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2003/4/5 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic] UID:27997 Activity:high |
4/4 So why do people debate politics on the motd anyway? Is it just three people who stupidly fall for each other's trolls? Do you think that you are going to bring people around to your opinion by posting absurdly leftist or rightist propaganda, and flaming the hell out of people that disagree with you? Are you just bored at work? Are you naive enough to think that, in spite of the fact that you've been doing it for YEARS, shooting your mouth off in a small private online forum is going to make a whit of difference? Are you just idiots? -genuinely curious \_ I don't know about you, but I learn things by reading and considering other people's points of view. The axis of considering other people's points of view. The range of political ideas is considerably more complicated than the binary leftist -> rightist axis you describe and while I am not a conservative by any means, I have probably become more moderate by reading ideas here. Sometimes I am just trolling, sometimes I am bored at work, yes, but more often am interested in exchanging ideas with other people. As far as the "small private ... forum" part, what are the alternatives? Have you tried posting to other online forums? 90% of the stuff is puerile insults. There are plenty of insults on the motd, but at least most of them are clever or backed with some kind of reference. -motd liberal \_ agreed. \_ From a conservative: There are several reasons for posting on the motd. First, all of us are here posting due to boredom to some degree or another and I don't mean just the political posters. As far as why the political postings, on my part it is because this is one of the few places on campus where one can have a political discussion which doesn't instantly turn into "well, you're just a nazi fascist racist so there!". And lastly my long term goal is to see people such as the motd liberal posting above say they have become more moderate by reading ideas here. Compared to the typical Berkeleyan or San Franciscan I'm very conservative. Compared to the rest of the country I'm anywhere from moderate to liberal. This leads to the last reason for my posting. I find the extreme left postings funny and amusing. They don't seem to have any idea just how far left they really are. As source material for my discussions I read multiple websites from the entire spectrum. I read foreign websites. I read the left wing weeklies in the City which call the Chronical and NYT a bastion of right wing oppression and ultra conservatism. I have a reasonably decent understanding of the thought process of the left and the right and those z-axis folks as well and am perfectly happy to bag on any of them when they get really stupid or use poor rhetorical techniques. Anyway, what would you rather be all over the motd? Sports scores, stocks, and when the next kernel update will be ready? You can get that crap anywhere. Politics is about people. People are way more interesting than that other stuff. I ignore the things I find boring. I don't delete them. I don't comment on them. I simply page down over them unread. If the politics bothers you so much, I suggest you do the same. Oh yeah, it isn't just 3 people. It's *very* easy to track who is posting to the motd using user level available system tools. Start tracking for yourself. --motd cons. \_ I couldn't have said it better myself(although perhaps I could have been more brief.) I'm really amazed that poeple can see all these interesting politics threads and actually prefer some shit about pine, followed by a personal attack on pine users. Why don't they just go to usenet? -another motd liberal |
2003/4/5 [Politics/Domestic/President/Reagan, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:27998 Activity:high |
4/4 Making Peace: 100 Years of Leftist Failure http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=7092 \_ Makes perfect sense if you accept that FDR is a conservative and the Vietnam War was a liberal excercise. \_ If FDR is a conservative, i just got a lot more comfortable with my recently admitted liberalism -crebbs \_ It's truly amazing how you can take one or two lines completely out of context or just rewrite them from whole cloth and dismiss the whole thing based on your twisted and contorted version of what the article is saying. Why do you even bother making a vague reference to the article? Why not just completely make up everything instead of making up 95%? \_ Your entire article is bullshit. It would make more sense to call it Making War: 100 Years of Conservative Success. \_ It wasn't my article but unlike you I at least read it and since I actually have read a history book I understand it. \_ Who has started the major wars of the 20th century? How many times did liberal France invade conservative Germany? To blame a liberal for failing to contain conservative agression is literally perverse. |
2003/4/5 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:27999 Activity:low |
4/4 So is that the real slim saddam? \_ Will the real slim saddam please stand up? |
2003/4/5 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:28000 Activity:high |
4/4 http://csua.org/u/c61 (http://www.cnn.com US troops introduce profiling to Iraq. Where will it stop?? \- Profiling is fine, racial profiling is not. -Smart Liberal oboxymoron \_ Oh yeah? You think they're looking at anyone who isn't of Middle Eastern origin like that? \_ moron , everyone in iraq is middle eastern, so they are not profiling race, but characteristics of paramilitary \_ Ah, the ignorant speak. So you don't know about all the people from African and South Asia that work in Iraq and thus live there and etc? You think the only people who might want to shoot an American soldier are Middle Eastern? This is clasic racial profiling. You should be ashamed of yourself for supporting this gross violation of human rights and heaping shame and humiliation on the Iraqi people in their own country! \_ Looking for tattoos indicating Fedayeen Saddam membership is gross violation of human rights? \_ Are they checking tatoos on the non-Arabs? If not, then yes, it is racial profiling. \_ you are the one that is racists, human beings can't be profiled as terrorists or paramilitary because of their race means that you are the racists , sack of shit \_ If this parsed into some form of English, I'd respond. \_ Yes -- normally I'm pretty decent at deciphering other people's egyptian, but I'm struggling with this one. -mice \_ That's why I chose to let this one go. Maybe the poster would like to come back and try again in modern English. \_ I think it's something like "you are the ones who are the ball-lickers." |
2003/4/5 [Politics/Domestic/Crime, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:28001 Activity:moderate |
4/4 http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/05/sprj.irq.sahaf/index.html Here's the best line from the article. I wonder how he plans to keep this promise and I wonder what the highly independent Al Jazeera has is reporting is going on at the airport: "Sahaf said he would take reporters to the airport later in the day, after it was cleaned up." \_ think poker bluff? |
2003/4/5-6 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers, Computer/SW/Security] UID:28002 Activity:high |
4/5 On the http://netzero.com Terms and Conditions: * Software Downloads. As part of the NetZero Service, NetZero may from time to time download software owned by NetZero or third parties to your computer. Your use of the NetZero Service constitutes your consent to such downloads. What is this about? What type of software would they want to download to my computer? Is this to scan the files on my computer, or likely something more innocuous? \_ something to do with ads maybe? \_ why do you want to use netzero anyway? there are other choices that are cheaper and have worked okay for me. e.g., joi internet. \_ Thanks for the tip! I'll switch to joi. \_ does joi require you to use their own software? \_ no. \_ Welcome to Gator hell. Tried Ad-aware @ http://lavasoft.com? \_ Ad-aware sucks. Get Spybot Search and Destroy \_ It probably means pop up and other ad crap, data mining, and similar spyware crap. Legally it means *anything* they want and they're on safe legal ground. Some third party ware installed via them steals your CC or tax info and you're a victim of ID theft? You're SOL. Don't be cheap, get real net service without T&C like this. \_Just hack Netzero and get around their software. I used to do it when their accounts were free. \_ Why bother? |
2003/4/5 [Reference/BayArea, Academia/Berkeley] UID:28003 Activity:nil |
4/5 When people hear about U.C. Berkeley, they think "Liberal", "Activists". Is it true of Berkeley Engineering? Berkeley Computer Science? \_ They think of apolitical no-life no social skills nerds. |
2003/4/5-6 [Politics/Domestic/Crime, Politics/Foreign] UID:28004 Activity:high |
4/5 Akamai strikes a blow against the free press: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/technology/04WEB.html \_ Been through this before. It's a business and one run by a foreign government at that. They have no free press rights even if they were a free press and Akamai usage is not in any way required to get one's message out to the internet. You're a stupid troll. When you cry murder everytime someone sneezes in your direction, no one will come running when it's a killer with a knife. \_ Been through this before. It's a business and one run by a foreign government at that. They have no free press rights even if they were a free press and Akamai usage is not in any way required to get one's message out to the internet. You're a stupid troll. When you cry murder everytime someone sneezes in your direction, no one will come running when it's a killer with a knife. \_ The caption was a joke. \_ Akamai is just trying to keep clear of controversy while they look for a buyer. Their fundamentals suck. |
2003/4/5 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:29936 Activity:nil |
4/4 Yesterday I noted a pre-invasion UN study that estimated 500k civilian injuries and wondered what the current estimate was. To partially answer that question, Iraq claims that 500 civilians have been killed in the conflict. A bit premature to say, but the UN estimate seems a bit high. \_ The UN estimate included deaths from starvation and disease. Plus we haven't reached Bagdhad yet, where the mass of civilian casualites can be expected. \_ Certainly more injuries and deaths is expected. Note that I qualified my point with "A bit premature to say". How many casualties from Basra? -OP \_ url please. \_ http://csua.org/u/c5f (sfgate.com) \_ Unlike the movies, being injured does not equate to being killed. That said, the current number of casualties is closer to 10K than 500k. But it's early and the UN assumed chem weapons would be used. Still time.... \_ I am certainly aware of the difference between injury and death. Note that I said "To partially answer that question". However, it seemed unlike that the ratio between injury and death is even 100 to 1. -OP \_ Generally it's between 2:1 and 5:1 depending on the cause. \_ How can the UN assume chemical weaponry would be used if the UN position is that there is no proof that Iraq possessed chemical weapons? Or did the UN assume the US would use chemical weapons? \_ The US is the villain here. We used sarin gas on our own guys in Vietnam (says P. Arnett). Why wouldn't we gas the Iraqi civilians, too? \_ Is it me, or does it seem that a lot of Sodans are rooting for more casualties? \_ It's not you. The extreme left wants a million Mogadishus and isn't happy that it's gone relative well thus far. It's like my HS english teacher who wanted to see 50,000 US casualties in whatever war we were in at the time so we'd come home and stop fighting. \_ I voted for Ralph Nader, and am a member of the extreme left. I was opposed to the starting of this war for many many reasons, but now that we are in it, I'm hoping we crush the Iraqi forces as fast as possible, with as few casualties as possible. Not all people who don't agree with you are just like your highschool english teacher. \_ Ralph isn't the extreme left. Sorry to tell you but you're a lot more mainstream than you seem to think. \_ Ralph is not mainstream (except maybe in SF). He got what, 3% of the vote??? \_ Bullshit. Nobody wants dead soldiers. We would however, prefer to see Bush cronies held responsible for the soldiers that have died, and the civilians, and the rampant bald-face lying, and the criminally inept diplomacy. Clinton was strung up on a rack for getting a little nookie. Bush has ruined the economy, destabilized the entire middle east, and given cushy contracts to his corrupt friends-- but if someone questions his peroxide-white reputation he's labeled an anti-American. \_ I'd normally respond to this point by point but it screams "troll" and I've been trolled enough lately. \_ How come people often ignore the fact that the economy had already started going downhill before Clinton's term ended? \_ everyone knew Gore would lose \_ Note that I did not say "more *US* casualties". In fact, given the rest of the thread, it should be obvious that I was talking about Iraqi (and specifically Iraqi civilian) casualty. I posted something that implied the civilian casualty situation isn't as dire as predicted, and a couple of posts jumped in within 5 minutes to try to imply that 1) I am grossly incompetent (to not even know the difference between injury and death), 2) there are many more casualties (URL please, btw), and 3) more is forthcoming. Hence my observation that some Sodans seem to want the casualty number to be (much?) greater. -OP \_ want and convinced it will be are two different things. I want a government that never lies to us, I know full well that wont ever be the case. |