Accidental Trolls?

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Thursday January 31, 2008 · 1:35 PM PST

2008/01/31 · 13:35

Trolls are an unpleasant fact of life in the blogosphere, however, learn to live with them much as we do the pests in the real world, mosquitoes, athlete’s foot, and unscooped dog deposits. So why the title? Well, it seems that posters to progressive blogs who would normally be joining the rest of us in ignoring or baiting the trolls have decided instead to become one—though they don't realize it.

In this new breed of troll there are pro- and anti- Clinton trolls, pro- and anti- Obama trolls and my favorite, the sour-grapes, non-of-the-above trolls. Until my second choice dropped out of the race, I was either a racist or a sexist or otherwise deficient for not supporting the one-true-choice; if these folks woke up one morning and found themselves GOPers—is GOPerdom a choice or an affliction?—they would probably be part of the Shrub’s 24% and actively participating in his slime-machine. And then there's the none-of-the-above crowd.

KingBolete

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Tuesday January 15, 2008 · 1:37 PM PST

2008/01/15 · 13:37

Throughout the blogosphere there is a significant number of commentors saying that if candidate X wins the Democratic nomination they will sit out the general election or worse. I hope these comments are on a par with the people promising to emigrate if the GOPer wins: grousing in the heat of the moment. However, for those who are not I have four small words: Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts---I got a sick feeling just typing them in. If one more hardcore rightwingnut justice is appointed ---all of the GOPers have promised to do this---there will be nothing to stop them from shredding the last remnants our Constitution.

I expect that when the time comes these disaffected primary partisans will act like grownups and vote for the Democratic nominee even though may well fall far short of our ideal: there is no way to say truly say that there will be little difference between the Dem and the GOP candidates; the 2000 election demonstrated the fallacy of that.

And you zealous supporters of the winning nominee need to stop driving away the voters your candidate will need in the general; don’t do the GOP’s work for them!

Edwards: The Macintosh Candidate?

KingBolete

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Monday January 14, 2008 · 9:22 AM PST

2008/01/14 · 09:22

Apple introduced the Apple II in 1977; IBM countered in 1981 with the PC and in their haste launched Microsoft. In 1984 Apple launched the Macintosh with innovative features not matched by the (no longer)-IBM PC for over a decade. Even today, many observers say that many of the innovations appearing on the PC platform are merely ripoffs of time-tested Macintosh features.

The '08 Democratic race reminds me a lot of microcomputer history with Edwards as Mac and Clinton/Obama as the sappy IBM-PC. The best progressive ideas (healthcare, Iraq, economy, etc.) are coming out of the Edwards campaign; when Obama/Clinton need to strengthen their progressive facades these ideas are then taken, weakened and adopted.

In the initial triumph of the PC over the Mac cost trumped technical superiority: a PC was 1/2 to 1/3 the price of a Mac; the sidelining of Edwards seems to be due to the emphasis placed by the old-guard media and voters on personality rather than substance. If a PC candidate triumphs it will set back progressive government for a decade or more, as the PC’s success over the Mac retarded personal computing. Why not go for the best?

Google doing evil?

KingBolete

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Monday November 26, 2007 · 4:17 PM PST

2007/11/26 · 16:17

I live in a rural area and have fairly limited options for broadband Internet and ISPs as well. Shortly after settling in with the local ISP they migrated their e-mail over to Google mail; they said had a "partnering" relationship with Google. Now every user of the ISP has their mail on Google rather then kept locally by the company contracted to provide ISP service. Now, if there are problems with e-mail, my ISP says I'll have to take it up with Google. Since Google views Gmail as a free service, there is nothing resembling customer service associated with it.

So my e-mail and no doubt that of many others is now in what appears to be the spreading tentacles of Google. I bet it's a tactic that Bill Gates wishes he had thought of first (maybe he did with MSN?)! For now Google with its "Don't be evil" motto seems benign (but so did Microsoft); besides, benevolent despotism is still despotism. Obviously the primary villain is my greedy ISP which is trying to offload the service so they can pocket the savings (maybe my ISP is going to surprise me with a rebate check at Xmas---yeah, sure). However, without Google enticing ISPs to "partner" with them, this wouldn't be happening.

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Accidental Trolls?

Four little words

Edwards: The Macintosh Candidate?

Google doing evil?