Sunday, March 09, 2008

FOOLS ON PARADE

Fool No. 1: Tim Couch, a Kentucky lawmaker who wants to make anonymous online posting illegal. As WTVQ reports:
The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site. Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.

If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that.

Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district.
Fool No. 2: Microsoft. Vista is now $130, down 30 bucks from its release price -- because so few people "upgraded" from Windows XP. As The New York Times notes:
XP users have heard too many chilling stories from relatives and friends about Vista upgrades that have gone badly. The graphics chip that couldn’t handle Vista’s whizzy special effects. The long delays as it loaded. The applications that ran at slower speeds. The printers, scanners and other hardware peripherals, which work dandily with XP, that lacked the necessary software, the drivers, to work well with Vista.
Microsoft faces a class-action lawsuit for claiming many computers were "Vista Capable" when they weren't.

Fool No. 3: Matt Gonzalez, vice presidential candidate. He's running with Ralph Nader. The Monitor reports on a Gonzalez riff during a student forum in Texas:
"Don't vote for us if you don't want to. Vote for Barack Obama, vote for Hillary Clinton, vote for John McCain, vote for who you're comfortable voting for," [Gonzalez] said. "(Change is) not going to happen, because they represent the same. They are the same."
Nader peddled this lie in 2000, claiming Al Gore and George W. Bush were the same. Anyone still believe it?

1 comment:

Jeremy D. Young said...

Yes because the tenor of the United States Congress changed dramatically since January 2007.

The vast majority in DC are there for power, not for representing their constituents / states.

I agree with Nader on few things, but his condemnation of the partisan nature of our country is spot on. It's nearly impossible for independents or "third" parties to get involved in the elective process. Both parties do quite a bit to protect their establishments.