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Library Filtering Update 179

Posted by CowboyNeal from the special-guest-o-rama dept.
Following the Internet filter vote in our hometown this week, Jamie McCarthy stopped by the geek compound to rap with us for a bit, and so we recorded a special update to this week's show and have posted it at TheSync.
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Library Filtering Update More

Library Filtering Update

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  • At least now we know they hate the color schemes as much as we do. :)


    If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.

  • The battle begins elsewhere (Score:3)

    by RaveX ( 30152 ) on Friday February 25, 2000 @03:07PM (#1245332)
    I've already e-mailed Jamie to hear what he has to say, but FYI, the AFA has landed in Birmingham, MI , my hometown. Apparently a man was spotted by library officials downloading pornography and escorted from the building, and the AFA is using it as a pretense to fight for censorship here. It's an extremely wealthy, Republican, conservative area, so I expect another difficult struggle. I'll try to keep you all updated.

    Also, apparently a bill for library filtering has passed the MI state senate, which may very well nullify Jamie's gains if it is not stopped soon. All slashdotters in MI, write Engler and your local Reps.
    ---sig---
  • ...regretting having such a high resolution and such poor eyesight. I thought it was going to be Jennie McCarthy!
  • I'm all against the current breed of internet filters. But (open mindedly speaking), imagine that we come across a product (such as Deep Thought?) that could in fact filter 99.9999% perfectly and give a good browsing experince to little kids and innocent adults. Then what?

    If I was a kid, and I was showing off the internet to my mom, and if somehow I got stuck in a porn site with windows poppping up as fast as I could close, I too would be embrassed... I too would loath the computer and at the end be driven to push the turn off button.

    But say for example the second greatest computer in the entire universe and other diamensions exist.. say that deep thought was invented, it did filtering based on images, sound and did it a sane way (did you see how altavista/images get filter on the amount of skin shown?) wouldnt you want that to be run on your child's computer? Or your work box.. or anything..

    Keep your minds open :)
    --
  • I have read the censorship pages. I agree there should be a way to keep the kids off the "bad sites", but there should be some form of oversight. According to the censorware page, they block the misc.health.injuries.rsi.moderated newsgroup saying that it has SexActs Violence/Profanity. The non-mdoerated group had sex related spam, but the moderated group?? It also happens that they were sued (and paid over $140k) for violating the rights of an RSI injured worker. Coincidence??

    I'd be really suspicious if they had blocked my site [sorehands.com] which details the lawsuit.

  • "Like a pixie puked on my screen"

    Loved it!

  • The other stories (Score:3)

    by pnevares ( 96029 ) on Friday February 25, 2000 @03:24PM (#1245340) Homepage
    If you're sort of behind on the issue your talking about, here are Jamie's earlier stories:

    Victory in Holland [slashdot.org]
    Lightning Crashes, An Old Freedom Dies [slashdot.org]
    Censorware and Memetic Warfare [slashdot.org]
    Filtering Internet in Public Libraries [slashdot.org]
    View from the Censorware Trenches [slashdot.org]


    Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
  • i don't think it's right to try to censor everyone based on one instance by one person. if this ever became a reoccuring problem, however, i could understand the reasoning behind pushing for censorship, even though i know i would not support it. i have yet to come across a sinario in which i would support any form of censorship. and if they don't like that people could see what he was viewing, why don't they just buy those funny privacy shields or whatever they are that go on the front of the monitors so you can't read the monitor at any angle but just about straight on? they have those at the public library here in phoenix.
    just my thoughts.
    EOF
  • These other stories have a lot more information and are worth the time to download.

    The Geeks in Space interview was pretty close to zero content.

  • Thanks Cowboy Neal for finally posting about a Geeks in Space update (even though it was a "point release" :)

    Hopefully now you can ALWAYS post about Geeks in Space updates, so I don't need to squint at that little box on the side.....
  • How about "not Gore?"

    Remember the CDA?
  • That's what I thought too! They talked about pixies vomiting, political signs, and then forked off into other stuff.

    Who the hell was whistling that song at the end? Was that 'God Save The Queen'? Probably not. =)

    Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".

  • Works for me.

    I'd rather have McCain. Lesser of three evils.


    If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
  • Stopped by to rap for abit? Gee, and here I was thinking Rob was gonna bust a tune out on us and go the way of RMS. Man, and *I* disappointed... :)
  • Cthulu for president - why vote for the lesser evil...
  • Guess you dont know much about Chem

  • Re:Internet Filters Protect Children :) (Score:4)

    by Analog ( 564 ) on Friday February 25, 2000 @03:55PM (#1245357)
    that could in fact filter 99.9999% perfectly and give a good browsing experince to little kids and innocent adults. Then what?

    Then it would still be someone else making decisions about my children for me; wrap it in any kind of rhetoric you want, I find that unacceptable.

  • Dammit, we need more funny stuff like this! It's the best way to fight these obsessive-religious nuts.

    I'm not flaming the calm, rational religious people, so chill.
  • Actually, Deep Thought would detect that you were 30 links away from a porn site, and kill your browser. :)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • actually, I went to www.dogbreeds.com today,k and it directed me right to a porn site. You know, the one where it says "watch this chick strip then get fucked in the ass".

    Not that I minded. But it DOES happen.


    If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.

  • This is not good (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A t t [farmsex.com] e n t [farmsex.com] i o n [farmsex.com] m o d [farmsex.com] e r a [farmsex.com] t o r [farmsex.com] s. T h [farmsex.com] i s i [farmsex.com] s a r [farmsex.com] a n s [farmsex.com] o m n [farmsex.com] o t e [farmsex.com]. P l e [farmsex.com] a s e [farmsex.com] m o d [farmsex.com] e r a [farmsex.com] t e m [farmsex.com] e d o [farmsex.com] w n a [farmsex.com] s a t [farmsex.com] r o l [farmsex.com] l o r [farmsex.com] e l s [farmsex.com] e I w [farmsex.com] i l l [farmsex.com] p o u [farmsex.com] r h o [farmsex.com] t g r [farmsex.com] i t s [farmsex.com] d o w [farmsex.com] n m y [farmsex.com] p a n [farmsex.com] t s. T [farmsex.com] h a n [farmsex.com] k y o [farmsex.com] u.
  • This is completely offtopic, but, you know what? I actually cried when I heard the news. 41 times. An unarmed black man was shot fourty-one times. I feel sick to the stomach when I think of the fact that the police can basically unload their weapons on an unarmed man and be found innocent.

    Just wanted to get that off my chest.

    Casey

    --GnrcMan--
  • Perhaps what every parent needs is a computer hardwired to their brain. They could decide exactly what sites they wanted their child to see. Brains work very quickly, and web pages are relatively small, compared to the amount of other information we deal with, so this shouldn't be too much of a problem. Of course, the whole issue of available technology is a bit of a problem, but we should be able to get around that in a year or two.
  • I consider this on-topic since this story is about censorship and stuff... anyways, I didn't realize this until I heard it mentioned recently on the radio... John McCain is the guy who authored the CDA!

    I think that's enough to say about that, and in case someone forgot (like I had) I thought I'd do a little public service reminding everyone.

    Esperandi
    And McCain recently advertised on a porn site too, quite odd combo. Too bad Slashdot thought the story sucked. At least they declined it instead of rejecting it (anyone else notice that change? ;)

  • Sorry, but most of the presidential canidates are utterly clueless on internet issues

    Gore - The Clinton Administration signed the Communications Decency Act into law.

    McCain - Is strongly in favor of the use of CensorWare in libraries.

    Bush - Extemely conservative, and I doubt he's clued in.

    Forbes - Seems more clueful than the others. Maybe there's hope with him. *shrug* I personally like his flat tax plan.

    There are others, but I don't think they're any more geek-friendly than the ones listed above.

    It seems as though the majority of both parties are against us on issues such as CensorWare in libraries. The only solution is to make our voices heard in both parties.

  • You forgot that McCain *AUTHORED* the CDA...

    Esperandi
  • After doing a few searches, it turns out McCain also sponsored a required key escrow bill... why aren;t we hearing about any of this anywhere, at least to prove that his legislative passing powers aren't that hot.

    Esperandi
    Oh, and go search for anything about McCain on AltaVista and it will think you misspelled it... they think you were probably looking for cocaine.

  • I had a sneaky suspicion that he did, but wasn't completely sure. Didn't want to spread misinformation. Thanks for the info. -Pat

  • Jennie McCarthy is on the show? great going guys! I'd like to slashdot her...

    Make Seven
  • I read once on wonkoslice, I think, that any two randomly selected web pages are an average of eleven links away. I think that would be a fun party game. See how many clicks it takes to get from pbs.org to lesbianspecial.com, for instance. the person with the fewest clicks would win.

    Make Seven

  • That's a good one. I love the "ransom note" thing. Mixing a little farmsex into your grits is cool, too.

  • I'd rather have McCain. Lesser of three evils. Whoops...nope, read below/above...McCain authored the CDA. So now we've eliminated Bush, we've elminated Gore, we've eliminated McCain, and it seems like the Democratic Party will eliminate Bradley (but he's more into violating the 2nd amendment than the 1st). Who does that leave us with? Buchanan and Keyes? *shudder*
  • Have you even attempted to put yourselves in the shoes of the officers or have you just been suckered by the tripe the news media throws at you? I feel horribly about what happened to Diallo and it was a terrible tragedy. Those officers were bad cops, not necessarily bad people. They thought he was reaching for a gun, one of the cops fell causing the others to think he had been shot. It's perfectly understandable if you put your life in danger every day, and generally want to help people, that you get a little wired on adrenaline and when you see someone reaching behind himself (which you should NEVER do in a tense situation in front of a cop) when you're chasing after another criminal. The self-righteous attitude has got to be dropped by the people so easily condemning the officers when they have no clue what it's like in their shoes!
  • The article (which was on the Drudge Report as an exclusive feature yesterday) only said it was an asian porn site hosted at theglobe.com. Apparently McCain signed up to advertise at theglobe.com based on the geographic location from which people came.... not based on the site or anything, so he inadvertently ended up posting his ads on a porn site... quite a laugh for me when i read that ;)

    Esperandi
  • That works, but schools can be overzealous in their attempts to block that kind of thing. My school uses something called "Igear" to block out sites like that. It's not good at all. It blocks out everything that isn't school related almost. I can only get to /. when there's no profanity on it ("hell" and "damn" included) and any mention of MP3, or Warez are blocked. personal email is blocked. (they try to anyway... Hotmail.com, mail.com, and yahoomail are all blocked.) You can't go to any sites that link to blocked sites. If you go to three blocked sites in one session, you get locked out for a week. And kids can still get porn by typing in the names of the pics or going to this one kid's homepage, where all the text is taken from the schools homepage but the pictures are nekkid celebs. It's got a T3 though, so its not all bad.

    Make Seven
  • The unprincipled will always have the advantage over the principled. If you really believe the unreligious are evil, you'd best prepare your "soul" for "heaven".
  • First of all, 99.9999% effectiveness is not enough. That's 1000 wrongly blocked pages for every billion, and there are well over a billion pages.

    Secondly, you should be able to talk to your children about what they should and shouldn't do on the net, and give reasons for it. When my parents would tell me not to do something or go somewhere, without a reason for it, I felt that they couldn't trust me. That's a terrible feeling. Also, expecting a software device (which, because it is software, can be circumvented) to do your parenting for you is just wrong.

    Your children are not idiots, contrary to popular belief they DO have minds of their own. If you don't trust your children to use the net unsupervised, then you should talk to them about why you don't.

    If you can't trust your children, then they will no reason to trust you; but if you trust, and are honest with, your children then it will make your lives much easier.

    As for an image blocker that uses amount of skin shown as criteria for blocking, that just won't work. There are just too many instances in wich this would fail.

  • American Family Association (Score:4)

    by waldoj ( 8229 ) <waldo@@@jaquith...org> on Friday February 25, 2000 @05:01PM (#1245384) Homepage Journal
    When did right-wing Republications take over the word "family"? Every bloody wacko anti-free-speech organizations out there has "family" in their name.

    I think that they want us to figure that, heck, they're pro-family. And who could be *anti* family? Therefore, opposing them means that you're...what...pro-orphan?

    Bah. If pro-family means pro-censorware, chalk me up in the Norwegan bachelor male category.
  • quite a laugh for me when i read that ;)
    when you read that where... the drudge report or the asain porno site? no wonder you're useing that smilie ;) (note the slanted eyes)

    that is pretty funny though.

    Make Seven
  • Loves the comment about the "Idle Rich" but one question? Don't the people hosting the show fit that catagory? After all you can't even tell us why Slashdot died the other night.
  • slashdot-her heheh, kudos on that one heheh.. uhh what the hell did i have for dinner?

  • Re:Internet Filters Protect Children :) (Score:3)

    by THB ( 61664 ) on Friday February 25, 2000 @05:08PM (#1245388)
    I live in Calgary, Alberta. Within the last few days our city library board recently voted on content filtering for public libraries. When I first read about it i was concerned that it was happening, but after looking into it, the way it works should be pleasing to everyone but the two extremes.
    It works such that everyone will have access to unrestricted content, however parents will be able to specify if their child should have the full access or the restricted access. It would also be possible for anyone to use the restricted access if they felt that the internet was to scary without it.
    I understand that many people will see it as test prior to full scale blocking, however i have faith in the library board that they will not do this. The vote was eight in favor and two opposed, with one of the opposed saying that it was to restrictive, and the other(from a feminist group) saying it was not restrictive enough. This makes me believe that this is the way that it will stay.
    Just for those that do not know, Calgary is a fairly wealthy city that is moderate to conservative, but we tend to be quite liberal when it comes to our rights. Our economy is still somewhat based on oil also have the highest number of university graduates per capita, if that means anything to you.
    I personally would restrict my children's access, simply because of how easy it is to stumble across content that is not good for children(you know what I'm talking about), but when they are older i would remove it so that they will not have to deal with the stupidity of the companies that control the filtering. At home I do not use filtering, but instead supervision, it is far more effective than anything else, although it is not practical at a library.
  • psst, here's $50, walk in that library and download some porn. thanks.

    --
  • I consider this on-topic since this story is about censorship and stuff... anyways, I didn't realize this until I heard it mentioned recently on the radio... John McCain is the guy who authored the CDA!

    CDA2 to be exact. Details are available at http://www.aclu.org/news/w012698d.html.

    CDA2, upon brief review, seemed to demand filters be put in pace in schools, or they lose school discounts. It attacked the issue from the provider side instead of gagging the public. Which is not to say it's any 'better', but it certainly came closer to 'enforceable'.
  • McCain has also supported numerous initiatives on behalf of large media companies. Him and Billy Tauzin out of Lousiana. Notice the good press he gets...

    --
  • Oh, and go search for anything about McCain on AltaVista and it will think you misspelled it... they think you were probably looking for cocaine.

    oh, you mean they think you were looking for Bush?

    sorry, had to say it.

  • Re:Censorship in the US presidential race (Score:4)

    by ashpool7 ( 18172 ) on Friday February 25, 2000 @05:23PM (#1245394) Homepage Journal
    I decided not to mod this comment down, but rather post this comment . . . . otherwise, nobody would understand.

    This is propaganda. There is no basis, no links, no hard evidience. Punch the CDA and McCain through your favorite search engine and see what it finds.

    In FACT, McCain was reported to say any new measure that resembled the Communications Decency Act probably would not survive his committee, which oversees telecommunications. Furthermore, he's quoted [baylor.edu] as saying:

    "I'm the father of small children, they all are far more computer literate than I am, and I've seen some of the stuff that they see and it disturbs me terribly. But I didn't know how you would implement that [law]. I didn't know who would decide what's decent."

    McCain did endorse a bill that required schools and libraries with federally funded [cdt.org] internet access, which I won't debate here. A bit more info on that bill is located here [stanford.edu]

    In reality, the original sponsor behind the 1996 CDA was Senator Pressler [loc.gov]. More information on authors of specific portions of the CDA are here [peacefire.org].
    McCain did add a lot of amendments to the bill, but so did everyone in the Senate. How else did the thing pass?? I'm not sure exactly what his changes entailed, but you can find out here [loc.gov].

    Somebody mod the parent comment down into the flamebait category. It's nothing more than a sweeping piece political propaganda without backing at all.

  • McCarthy Hearings Continue in Holland (Score:5)

    by cje ( 33931 ) on Friday February 25, 2000 @05:26PM (#1245397) Homepage
    MCCARTHY HEARINGS CONTINUE IN HOLLAND
    "We Will Root Out Right-Wing Zealotry," Vows Community Leader

    HOLLAND, MI (UPI) - Community leader Jamie McCarthy continued his set of hearings to uncover and uproot a clandestine right-wing conspiracy to outlaw "objectionable" books, movies, and Internet material. "We are pleased with the progress that we've made so far," explained McCarthy, "and we know that given enough time, we'll chase these loonies back down to Bumpkin, Arkansas, where they belong." McCarthy's Holland Un-Internetarian Activities Committee has already exposed several right-wing individuals and organizations and has forced them to flee in shame.

    On the stand today was former presidential contender Gary Bauer, a social conservative who dropped out of the race following the New Hampshire Republican primary. McCarthy's line of questioning, as usual, was direct and to the point: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Family Research Council?" asked McCarthy. Bauer, after consulting with his attorney, took a sip of water and hoarsely whispered "Yes, I am."

    "Are you a part of the self-righteous group of people that believes it has the right to impose its narrow-minded view of morality on all children and parents?" thundered McCarthy from the front of the room. "Yes, I am," admitted Bauer, to a raucous audience reaction and a flurry of popping flashbulbs that could only be silenced by the steady beat of the chairman's gavel. Bauer later left the hearings, never to be seen in Holland again.

    Such has been the pattern established by McCarthy's committee over the past couple of weeks. Right-wingers, bravely turned in by community leaders and readers of the Slashdot [slashdot.org] Web site, are quickly processed by the committee and banished forever from decent society. "We are proud of the work we are doing," beamed McCarthy. "Each night when I go to bed, I do it knowing that I've accomplished something worthwhile. Ensuring that our children can grow up at a safe distance from the clutches of the religious fundamentalists and ultra-right-wing zealots is definitely worthwhile."

    Scheduled to appear before the committee next week are Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, political strategist Ralph Reed, NRA president Charlton Heston, former United States president George Bush, and former Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan.

    Richard Gephardt contributed to this story.
  • No idea who was doing the whistling, but what they were whistling was the olympics theme song.
  • No, the CDA2 was worse than that... it did what you said but the bulk of it was banning content which might be "harmful to minors" in a commercial context. Now, this sounds on the surface like it'd just block porn sites... but it would also ban (to steal an example I read somewhere awhile back) a website about sexual diseases that was deemed containing information harmful to minors (there is *NO* supreme court definition of harmful to minors like there is for obscene and offensive) that sold T-shirts on their site and I'd imagine any site with banner ads would also be fair game...

    Esperandi
    P.S. From what I have heard and seen, McCain also authored the original CDA but it was sponsored by the infamous Senator Exon, so he got all the press... not good press either ;) I searched McCains site and he has no information on either bill nor a section in his positions page about Internet legislation (he only mentions wanting to ban taxation of the net in his tax section)
  • Do your research before you think I'm spouting political garbe (which I'm not). I post in plain text so I don't post links, so sue me. If you punch McCain Communications Decency Act into your web browser you will find that he authored the CDA2 most definitely and it does not simply implement filtering inschools, check the bill itself. It bans all content "harmful to minors" in a commercial context. The reason I posted this in the first place was because I was listening to a radio show and they were mentioning some things McCain has done in the past and they mentioned he authored the CDA. Now, if they were mistaken and they meant to say he authored the CDA2, I apologize, I should have been more explicit.

    Further, you are wrong about who originally introduced the CDA, I'll even give you a link:
    http://www.cybertelecom.org/cda/cannon2.htm

    Esperandi
  • What the fuck kind of crap is this? I think we need a (-1: Christian) moderation to deal with this sort of shit. Now hear me out. I'm not an anti-religious person at all, but I think that a post like this falls into one of two categories. 1) the person is trolling as a Christian and is trying to be annoying or 2) the person really is a Christian and is therefore genuinely annoying. For the first case, you would moderate it down as a Troll. For the second case, it would either be Flamebait or Offtopic. But what if you moderated it down as a Troll and it really wasn't one? That would be a shame. We need a (-1: Christian) moderation category that would work for all posts like this. That way we could just let the moderation system do its job and not worry about mis-classifying posts.

    Anyway, to the author of the above post, if you're not a troll, you need serious help buddy.
  • Ahh, thanks for enlightening me.. I was trying to figure out what the people we refer to as "pro-censorship" might call themselves.

    Anyway, I'm sure you've figured out by now that people like to call themselves "pro-"something -- just look at the abortion debate. If all the pro-lifers did was refer to the other side as "anti-life" and vice versa, the debate wouldn't go anywhere. (Not that that is going anywhere; it's one of those issues with a slippery middle ground [slashdot.org].)

    --

  • No, my guess is that you're a garden-variety right-wing christian

    Oh, great .. now I've got to clear my name. :-)

    To tell you the truth, I'm a bleeding heart liberal (really, I am) that likes to write fake news stories from time to time. When I saw this story, I was taken by the idea of doing some sort of word-play on the "McCarthy hearings." The result was a pretty half-hearted attempt at humor, IMHO .. it started out okay, but when I tried to reach out and fill in the gaps, there just weren't any berries on the bush.

    Besides, I referred to Bush as a "former President" and Reagan as a "former Hollywood actor" .. how right-wing can I be, dude? :-) Right now, some ditto-head is plotting my assassination for such a comment!

  • -- Sen. McCain

    Heh.

    Sad thing is, I think he's still our best bet. Gore's been creeping me out, and Bradley . . . I dunno. I'm not sure he can win, though he's the only one that doesn't scare me at all.

  • glad I'm not the only one who found it funny :)

  • No, +1 Christian -- hear me out! (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 25, 2000 @06:00PM (#1245412)

    Listen, it's not cool with me to assign "-1" to an expression of somebody's religion, however moronic it may be (and believe me, when I wrote that troll I made it as moronic as I was able). What we need is +1: Troll, +1: Flooding (for the copy'n'paste shitheads, who are not trolls), +1: Religious Fanatic (why leave the moslems out?), +1 Insightful, yadda yadda you name it. Bear with me!

    Then we allow the user to set thresholds for each category, and make the thresholds switchable between minimum or maximum: I could decide to ignore everything by default, and display only posts with at least one point of Troll, Funny, or Christian. I could also allow everything by default, while filtering out the Trolls etc. Or I could filter out everything but posts with at least two points of Insightful, Redundant, or Stentorian. This would make everybody happy. Each one of us would get exactly the Slashdot s/he deserves!

    The best way to do this would be to let us enter filter expressions in SQL in an edit box in the user preferences thing. Hey, why not? Have fields in the db for each mod category and let us filter by 'em as we please. This would be the most flexible and powerful way, and also the least work for Rob with the UI :)

  • masterful troll,

    You are soulless automatons, motivated only by a dry insectile lust for power and a robotic desire to destroy the lives of the fully human,

    priceless.

    --
  • There are some porn sites that are typos of legit sites. I saw a write up about i, but I didn't check out the sites, personally.

  • &lt PREACHING CHOIR="ON" &gt

    Argh! McCain lost my vote and Slashdot declined a story when I read that a while ago. McCain wants to cut funding for any library or school without mandatory ineffectual filtering software?

    Arrrrrrgh! Enforce things you know! Not sequester things you fear! Arrrrrgh!

    &lt /PREACHING &gt

  • Porn pop-ups (Score:4)

    by jesser ( 77961 ) on Friday February 25, 2000 @06:15PM (#1245420) Homepage Journal
    if somehow I got stuck in a porn site with windows poppping up as fast as I could close

    Since this seems to be the main annoyance with porn sites you didn't intend to visit, take a minute to vote for mozilla bug 29346 [mozilla.org], a request that mozilla do something about the problem. Or better yet, comment on it (preferably on bugzilla instead of slashdot) in a constructive way, such as suggesting a better solution than the one I proposed.

    --

  • I like it a lot.

    --
  • *rant* Hello? I replied to the first post with a joke based on the same play on words! I was oh-so-hoping for a "funny" tag. *rant*

    Yeah, I know this is petty, and worse, ridiculous. We all know moderation is crap.
  • You know, if the two sides were Pro-Death and Pro-Opression instead of Pro-Choice and Pro-Life, that wouldn't work either. I am wondering how long the word "censorship" will take to accumulate enough flak to have negative connotations in the ears of the general public. It certainly makes me shudder.

    Normally I'd have an entertaining Doublas Adams quote here, but I misplaced my copy of the Ultimate Guide. ...sorry
  • Have you ever heard of "seperation of church and state?" If not, you're not alone. I support *Not Bush* in part because his dumb ass supportes prayer in school. Fundamentalism has no place in society. How will you explain this kind of theological argument to an atheist like me? And no, you can't convince an atheist that there is a God. Too many philosophers smarter than you have tried and failed.

    Could I have a flame tag, please? It occurs to me that I might not have expressed my hatred for fundamentalism offensively enough.

  • no, CDA2 (Score:1)

    by / ( 33804 )
    McCain did CDA2, not CDA1. CDA1 was a combination of Pressler and Exon.
  • How about justa "fundamentalist" tag to put on posts that use theistic arguments? Then they could be scaled up or down based on the level of relative dumbassary and trolling involved
  • No, they're not making decisions for you. It still -remains- your choice whether or not to install the Deep Thought filter. If it was mandatory, it'd be very unacceptable (think how easy it would to censor other "unsavory" content!), but you can't complain if the only people using it are people doing so for the protection of their children.

  • Re:The black is appropriate, for Amadou (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ok... here are the events, in no real order 'cause none is known.

    * He pulls his wallet (pulls a dark object)

    * A cop yells "Gun" (this is a standard warning - it means one of the cops was declaring danger - according to at least one withness this happened BEFORE a shot was fired)

    * A cop went down. It turns out he slipped - but to the other officers it looke din the confusion that he had been shot.

    * more than 40 shots were fired, 19 bullets hit.

    Some items of note:

    * If you are shooting at someone who you think is shooting back - YOU KEEP SHOOTING till you are SURE he is down. You don't stop shooting to worry about how many shots the others are firing.

    * They were shooting 9mm. If you look at the FBI gunfight stats you will see that it often takes 5 - 10 shots to disable an attacker. Not HITS - shots. Generally, it takes 3-4 HITS to down an assailant in a gunfight with a 9mm.

    * He didn't fall right away.

    * The law says if the cops BELIEVED they were in mortal danger, deadly force is allowed.
  • This result was a good thing, after all, a piece of hardware cannot do a parents job.
  • Hasn't Forbes dropped out of the race? I am living in Canada now, but I'm sure that I heard that.

    And then there was (n - 1)...
  • I know this is off topic, but this is one of those things that bothers me.

    It shouldn't be pro-choice and pro-life, but rather pro-choice and anti-choice.

    The obvious problem here is that nobody wants to be considered anti-choice, yet where does that leave the many people who believe that it's a woman's right to choose, yet would never dream of having an abortion themselves? They seem to be both pro-choice and pro-life.

    I have many friends who fit this description and classify themselves as pro-choice only to be berated as murderers by the pro-lifers.

    I know changing group labels isn't a solution, but we have no hope of solving this issue if we don't even know whose side people are on.

  • My piece of advice to you is, if you need to be convincing Republicans that the filtering software is bad, try not to be as patronizing as Jamie is sounding in his victory speeches.


    It almost sounds like he's laughing at the Republicans for voting his way instead of validating his prejudices.


    Hey, Jamie, have you thought that the defeat of filtering might be showing that maybe the Republicans aren't as bad as you think?


  • I laughed, I cried ! Great.

  • You should know better. The term "Pro-life" has no other purpose than to prevent rational discussion of the issue, just like "pro-family" (or the the name of the "Defense of the Family Act", which had the sole purpose of outlawing many families and discouraging the formation of others). The nuttier sort of religious people spend their entire lives demonizing everybody in sight. Once they've muddied the waters enough, the sensible people are stuck trying to explain things and clear up the confusion, while the Christians are free to hop up and down shrieking slogans and waving bibles. The slogans cut through the murk, while the sensible explanations don't. Drowing public debate in high drama and Manichean arglebargle always serves the most evil elements in society; see Hitler, Stalin, etc. ad nauseam.

    These people don't give a damn about reality or about "solving issues"; they want power, period.

  • What about say pro-life anti-life
    One term deserves another

  • I find it interesting that everyone went to vote for the Republican candidate in the primary that they'll have the perfect excuse to vote against in the general election.

    Is this out of maliciousness or because of other reasons?


  • hrm, now what is it that we are *protecting* the children from?

    from your post, it would seem to be embarassment. you want filters to protect you from embarassment?

    and while i'm at it, how does one *accidentally* end up in popup porn hell?

  • of course i didn't listen to the radio show...after all, radio is for the weak.

    urm, yeah.

    nope, i didn't listen...what did i miss? educate this ignorant fool, will ya?
  • I act like all of these guys in the forums and I get moderated down to like -0xBFE666 by tight-ass moderators. What gives?
  • Define 'perfectly.' Seriously, what I feel is appropriate for my children may not be what you feel is appropriate. What about age ranges? This isn't just a matter of intelligent programs, which may, someday, exist. These programs would have to be mindreaders.

    It's almost as tired a phrase as the other side's 'protect the children!' but really, technology is no substitute for attention in parenting.

    John
  • The Republican Party has it's foundation in Michigan, back in the days of Lincoln.

    So historicly, the State of Michigan has been the GOP's Backyard.

    .... Just to answer a question.
    *Carlos: Exit Stage Right*

    "Geeks, Where would you be without them?"

  • I would tend to avoid the use of pro/anti-life for the reason that the primary question being debated here is not whether or not to have an abortion, but rather if they should be legal thus offering the choice.

    This would put the people who believe that abortion is wrong for them, but regardless of their opinions, others should have the ability to make their own decisions in a very tough spot. To me it all comes down to the difficulty in defining this middle group that makes me lean towards pro/anti-choice.

    If however you can come up with a group of people who believe both that abortion is wrong and should be outlawed, yet would have one themselves, well.......

  • Since you said that Deep Thought would shut down your browser within 30 links of a porn site.

    Doesn't Windows Crash whenever you think of port?

  • What the fuck kind of crap is this? I think we need a (-1: Christian) moderation to deal with this sort of shit. Now hear me out. I'm not an anti-religious person at all, but I think that a post like this falls into one of two categories. 1) the person is trolling as a Christian and is trying to be annoying or 2) the person really is a Christian and is therefore genuinely annoying. For the first case, you would moderate it down as a Troll. For the second case, it would either be Flamebait or Offtopic. But what if you moderated it down as a Troll and it really wasn't one? That would be a shame. We need a (-1: Christian) moderation category that would work for all posts like this. That way we could just let the moderation system do its job and not worry about mis-classifying posts.

    Why only -1? How about -666? :)

  • What would be even better is if posts could be assigned to multiple categories by each moderator. Then we could allow users to set values for each of those categories in their preferences like you said and allow the ranking to be dynamic (eg, a post get s 2 trolls and 3 funnies and I've set troll to be -1 and funny to be +2 so it ends up being a +4 for me).

    Actually, what would be even better is if we could write expressions for calculating the values of posts - for instancem the previous example would get +4 if it's considered both funny and troll by a single moderator, otherwise it gets -1 for being a troll to one moderator and +2 for being funny to someone else.

    And even better yet would be if the comments and the moderation were sent as XML (and XSL/T were to become offical standards so Mozilla can finally implement it ;}) and then we could read the comments however and in what order we damn well pleased. Then stuff exploratory data analysis stuff like concept clustering and MDS could be implemented on the client-side (for those that want it) without requiring repeated trips back up to the server every time you want to resort the messages (eg, if there's a topic that I don't know all that much about, I want to read informative comments first, but if it's something I've been following, I like to look at the humorous things first).

  • Just go ahead and create Internet3.... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    and legislate that all pr0n be put there. If you don't want to see it, you won't be bothered with it,unless you log onto I3. Then, the debate would be something like...should public libraries allow ACCESS to I3? Makes things a little clearer I think. But, as with many other issues concerning the internet, its globality(is that a word?) creates the problem once again of how would you force other countries/govt's to keep their own pr0n sites off of I1 and I2. Oh well, just a thought.
  • Of myself, my NICOE, and my closest friend...

    One of us has tried gonzo.com while looking for muppet stuff and found porn.

    One of us has searched for pet supplies and gotten a completely misleading porn site with the pop-up windows of doom.

    One of us was searching for political info and found that a certain gay rights term had been added to the search strings of a bunch of porn sites. ("a bunch of" meaning that the search was completely useless because of the porn 'noise' and a more indirect search had to be used to get the desired info.)

    The existance of 'stealth porn' is not (IMHO) a reason to use ineffective filtering software that blocks useful sites. But it is a problem that concerns some people. Neither pretending it doesn't exist, nor insulting those who are concerned are viable solutions. Helping create a non-censoring technological solution is, and will take the wind out of the AFA's sails while you're at it.

    -Kahuna Burger

  • Or presidential candidates....

    If however you can come up with a group of people who believe both that abortion is wrong and should be outlawed, yet would have one themselves, well.......

    Look at McCain's responses to what he would want to do if his teenaged daughter was pregnant (due to sexual assualt?) he first said that in the end the decision would lie with her, then backpedaled to say it would be a family decision. In other words, constitutional amendment for you personal choice for me.

    It actually isn't unusual. In (I think) the first Bush race, Dan Quayle was asked a similar question and wishywashed on it. Then his wife came to the podium and showed us what real no-holds-barred pro life is all about, saying that their daughter would carry the baby to term, etc. The strong reaction got more notice than the wishy-washy one, showing that most American's expect "pro-life" leaders to be hypocrits when it comes to their own choices.

    -Kahuna Burger

  • Let me get this straight. You're proposing that moderators categorize the comment. So you would know how it's biased and by how much.

    That's a very interesting idea, but wouldn't that get a little absurd, especially if people start demanding fine-grained classification?

  • Sorry, I didn't see it. I wouldn't have posted that if I had known someone else did. but I did incorprate the "slashdot her" joke... which I stole from nitrozac.

    Make Seven

  • McCain's involvement in CDA (Score:3)

    by lee ( 17524 ) <lee@pyrz q x g l .org> on Saturday February 26, 2000 @08:31AM (#1245490) Homepage
    The following quote is from the url: http://www.eff.org/pub/Censorship/Internet_censors hip_bills/1998_bills/HTML/19980721_eff_s tatement.html

    ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION REACTS TO SENATE PASSAGE OF TWO INTERNET CENSORSHIP BILLS

    Statement of Barry Steinhardt President of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

    This afternoon the Senate passed two draconian bills that would ultimately prevent access to a wide array of content on the Internet. The two bills were passed as amendments to an appropriations bill for the Commerce, Justice and State Department. They were brought up without any notice to those members of the Senate who opposed them and without any opportunity for meaningful debate. In effect, free speech on the Internet was the victim of an ambush.

    The initial amendment offered by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Patty Murray (D-WA) would require schools and libraries that receive federal funds for Internet connections to install filtering software to block "inappropriate" material. The second, "the CDA II" bill sponsored by Senator Dan Coats (R-IN) would enact a wide ranging ban on Web posting of material deemed "harmful to minors."

    The two bills represent a real and present danger to free speech on the Internet. The McCain/Murray amendment will force libraries and schools to use all-too-frequently crude and overbroad filters that block out a wide array of non-"harmful" speech -- everything from the Quaker home page to the American Association of University Women has been blocked by these programs.

    Indeed, you can no more create a computer program to block out one community's view of "indecency" or "obscenity" than you can devise a filtering program to block out misguided proposals by members of Congress. Both may be desirable, but neither are possible.

    At first glance, the Coats' CDA II bill appears to be a relatively benign provision that purportedly applies only to commercial pornographers who market to minors. But it is a Trojan horse. Beneath the veneer, it covers any Web site that has a commercial component and which has material that some community will consider "harmful to minors", even if that is not the material for sale. This ranges from the electronic bookseller Amazon.com to EFF's site, which sells books and T-Shirts.

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the leading civil liberties organizations devoted to ensuring that the Internet remains the world's first truly global vehicle for free speech, and that the privacy and security of all on-line communication is preserved. Founded in 1990 as a nonprofit, public interest organization, EFF is based in San Francisco, California. EFF maintains an extensive archive of information on encryption policy, privacy, and free speech at http://www.eff.org.

  • dont you think thats just a little narow minded? dont you like manuals to computers and other refs i dont see anywere in the bible on how to write perl code or fix a car or even get a howto for your taxes. and its all free old Ben F. had the right idea.
  • hey i say that it this dumb thing ever happens we all ban together and tell them that if there goinig to filter the content from the net then everything must be filterd inclueing all the books. i mean its not like theres anything remotely like sex in any of the umm...books! This is just anther example of teaching our kids to let others decide on what is content and not. in the "infoage" (gota use a buzz word) the most important thing is for us to learn howto filter stuff for our selfs!
  • I didn't check this story out but "Britishing" probably refers to killing a famous netizen's character in a multiplayer universe. After some guy who assassinated Lord British (the leader of Brittania) in Ultima Online. I'm too lazy to recall the name of the guy who plays Lord British, but he is the main developer of Ultima and was supposed to be invulnerable.
  • The Geeks in Space interview was pretty close to zero content.

    Agreed. And so it has been with the last three or four episodes. I enjoy the techie banter (is banter the word? I don't know. Rambling, maybe.) but these last couple shows have had a rather low signal:noise ratio(low signal:high noise).

    Also, they used to scramble the cussing or watch their mouths. I don't think that, being the influential group that we/they are, I want people who are putting on a radio show, and saying that their typical geeks, to be using that language (ACK! I sound like an old-timer parent!) For example, in one of the earlier shows, I think it was Rob who said 'holy shit' (using asterisks is stupid, you can still tell what I'm saying) and they scrambled it. Okay, I will admit that scrambling 'shit' is a bit much (although, you could have just said 'holy crap' but, as the maid on the original "The Parent Trap" said, "What's done is done.") but, come on, Emmet says 'fuck' and it's left alone. Personally, I think there are something like levels of 'badness' with cuss words. 'Fuck', 'bitch', etc, are more 'bad' than 'shit', 'ass', 'damn', 'hell'. Besides, why use the F word when we have FSCK!?

    [/me steps down from soap box]

    Anyway, watch the language(scramble it out, use other words), and more signal, less noise.

    Thanks!



    Welcome to Slashdot. Please do not feed the trolls.
  • Police rarely discharge their weapons.

    This being known, you must remember that serious caution must be used when using lethal force on a suspect.

    No attempt was made to indentify the man actually had a weapon. That is the problem, they just unloaded on the guy because "someone fell."

    Did they hear a shot? Did they see the flash of the gun? Did they see anything even remotly suggesting that this man may be armed, besides the fact that he was black? No. He didnt even -fake- having a gun.. He was probably reaching for Identification when the cops just unloaded on the guy.

    Shooting an unarmed man 41 times is not a job hazard, it is murder.

    These people should be sent to prison where they would be assraped every day by the same big black men they unjustly imprisoned in the past.

    The justice system isnt just.. at all.

    Having studied the justice system for a good amount of time, I am greatful for being wealthy and white. It sickening how racist the system really is.

  • Wonderful that people in Holland Michigan came to their senses. I would hope that this shows how ludicrous censorship really is.
  • You know, in the past, I used to have problems like this. I mean this year I'm presented with a group of candidates in the two major parties, none of whom I could possibly vote for. I mean, the two major parties offer a choice of Al "V-Chip" [algore2000.com] Gore and his wife Tipper "PMRC" [desert.net] Gore (not to mention that her comments on Dungeons and Dragons [ultranet.com], well, I guess I just did ;-) Then there is John "CDA2" [cdt.org] McCain or George "Bob Jones University" [salon.com] Bush.

    Yes, they seem a lovely pack of jackals and demagogues. Lot's of people are voting for one or the other. In fact, my sister was trying to convince me to become a Republican just the other day <Shudder> "Come on, George W. Bush needs your vote," she said to me, seriously!! <Shudder>. Bleah! And I thought I was convincing her to vote Libertarian... -_-

    But there is a solution, and it doesn't involve sitting home on election day! That solution is Harry Browne, Libertarian [harrybrowne.org], a man who is looking out for everyone's rights.

    Remember, voting for a candidate who doesn't win may be depressing, but helping to elect a loser is far, far worse!

    Vote Browne and send a message to the establishment!

    (Incidentally, I've read articles in Forbes magazine that seemed OK, but not only is he out of the race, he was courting the Christian Coalition vote when he was in the race... I think that means, ultimately, filters and censorship under his administration, too.)

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