Letters to the Editor
mattwa33186
Published Letters: 394 Editor's Choice: 41
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This is all very depressing
[Read the article: No, Hillary Clinton shouldn't be winning]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Obama has been taking it relatively easy on Hillary. And vice versa, to a degree. Absolutely destroying your opposition at this point in a primary race is bad for the party, since if they manage to win you've made it much less likely that they can win again in November. Hillary seems to care more about winning now than what's good for the party or the country, but we haven't seen anything compared to what McCain will unload on the eventual Democratic nominee.
Hillary might be able to win simply because of backlash against the Republicans. She's just as arrogant, and it's becoming clear that she's just as dishonest (misremembering being shot at?) as the Republicans, but at least she's not a Republican.
Obama is the one who can win this outright. He's beating Hillary right now when there are still people voting for her because they don't think a black guy can win. That stops being a factor in the general election, and as has been pointed out black voter turnout will be a lot higher if Obama makes it to the finals.
But it really doesn't matter, does it? No one is talking about the important issues in any meaningful way. Lots of broad strokes, very little actual details about anything they could hope to actually get done. We'll pull out of Iraq, but nothing about how we would do that without bringing down half the world. Nationalized health care that we can't afford.
The real X factor here is that the big corporate interests haven't really weighed in with the Democrats yet. After the primary they will know who they have to buy, and the real differences between Hillary or Obama and McCain will grow ever smaller.
What we need is for Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet, or Larry Ellison, a combination of the 3, fuckin somebody, to throw a billion dollars at Ron Paul as an independent candidate. He probably can't win, but he could keep the conversation going in the right direction. What is your exit plan for Iraq? What are you going to do about Iran? Pakistan? India? China? Energy? Housing? The dollar? Our reputation and influence in the world? The incomprehensible damage done to this country in the last 7 1/2 years? BE SPECIFIC.
But that won't happen. This election will be decided by a few hundred people in board rooms around the country. If anything historic happens it will be that we find out that a bought and paid for woman or black man is just as unable to effect real change as a bought and paid for white man.
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What's really changed?
[Read the article: MySpace, YouTube, and the cheerleader beating video]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kids (and adults) have been talking shit for thousands of years. Now that shit is capable of a degree of permanence.
Kids (and adults) have been beating each other up for thousands of years. Now those beatings get videotaped.
And finally, kids (and adults) have largely been stupid for thousands of years. Talking shit about people you see every day when there is a 100% chance they will see it is stupid. Beating someone up and then putting it on the internet is stupid, as is beating someone up for talking shit.
So is the point here that technology changes the impact of our shit-talking, enhances the deterrent value of beatings while assisting law enforcement, and makes stupid people stupider than they have ever been before?
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Out of curiosity
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What is the number of flights without a major incident that would be required for it to be okay for a plane you were flying in to crash? Are we there yet, or is 44 million the magic number where the loss of loved ones is offset by an exemplary safety record? 45? 50? Don't know? I bet the airlines know exactly at what point the cost of a major crash is offset by cost savings.
Maybe we need to designate tiers for airlines. Those who prefer airlines that do everything they can to make their planes safe can pay more. Those who want to save a few bucks can fly on carriers that only comply with most of the airworthiness directives.
Anyone who has ever worked in any engineering capacity should recognize this situation. Engineers know what needs to be done, and the airline engineers know what needs to be fixed. Unfortunately, engineers don't write checks for repairs. Accountants do. The FAA is there to give the engineers the support they need to get their jobs done in spite of the bean counters. That's the job the FAA has been failing to do because of their sympathy for the business side of flying, and that's what the audit has got them doing again.
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No white man?
[Read the article: In every measure, Obama clobbers Clinton online]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think GW did manage to get elected, with far more going against him. He just didn't have so many people afraid of him - then.
I'm interested to see what Obama does with the internet, if he gets elected, as well. Most of the candidates are making half efforts. McCain posted a question on LinkedIn, which got a huge response, but I wonder if anyone will actually read the answers. Obama is doing better than anyone besides Paul, but most of them obviously don't know what they are doing (Obama included). That puts them in the same boat as probably 95% of the enterprises on the Internet, so it's not really a shot.
If Obama wins, there is the possibility that we will see a compelling, engaging, participatory use of the internet that helps us define our nation and the way we are governed. That would be something. Paul, sadly, can't win at this point unless he puts together a grass roots campaign twice the size of Perot's in the next month. If HRC or McCain wins, whatever they do (and they will do something) will amount to nothing more than more ineffective advertising that makes them look forward thinking to the mass of voters who don't know any better.
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@pitrh
[Read the article: In every measure, Obama clobbers Clinton online]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Good point, but web traffic stats for American sites are almost always US only. Don't know if that's the case here, but it's likely.