4/1     Whoa! I was gonna delete stupid drivels but someone's been doing it
        for me while I was gone. I don't know who you are but you're doing a
        great job. Team work rules!
        \_ You can't keep the motd censored for several reasons:
           1) there *is* a class of people with more time than the moronic
              self-proclaimed grad student: the multiple government employees
              here who all have scripts that can undo the damage caused with
              a button press who want the motd free of your ugliness.
           2) there are dozens of others who will never stop posting new
              political topics to the motd and restoring censored threads
              when they notice censorship (with their own detect/restore)
              scripts.
           3) they all care about this way more than you do.
           4) you're way outnumbered.
           5) censorship has been tried many times in the past and always
              failed for the above reasons, you're nothing special.
           Good luck with your petty and childish plan to force other people
           to talk about only what you want them to talk about.  If you go
           too far and auto-script it, you *will* get caught and then we'll
           be debating squishing you.  You won't be missed.
           \_ Please don't underestimate the power of super bored grad
              students. We will ILYAS your crap for as long as it is
              necessary. We have the time, and we have the number. There
              is no way you can match our power. Bring it on.          -op
              \_ There's nothing to bring and that's where your plan falls
                 down.  We're just going to keep restoring censored items and
                 adding new ones, business as usual.  You have to go out of
                 your way to censor.  I find it ironic that in order to
                 selectively kill political posts you're going to have to read
                 them.  Welcome to the old world order.
           \_ You have presented the stick, which will win in the end.  Let me
              also introduce the carrot.  OP may not be able to understand
              why some people are interested in what he thinks is "drivel",
              but that "drivel" is part of what keeps dozens of old, experienced
              software and IT professionals reading and posting to the motd for
              years and years.  Those people can answer questions that would
              have taken a lot of work to answer on one's own, and can help
              one find a job.   Think of the politics trolls as a fee you have
              to pay for the service of having this technical forum which
              experienced technical people read and post to.
              \_ All true but I doubt the op cares.  He's going to hide in
                 academia forever where he'll get kudos for spending time
                 re-solving solved problems.
           \_ It's disingenuous to call cleaning up the motd censorship, and
              demeans the damage done by genuine acts of censorship.  The motd
              is a private community resource.  When members of this community
              nuke threads they feel are drivel, it's not censorship, it's a
              speech act that expresses their opinion, namely that those
              threads are a waste of time.  If you so desire, you may express
              your opinion by putting the threads back.  Seriously, if you
              really care about censorship and want to fight it, there are
              *far* more important battles to be fought than on the motd,
              which, when you get right down to it is basically a playground.
              -dans