is using open source computer systems now. It was seen as a boon to the open source movement, but the rumor is they did it because they beleive Windows has a secret backdoor that was built into it by the NSA.

Moral of the story, B, is don't keep your backdoor exposed. Not even for a weekend.

grams4:

8 – the republican party has become the chief purveyor of entanglements in foreign wars

3 – iran is building nuclear weapons and no one is stopping them. hello? people . . . this is the country that sent 10 year old boys into battle as human minefield detonators during the iran/iraq war, equipped with plastic “keys to paradise” around their necks to dispel the kids’ fear . ..

Maybe it is just me - how exactly do you propose to accomplish #3 in view of your feelings expressed in #8?

What frustrates me to no end are the people who in one breath say that the US is arrogant and thinks "they know best" when it comes to world affairs. And shortly thereafter say that there is genocide in Darfur and why isn't the US first in line to stop this?

Whichever tack you want to pursue, that's your opinion and you are entitled to it. But you can't have it both ways. Either the US is big brother to the rest of the world or we turn isolationist and ignore what is going on outside our borders.

Actually the truth is somewhere in the middle but it's such a fuzzy line that whatever is done, it will piss off one side of the equation. Too bad so few people realize that international affairs are such a tightrope and it is easy to make one misstep and completely fall off that line.

Oh, and by the way, this is not a statement of justification for the war so please don't lecture me!

Eventually the only cars on the roads will be mini coopers and smart cars. YUCK.

Gas is allowed to escalate in price in order to "inspire" us to buy smaller cars. The auto industry needs the boost in sales. We're being herded like sheep into the smaller car mentality.

The last time Acura made a decent sedan was in 2000. Now they're all short little four doors, just like rest. We've seen cars go from muscle cars and cadillacs with fins to a bunch of little clown cars.

As far a Obama goes, I absolutely will not vote for him and I pity the country if he gets elected. The college kids who voted him in will be so excited about being part of "making change" and then the reality will set in...WE DON'T NEED CHANGE, WE NEED LEADERSHIP. Where the frick are the voting adults? How can they be as gulible as the young kids that swallowed Obama's bullshit?

Obama had no intention of running for office this election term. HE SO STATED when he was a guest on the Oprah show. She convinced him to run and backed him financially. He's Oprah's darling. WOW what a power move for Oprah and now the whole country will suffer. He's looking for on the job training. As far a voting for him because he is black, he does not represent typical black America. He is as black as Colin Powell is. Just because his skin is brown does not mean he is representative of black America. If he were an experienced black politician I could see where he would deserve the support of the black community. Why not elect a black American who has experience as a CEO or Governor or Mayor. Obama is nothing but a SCHMOOZER who has gotten to where he is by CHARM.

How stupid can Americans be? Oh don't bother to answer that question, as Bush was relected after taking us to war in Iraq.

"4 – America has the highest teacher salaries, the shortest school day, and the worst student test performance in the industrialized world. And we are now behind bastions of free inquiry and intellectual achievement such as Pakistan, as well."

Actually American teacher salaries are far lower than teacher salaries in countries like Japan, Finland, Germany, South Korea, etc, all of the countries that are beating us in education.

And Finland has the least amount of school hours of any industrialized nation, and yet has one of the best educational systems in the world. Plus their students don't start going to school until they are 7 years old.

grams4:

thinking that you are soooo superior to all of us unthinking, unaware, blithering idiots, maybe you could actually do something about some of these problems.

Speak for yourself!

Look who his opponents are.

#7- The wierd thing is, I'd think it would be easier to set up on-shore oyster and crab farms than fish farms. The local seafood industry gets saved, the watermen get jobs on-shore, the local ecology gets one less stressor--and the Republicans can't complain because it's a business run for profit.

#8- Problem is, when some of your rhetoric runs counter to political reality, work-arounds tend to get messy.

danam:

Whichever tack you want to pursue, that's your opinion and you are entitled to it. But you can't have it both ways. Either the US is big brother to the rest of the world or we turn isolationist and ignore what is going on outside our borders.

The "middle path" here is to work with other countries (aka "the international community") to form a consensus on where intervention, military or otherwise, is sensible. Under this paradigm, the Balkan war made sense, but Iraq did not. Of course, this is hardly a foolproof strategy - more of a general guideline. Folks like PNAC are not interested in this kind of guideline, preferring the "America's interests first" approach.

In any case, it's not inconstistent to wish that we had resources to help solve problems like Darfur, while complaining that those resources are tied up in Iraq. The question becomes where and when to intervene, not whether.

And what I was ranting about are those people who tend to (in the same breath) take the extreme side of both paths. The portion of my post after the part you quoted, I said that it is actually more of a middle ground.

If the US goes into Darfur, will we be revered at that point? Are there going to be any parties that now, then or in the future declare us arrogant for assuming we can make a difference? Those same people who unknowingly make blanket uninformed assertions that we "should be helping" (wherever there are ills in the world) are the ones that declare the government corrupt when the situation goes bad.

I'm so glad that I'm not having to make these decisions because I realize that it's not an easy choice. There are so many more variables than the general public is knowledgable about. Again, not a case statement for Bush or the war before someone else takes it there, just more of a general statement.

It does give me pause to consider Obama tackling world affairs, not that I think McCain is the answer. I'm so disgusted with my choices at this point.