My Opinion: Nobody broke out in any significant way. I get the feeling that the moderators were doing everything they could to let Carly Fiorina shine, but frankly half of what she had to say was boilerplate and the other half was babble. I'm listening to the aftershow now and the Fox people are trying to talk her up, so yeah, I was right ... they are in the tank for Fiorina.
6:20 It's over. Thank God.
6:10 Graham: Whatever it takes to keep America at war, I will do. I will be Ronald Reagan if I can find a Tip O'Neill. We need to save Social Security.
Two word answers to describe Hillary, going too fast for me to catch, but I'm pretty sure they don't like her. Also, Perry can't count.
30 second closing statements:
Perry: Show me don't tell me election, and Texas is the show-me state (he didn't actually say THAT). Texas. Texas. Texas. Hispanics and African Americans and Texas. Manufacturing and Texas. TEXAS!
Santorum: Karen and I have seven children, so we think about the future. We need to stop letting so many people in because my kids need the space. Also, manufacturing jobs.
Jindal: Lot of great talkers running. We need a doer, not a talker. Bush is a dipshit, we need to be conservative, stop letting people who look like me just waltz in.
Fiorina: Hillary is SUCH A BITCH. We need a nominee who will throw punches until she gets fired and loses the only election she's ever run in. I need your help to drive this hellhole into the ground too.
Graham: We need somebody ready to keep the wars going, and maybe to whiz around the war room in a wheelchair calling people mein fuhrer and giving Nazi salutes.
Pataki: Why me? My background is different. I won in a Democratic state and for some reason I want you to remember that I was in charge in New York the day the hijackers bitch-slapped us.
Gilmore: I was a conservative governor of Virginia. We have to change directions and I am offering a specific program for the audience to use as a sleep aid. Hey, I was a governor on 9/11 too.
6:08 Sorry, food came and I had to stop for a moment. Santorum's talking about how great Santorum is.
5:58 Pataki, Planned Parenthood, you are only pro-choice candidate. No Republican pro-choice candidate has won a presidential primary in 35 years. Has Planned Parenthood scandal changed your heart? Pataki: No, I've always hated abortion and would defund Planned Parenthood. Abortion should be outlawed past 20 weeks. It is Hillary and Biden who are for late-term abortion.
Jindal, would you shut down government to defund Planned Parenthood. Jindal: Planned Parenthood had better hope Hillary wins, because I will sic the IRS and DoJ on them. I don't think Obama should shut down government simply to give taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood. Republicans should have defunded Planned Parenthood and didn't, should have repealed ObamaCare and didn't.
Graham, defunding Planned Parenthood against women's health? Graham: Not a war on women, all of us as Americans should stand up against harvesting fetal organs. We should take the money from Planned Parenthood and give it to women's healthcare. But let's get back to my favorite topic, which is that I want to send American soldiers back to Iraq and back to Afghanistan and to Syria and to every other place in the world.
Thursday, August 06, 2015
Of Ethics and Ad Blockers
I installed the Adblock Plus extension for ChromeOS awhile back, for one reason and one reason only: The Libertarian Republic is so overloaded with ads that it slows my Chromebox to a crawl unless I block the ads.
Shortly after that, I re-thought the situation and decided to just remove TLR from my "daily crawl" for RRND material until and unless Austin Peterson gets right with Jesus on the ad overload thing. Unfortunately, I forgot all about Adblock Plus until this morning, when an interesting blog post from Christopher Burg jogged my memory.
Christopher's point is that ad blockers serve an important purpose above and beyond merely blocking ads: They also block malware that hitches rides on ads. Apparently this is becoming a real problem. Nonetheless, I turned off Adblock Plus once the post caused me to notice that I still had it running. Malware is way down my list of worries. I'm not saying that ChromeOS or the Chrome browser are immune, of course -- I can think of several nightmare scenarios -- but I'm reasonably confident that Google can intercept most malware and quickly nuke the rest.
Why did I turn off Adblock Plus? Simple: I think there's an implicit contract involved here. You put up a web page. That costs you something -- money if it's on your own paid web hosting, time and effort in any case.
If you're running ads on the page, you are charging me for viewing the content. The charge isn't a given amount of currency. The charge is my permission for you to insert ads into my visual space. I don't have to read them. I don't have to click on them. I don't have to pay attention to them at all. But blocking them is, to my mind, a little bit like shoplifting.
Yes, ads can be inconvenient. The checkout line at my local grocery store can be inconvenient too. But I don't get to bypass it and walk out with my milk, bread and coffee just because it's inconvenient.
Of course, Burg addresses this:
Well, OK. Maybe their revenue model does put their users at risk. Maybe they should be looking at different revenue models. Be that as it may, my legitimate option for dealing with the risk is to not point my web browser there. Just as, if my grocery store's way of doing things puts me at risk, my legitimate option for dealing with the risk is to not shop there, rather than to take the milk, bread and coffee home without paying for it.
I'm willing to be convinced to see this another way. In fact, not just willing, but interested. I'd love to be able to run an ad blocker without believing that I'm initiating force by doing so. Please feel free to take your best shot.
Shortly after that, I re-thought the situation and decided to just remove TLR from my "daily crawl" for RRND material until and unless Austin Peterson gets right with Jesus on the ad overload thing. Unfortunately, I forgot all about Adblock Plus until this morning, when an interesting blog post from Christopher Burg jogged my memory.
Christopher's point is that ad blockers serve an important purpose above and beyond merely blocking ads: They also block malware that hitches rides on ads. Apparently this is becoming a real problem. Nonetheless, I turned off Adblock Plus once the post caused me to notice that I still had it running. Malware is way down my list of worries. I'm not saying that ChromeOS or the Chrome browser are immune, of course -- I can think of several nightmare scenarios -- but I'm reasonably confident that Google can intercept most malware and quickly nuke the rest.
Why did I turn off Adblock Plus? Simple: I think there's an implicit contract involved here. You put up a web page. That costs you something -- money if it's on your own paid web hosting, time and effort in any case.
If you're running ads on the page, you are charging me for viewing the content. The charge isn't a given amount of currency. The charge is my permission for you to insert ads into my visual space. I don't have to read them. I don't have to click on them. I don't have to pay attention to them at all. But blocking them is, to my mind, a little bit like shoplifting.
Yes, ads can be inconvenient. The checkout line at my local grocery store can be inconvenient too. But I don't get to bypass it and walk out with my milk, bread and coffee just because it's inconvenient.
Of course, Burg addresses this:
Many websites rely on advertisements for revenue so they understandably get upset when users visit their pages while using ad blockers. But their revenue model requires their users put themselves at risk so I don't have any sympathies. If you run a website that relies on ads you should be looking at different revenue models, preferabl[y] ones that don't put your users in harm's way.
Well, OK. Maybe their revenue model does put their users at risk. Maybe they should be looking at different revenue models. Be that as it may, my legitimate option for dealing with the risk is to not point my web browser there. Just as, if my grocery store's way of doing things puts me at risk, my legitimate option for dealing with the risk is to not shop there, rather than to take the milk, bread and coffee home without paying for it.
I'm willing to be convinced to see this another way. In fact, not just willing, but interested. I'd love to be able to run an ad blocker without believing that I'm initiating force by doing so. Please feel free to take your best shot.
Wednesday, August 05, 2015
Election 2016: The First Signs of "Interesting"
As I write this, US president Barack Obama is speaking on "the Iran deal" at American University. The speech is, so far, a tour de force in which he has carefully explained the deal, completely demolished every objection to the deal except for the unmentioned correct one ("since Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, no deal should be necessary to stop its nuclear weapons program -- just lift the sanctions and go about your business"), and given those who object to the deal a very limited set of options:
In theory, the speech was aimed at Congress. But we all know better, don't we? It's no coincidence that he scheduled this speech for the day before the first Republican presidential primary debate (and the "kids' table" forum for those not in Fox's reckoning of the top ten).
Seventeen (that's how many it is now, right?) candidates just got cornered like rats. Each of them has about 24 hours to choose between (1) and (2) before going live on national TV and answering questions about the choice.
- Get behind the deal; or
- Be, and be publicly noticed as, an evil, anti-American whack job.
In theory, the speech was aimed at Congress. But we all know better, don't we? It's no coincidence that he scheduled this speech for the day before the first Republican presidential primary debate (and the "kids' table" forum for those not in Fox's reckoning of the top ten).
Seventeen (that's how many it is now, right?) candidates just got cornered like rats. Each of them has about 24 hours to choose between (1) and (2) before going live on national TV and answering questions about the choice.
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