No matter what you think of him, one doesn't get to be president by being stupid. He may be dyslexic and unlearned, but underneath it all lies a ruthless brilliance.

I don't buy the Chauncy Gardner interpretation of George W. Bush at all. I can't think of a more underwhelming off-the-cuff speaker in modern presidential history. He always looks like a person fumbling for an answer after a long night cramming for a test.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 1:12 PM on July 31, 2001

Hmmm...maybe not having the right to vote would motivate some people. I'm not sure how we could revoke it exactly ...

That's easy -- as the Republicans are demonstrating in Florida. Keep toughening up the laws so that everything's a felony. Then don't let convicted felons vote.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 5:17 AM on July 31, 2001

However, I don't think it's going too far to say if you want to vote you have to be able to pass the same test that immigrants must pass before becoming US citizens.

Requiring voters to pass a test beforehand is unconstitutional.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 5:29 AM on July 31, 2001

Willnot: I can't remember the name of the case, but I'm thinking of a Supreme Court decision from the '60s that declared tests that measure civics understanding unconstitutional. Literacy tests were also prohibited by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 10:15 AM on July 31, 2001

If the story is correct, health officials did not know if a 10-day quarantine to look for signs of rabies works on tigers the way it does on dogs and cats.

Considering that, I don't see what choice they had but to kill the tiger. After seeing what a "safe" DTaP vaccination shot did to my five-year-old son last week (a week-long, burning-hot, four-inch-wide welt where the shot was injected), and reading on how much worse his reaction could have been, I don't blame the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 7:47 AM on July 30, 2001

All tigers have been classified as an endangered species since 1972. According to this page, from 200 to 400 Siberian tigers live in the wild and around 1,000 live in zoos and other facilities.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 7:52 AM on July 30, 2001

the Tiger did not "drag her off by the neck". Try getting the story straight before making claims like that.

I meant to say that it dragged the kid off in its mouth, not its throat. Considering the facts from the story ...

The cat grabbed the girl in the shoulder and armpit and carried her about 30 feet before dropping her when Nancy Kraft hollered.

... what difference does your... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 9:02 AM on July 30, 2001

Sheesh, Dan. She said "sic 'em"? If you remember the name of that vicious tyke, Google her and use Classmates.Com to see if she's changed her name. I'd love to find out what happened to the little Torquemada.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 11:52 AM on July 30, 2001

Put simply, I value that tiger higher than that girl.

The Siberian Tiger Species Survival Plan already has 50 more captive Siberian tigers than it needs for breeding in North America, according to this American Zoo and Aquarium Association report.

Relevant quote: "The Siberian tiger managed population includes about 100 tigers in North America, with another 50 or so designated as surplus to the breeding population.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 12:16 PM on July 30, 2001

They claim 100 Siberian tigers in their managed breeding program. With another 400-500 known to exist worldwide in the wild. So the population is significantly lower than previously estimated in this thread.

The 100 count is of Siberian tigers in the breeding program in North America, so there still could be 1,500 if 850 live in captivity in other continents.

There are a number of more likely reasons for this than... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 3:57 PM on July 30, 2001

A remark like that's beneath you, rcade.

I don't follow you. Siegfried and Roy breed Siberian white tigers and reportedly own 40, which they have dubbed the "Royal White Tigers of Nevada."
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 4:36 PM on July 30, 2001

Thanks. What took you so long?
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 4:02 PM on July 30, 2001

Every big Microsoft software release is a covert effort to sell computers, processors, hard drives, and memory. (And -- please answer my prayers O Lord -- computer books.)

I've been using the basic features of Windows XP for a couple months on a book project, and it feels like an incremental upgrade wrapped into a new look-and-feel that's so visual and touchy-feely it almost seems like an Apple product.

There are built-in programs to support... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 11:27 AM on July 30, 2001

Here's a mirror of his site.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 2:18 PM on July 29, 2001

Keep in mind that no one found out about this kid's webpage until after he died.

Actually, he told some participants of the Usenet newsgroup alt.suicide.holiday about the site, using IRC channels set up by these folks, who describe themselves as "pro-choice" on the subject of suicide.

One of the regulars allegedly tried to talk him out of it in IRC the evening of his suicide, according to this chat log.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 6:00 AM on July 30, 2001

I'm so glad that President Bush is taking a month off from Washington to show his appreciation for hard work. Republican true believers: How does he show his appreciation for sobriety?
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 8:15 AM on July 28, 2001

Actually, the shallowness of this attack only demonstrates how well he is doing...

Maybe there's something to the principle that a president's performance is based on the stupidity of his opponents. Clinton's job approval was never higher than after Lucianne Goldberg, Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter and the other kooks got a national spotlight by bashing him.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 4:23 PM on July 28, 2001

Another thing we're missing is the fact that Democrats came up with the idea for this money-now rebate, despite the fact that Bush is happily taking credit for it now. Joshua Marshall has a good recap of how this all came about.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 5:10 AM on July 28, 2001

I think it's better to leave MetaTalk to those of us who are so wonky about MetaFilter that we show up here.
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 1:27 PM on July 25, 2001

I think the community standards of MetaFilter are established by the 50-100 people who post the most links and comments. Those folks are reading MetaTalk and are likely to care about things like posting etiquette.

As for the rest, would you want to learn about MetaTalk by being dragged here with a target on your stomach?
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 1:39 PM on July 25, 2001

Willnot: If spam harvesting is a concern, put the address of your homepage up instead of a e-mail address. At this point, so many of MetaFilter's lamest members leave no contact information I'm ready to stop reading the entire crowd.
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 11:32 AM on July 21, 2001

What would a feature like this be intended to accomplish?

It would encourage people to put some kind of contact information in their profile, which discourages a lot of the worst behavior here.

I haven't suggested killfiles, because I'm hoping at some point Matt offers an XML version of MetaFilter so that killfiles (and the reverse, user-specific highlighting) can be handled as a feature of client-side software that reads... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 6:08 PM on July 21, 2001

Requiring an e-addy will assuredly discourage many of the most interesting people in the world from joining.

Two questions:

1) What part of "or home page address" are people not getting?

2) Even if I concede the point that you are one of the most interesting people in the world, what other anonymous raconteurs would be driven off by an e-mail or URL requirement?
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 7:25 AM on July 22, 2001

Does Opus Dark really have any valid connection to the real-worlder I've just described? I'll tell you this: my avatar master has never used the word 'finikin' in a conversation. Draw your own conclusions.

The conclusion I'm drawing is that "Opus Dark" is some kind of roleplaying game character for you, and we're not cool enough on MetaFilter to deserve a chance to know the real you.

What level and class are you, Opus? Do you have any magic weapons?
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 6:43 PM on July 23, 2001

Nice touch, Clavdivs. Now I don't need to make the point that total anonymity emboldens some people to make personal attacks.

Are you a roleplaying character too?
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 7:00 AM on July 24, 2001

"Metafilter can kick me off, but i will go into crush mode, egocentric? DAMN STRAIGHT, for this us a GREAT site. Few people i know are getting little concerned with the thinking on this site. So keep up the soloptic, regenerix, goofy with no point rhetorical babble and next thing you know BUTTLOVE69 or some damn certain will start squirting his polluted fingers all over the place." -- clavdivs

This is why I like communities that require some level of identification, even... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 1:36 PM on July 25, 2001

So do you run the name of every person who posts a link through NSI as well?

No, but the linked page was so bad I figured it had to be a self-link or something close. jhiggy has posted a lot of good links, but on this one he clearly jumped the rails.



posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 11:36 AM on July 25, 2001

At any rate, I wanted to make an observation not so much about the policies of who gets to link (although its turned into that), but those who seem to enjoy picking out and confronting those that choose to link to themselves(or family member, or associate).

The point of the etiquette forum is to discuss "what should or shouldn't be posted on MetaFilter." Should I be ashamed that I'm using the forum for its stated purpose?
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 12:27 PM on July 25, 2001

Wake me up when they get a state legislature on board.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 11:29 AM on July 23, 2001

They did their jobs, making a ruling on a point of law as they interpreted it.

Do you believe that the Supreme Court would have made the same ruling if Gore was ahead in Florida?
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 12:57 PM on July 23, 2001

I do -- they ruled that Florida had to use the rules established at the time of the election to count the votes. No changing the rules after the fact. That's a very Republican view of things, and there wouldn't have been a change.

The decision in Bush v. Gore goes against everything Scalia and the other conservative jurists have brought to the court. Assuming that Scalia's well-established court writings are "Republican," the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 2:48 PM on July 23, 2001

I assume you also agree that the liberal judges would have changed theirs, as well.

The liberals on the court haven't built up a record in which they discovered equal protection for the first time in Bush v. Gore.

For this reason, it would be harder to find them guilty of such an obvious effort to subvert their own judicial principles in pursuit of partisan advantage.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 6:29 PM on July 23, 2001

Having seen many of Gore's statements on what he considers parts of the Constitution that are "outdated" it comes as no surprose that his supporters have no respect for it's provisions either.

I'd love to see one of these alleged statements by Gore. It sounds like the kind of laughable accusations that get passed around in e-mail, like the hoax about him calling Christians a "blight on the environment" on page 342 of Earth in the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 5:48 AM on July 25, 2001

You said originally that Gore described parts of the Constitution as "outdated." His comment from the debate doesn't even come close to saying that.

Sorry, machine recounts were required by law in ALL counties and were done.

As the Washington Post reported in June, 18 of the 67 counties in Florida never recounted the ballots. All they did was checked the counting mechanisms on their voting machines to determine whether they... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 12:16 PM on July 25, 2001

Maybe Condit wasn't forthcoming with details- to the police or the media, neither of whom he is under oath to or legally required to assist at this point ...

He deliberately misled police about the nature of his relationship with Levy in the first interview. That made it news -- he richly deserves the ongoing media gangbang.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 12:52 PM on July 23, 2001

You act as if there's some kind of objective truth that journalists can tap into, Catscape. There isn't a journalist in existence who doesn't exercise his judgment in what stories to report and what stories to ignore. That's all Dan Rather and CBS Evening News did, and even if he's wrong about the news value of this story, we should applaud any instance where a member of the media breaks out of the herd. If it happened more often, the media's popularity would soar.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 7:37 AM on July 25, 2001

I don't think it's a weblog when you only link to yourself.

Then again, maybe it's the perfection of the form.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 11:13 AM on July 23, 2001

Wired News has written a story on these sites.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 10:22 AM on July 23, 2001

I mean do you think your e-mail would have any effect on this guy - other than allowing you to get into a flame war outside the context of a MetaFilter thread?

I have found that in almost all cases, people are much more civil after a heated discussion moves to e-mail.

If MetaFilter offered a preference where I could exclude all posts by people without an e-mail or homepage link (ahem), I'd use it.
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 7:32 AM on July 21, 2001

the mailto links are still correct.

The mailto links also use %40 instead of "@".
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 11:37 AM on July 21, 2001

Anonymity. if this 'community" cannot handle that concept, then it ceases to be a community.

I'll have to break the news to the people in my neighborhood that we've ceased to be a community.

It's a little difficult for me to explain the concept that we can only come together as long as we don't know how to contact each other.

Maybe you could help me with that, clavdivs. How can I contact you?
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 10:11 AM on July 22, 2001

You may feel that means I have nothing to say that you want to read.

I do. I know that's obnoxious, but the time spent wading through anonymous postings is a wasted effort that's getting worse with every passing day.
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 2:25 PM on July 22, 2001

Timeline: When an Italian police car was attacked by protesters and appeared to reach a dead end, a protester jammed a board into the car as others attacked the car and/or the occupants with metal signs and other objects. Carlo Giuliani, one of the protesters, picked up a fire extinguisher and attempted to throw it to throw through a broken rear window at a cop holding a gun. He fell to the ground after being shot and the police car backed up and ran over him then drove back towards more riot... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 8:54 AM on July 21, 2001

However evil the protestors are, however frightened the police were, they could have shot him to wound him. He was a few feet away and he was shot in the face.

They also could have been dragged from the car, seriously injured by the objects protesters were jamming into the vehicle, or harmed in any number of other ways. The fire extinguisher could have exploded.

From the Washington Post: "Demonstrators in black ski masks set... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 11:24 AM on July 21, 2001

How did you hear about it then? I'm sure I heard about it from mainstream media, although I can't recall the exact source.

You might have found out here A previous MetaFilter thread linked to Hatfield's column for Online Journal. He was apparently a regular contributor.

He recently posted online that his source was Karl Rove, but the story received zero, ZERO coverage...... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 12:30 PM on July 20, 2001

The Clinton body count is a ludicrous bit of misinformation spread by maroons.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 12:56 PM on July 20, 2001

Was the number of Napster users really significant compared to the number of CDs sold annually?

A year ago Napster had 20 million users. I think a crowd that large could have a [positive/negative] impact on CD sales, depending on what you think of file sharing.

Personally, I miss the opportunity Napster offered to sample songs from a new album before I decided whether it was worth buying. So I end up spending a lot less on... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 6:54 AM on July 20, 2001

Hey, at least Phil Collins was trying to do some good. Why should that be turned against him?

I hesitate to say this, because I don't want to encourage the idea that comedy must be meaningful, but celebrities like Phil Collins should check out a group before shilling for its cause. If they can't bother, holding them up to ridicule is a legitimate public service.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 7:32 AM on July 19, 2001

I miss the old policy of blowing off steam by taking everything too seriously in MetaTalk. This new policy of contrived wackiness is AOL chatroom without the A/S/L checks.
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 7:25 AM on July 19, 2001

Maybe you should pry your pasty white scrawny fingers off that keyboard and go try to serve and see what it's like. I did. Got that Ed? Personally I would have fucking tied you to one of the bombs and you could have screamed your pathetic apologies on the way down.

After reading all of the jingoistic "my country right or wrong" tripe from people without a scintilla of doubt about whether we needed to kill 340,000 people to end the war, it's almost a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 7:04 AM on July 19, 2001