one yourself and so on. The end result is a legal system that is well beyond the average smart persons capability to interpret.
It should have never ever gotten this far.
If you simply removed all lawyers and let the parties argue their own cases exclusively we'd see two things:
- a significant drop in caseload
- a return to reasonable verdicts instead of verdicts on technicalities
Of course it's a pipe dream (especially in criminal law) but like with most extreme positions it has a grain of truth in it somewhere and it would be nice to be able to shift the 'middle ground' to the point where lay people would stand a chance against a seasoned lawyer, and where verdicts would actually make sense to an informed outsider.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Insightful)
US law schools churn out far more lawyers than we need, yet we have a looming shortage of family physicians since the insurance companies (i.e. their employers) don't want to be bothered actually paying them. The average salary for non-ivy league lawyers is far lower than you might think, particularly if you exclude the hapless drones working at the big lawsuit factories.
We will be able to do without lawyers once we can all agree to make and abide by the rules rationally, i.e never. We COULD do with fewer lawyers which could happen but probably won't.
I'd suggest we would do better with a major reform of the health insurance industry so every doctor doesn't feel compelled to specialize in order to make their investment of time and effort to become doctors (which is far more difficult than in law) pay off.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, alternately, we could probably do without lawyers if we'd just simplify the damn legal code, and we could DEFINITELY do with fewer lawyers if we'd stop making stupid laws.
Take drug laws for example. The US annually arrests upwards of 800,000 people for marijuana violations alone. That means you're creating 1.6 million opportunities for lawyers (prosecutor and defense) on an annual basis. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather open up that industry to farmers, pot-bar/"coffee-house" owners, and other related private ventures, instead of creating jobs for lawyers, judges, police officers, and criminals.
There are countless such examples - marijuana was just the first one to come to mind because I was recently discussing the idea with some friends in law enforcement. Eventually it evolved into a discussion about law enforcement as a whole, and the general consensus seemed to be that we just have way too many pointless laws.
If you want to have a society in which law and order are taken seriously, it's much better to have a few very important laws which you enforce with a high degree of success rather than having a whole slew of laws, half of which you can't effectively enforce, and the other half of which you can only enforce sporadically because you're forced to waste resources on stuff that shouldn't be illegal in the first place. Not only does the current criminal code make law-enforcement less effective, but it makes the legal system unnecessarily complex, wastes taxpayer money on jobs that shouldn't even exist, and actually encourages crime.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure you can have one of these things but it's hard to see how you would get both.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ummmmmm ... yes. Until such time as they start writing laws in a language that the average person can read and understand and so, can defend themselves
How about just smarter average people?
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Informative)
Um, Barack lives right here on the South Side of Chicago. And brother, let me tell you, this ain't the suburbs.
Also, he only became a "millionaire" in the past three years or so after writing a couple of best selling books. He only paid off his and his wife's student loans about five years ago.
He was never "just another lawyer". Ask any of his students from the UofC law school or the people at the community organization at which he worked, for about $29,000 per year.
Don't be a bozo.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Vote with a list. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Actually the black guy qualifies in anyone's book as a rich white guy ... Unless you're totally obsessed with skin color."
Or checklists.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:4, Informative)
Except Barack's net worth is $799,006.
http://fortune535.sunlightprojects.org/lawmaker/507/ [sunlightprojects.org]
Maybe you were thinking of McCain? ($36,431,099)
http://fortune535.sunlightprojects.org/lawmaker/498/ [sunlightprojects.org]
And if you think you will get *any* change from an old man who has been in Office 30 years and only agrees with Bush *MORE* as it gets closer to election, I think you are misguided.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Insightful)
McCain's income is missing his wife's, which should be fair game to include. All reasonable people would consider that "household" income anyway. Good job playing games with the percentages though.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Funny)
I keep forgetting -- does having a wife and kids make you rich, or white?
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Funny)
In the US, it usually makes you a man ;)
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why America will fall. As I see it, you just turned having an ivy league education into a negative point...
And, he's a rich white guy because he's got a wife and kids? Really? Couldn't think of anything else?
No, you're right. There's absolutely no change between a white child of privilege who's father and grandfather's influences gave him his education and career, and a guy from a single family mixed race household who went to college on scholarship, earned his admittance, and finished in the top of the class.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Insightful)
What a troll.
The anti-lawyer rhetoric on this board is pretty ridiculous. In case you forgot, the drafters of every open source license are lawyers. Lawrence Lessig is a lawyer. Charles Nesson is a lawyer. The people representing the defendants in RIAA suits are lawyers.
Obama is just another lawyer ... who ... ha[s] a ... stance of ... "hmmm, these RIAA guys, they DO pay kinda nice."
[citation needed] buddy. This truthiness crap is ridiculous. Unless you can prove the RIAA has employed Obama, that's libel. Watch yourself bub.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, obviously an elitist (Score:5, Insightful)
John McCain, on the other hand, is just chock-full of mavericky goodness and simple values, and isn't elitist at all, despite the fact that he and his wife own a private jet and 8-12 homes on 8 properties (McCain says he doesn't know... it must be hard to keep track), spent $273,000 [blogspot.com] on household employees last year, and THIS JUST IN: own 13 cars [newsweek.com]. Oh, and despite McCain's claims that he has only bought American cars all his life, those cars include a Honda, a Lexus, and a Volkswagen, and also in the family is the Prius he boasted about his daughter buying just last year when he was pandering to voters with different concerns.
Oh, and Cindy McCain may have worn a $313,100 outfit [bostonherald.com] on the first night of the Republican convention and said [huffingtonpost.com] you just can't get around Arizona without a private plane, but trust the people who brought you the Iraq war [washingtonpost.com]: she's as down-to-Earth and "simple folk" as they come.
Those "uppity" [thehill.com] Obamas, with their one house, on which they got a better-than-average mortgage deal (gasp!) based on Obama's senate income and book proceeds, have one car for the family. And both Obamas paid for their education with student loans, with Barack, who was raised by a single mother and his grandparents, ending up as president of the Harvard Law Review. John McCain, the son and grandson of Navy Admirals, was practically the definition of a legacy admission at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Yeah, that arugula comment really tells the whole story of who's an elitist.
Re:Vote with a bullet. (Score:5, Funny)
My colour-sampler puts him at #A67A61
Re:WooHoo (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact this is his number one point under "Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets" as it was before. If you read the previous version, it goes from being a bullet point to being a full-blown lecture. Most people would stop reading. I suspect the ideas are all still there, only they are not being listed in so windy a manner.
Re:Because McCain chose Palin (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Because McCain chose Palin (Score:4, Insightful)
more educated does not mean smart.
I know many people with masters degrees that are dumber than a box of rocks.
So waving your educated flag around does not impress many people.
the GOP chose a woman simply because they want to get the "we want a woman in the white house vote" there are a lot of pissed Hillary supporters and the GOP hopes to high hell they will get them over to their side.
there is NOTHING intellectual about this presidential campaign. It's all about bullshit, which makes it typical.
Re:Lobbiest money. (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lobbiest money. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:it does not matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I'm sure you and I agree on how big of a jackass GWB is, you can hardly say he *created* the national debt. I think that honor is shared among a long line of democrats and republicans.
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/history.gif [brillig.com]
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/inflation.gif [brillig.com]
Re:FP! (Score:5, Informative)
You really have to question the submitters' motivation on this one.
If anybody bothered to read the diff, it is obvious that the page was re-written to improve accessibility, so that more voters can understand the issues. Long paragraphs were shortened and some of the details were omitted so that the page does not sound like a treatise.
Some of the items like immigration was taken out, I suppose, because it didn't belong on the technology page. A lot of the text was rearranged, I assume, for better structure.
If all you wanted to know about is net neutrality, then yes, a lot of the material that described the mechanism in detail is gone. However, this issue has been debated to death online and most people have less of an idea of how the internet works than Ted Stevens. I seriously don't think Obama has changed his stance on this, other than to put it on equal footing with other issues related to technology on that page.
Re:FP! (Score:5, Insightful)
If anybody bothered to read the diff, it is obvious that the page was re-written to improve accessibility, so that more voters can understand the issues. Long paragraphs were shortened.
The original page is a huge amount of text -- 5462 words on the page. This is like "War and Peace" for a web page. The new version only has 3319 words on the page and the text has been simplified.
The average person reads around 200-250 WPM for fifth grade reading material. For technically detailed information (the earlier version of the webpage), the rate can drop to 70-80 words per minute.
The first version had a large number of technical details and was extremely long. Assuming a generous 100 WPM for non-technical readers, it would have taken nearly an hour (54 minutes) to read. The new version is much less wordy and the technical details have been simplified a bit so if we assume a faster reading speed of at least 200 WPM, it will still take most people over 15 minutes to read.
What Obama really should do is make the web page smaller still - to the 5 minutes-to-read range and then have an extended document like the original page that you can download to read over an hour or two if you want the technical details.
Re:FP! (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing is, all this could be solved by adding a "Read More" link to expand out the section to include more detail. In its current version, it does look watered down to be more corporate-friendly even if that was not the intent.