Posted by Baron Greenback [4.152.69.155 - dialup-4.152.69.155.Dial1.Atlanta1.Level3.net] on 25 June 2004 at 03.31.17 ZuluTime:

In Reply to: complete agreement posted by MondoHebe on 21 June 2004 at 23.04.08 ZuluTime:

I was going to try to provide some kind of a rebuttal. I've been a bit of a closet Kerry supporter since Dean lost his shot; it still disgusts me a little that all it took was a tiny bit of media spin surrounding a cheer at (shock of shocks and horror of horrors) a victory celebration. He didn't bite the head off a bat or piss on the Alamo. He was glad he was ahead.
     But, the more I look at Kerry, the more I realise he took the lesson of Dean to heart, and really shouldn't have.
     At any rate, I decided to see what Kerry's plan actually was. And at first glance, I agreed with it and thought it was a damn good plan. Then, of course, I realised I was being pandered to.
     here, http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0624.html is the 'plan'.
     Here's what's in it:
     -One, count 'em, one meaningful statistic: "Under Bush’s watch, America has slipped from 4th to 10th in adoption of broadband and lost 800,000 high-tech jobs. "
     -A whole lot of intent
     -A good, solid, and at this point necessary support of information technology and sciences the current president hasn't been overly supportive of
     -A hint of recognition regarding the stagnation that's been affecting us especially since the mid nineties but generally over the last two decades regarding technology and scientific advance. Since this last bit borders on personal opinion, I'll go ahead and defend my point of view here. This is a rant, and completely irrelevant, so feel free to skip.

< rant >The internet, a repackaging of existing networks that happens to support client-friendly html, making it possible for Gus the lubricant technician to check his internet yahoo email message program things, is the hallmark technology of the nineties, although 3d representation has also come a long way since fly-thru with microstation CAD. For this, we've sacrificed nuclear power, biotechnologies (even with hot button issues like cloning and stem cells aside, it should be noted that any given hospital is relying on technology developed by Atari in 1982, with no notable advance, to check your vitals if you're hospitalized), transportation, and any real interest outside of an old money elite regarding any real progress, especially when you talk about going into big scary interplanetary space. I watched that Good Will Hunting movie the other day. The difference between that and reality is that the college would have tried to keep their damn janitor. That's not saying we don't still /have/ the technologies. We even still know how to use them. Just that no one really knows how anything works anymore. This is what programmers call 'levels of abstraction', and it's my personal opinion that we've all become analogous to script kiddies in the last twenty years. Of course, all I'm basing this on is stuff I've read on the internet and, prior to the internet, microfiche at the library my mom worked at. I could be wrong.< /rant >

At any rate, what the Kerry plan didn't have:
     -ANYTHING regarding fucking ENERGY.
     -ANYTHING regarding the war. Although rumor has it that he thinks we should probably intend to leave Iraq some time either soon or later because Bush of course is doing the opposite
     -Anything on how he reached that $30 billion profit he touted. We are, apparently, to assume that the word is written and the will be done, and anyone without faith is a Bushie.
     -Finally, and a big finally, anything regarding how he's going to handle the wealth of beauracracy created by the current administration. Sure, it's okay to point out how it exists and that it's bad. But, it does exist. The Department of the Interior doesn't call shot a in subsection b of article 96 that the new Department of Homeland Security does now, and so on. We've created a lot of overhead. The Patriot Act IS too vague. We HAVE started to retool and redesign the CIA, FBI, ATF, even the FDA. The problem is, these things have too much momentum now. They aren't going to go away magically on March 15th. I, if I'm going to vote for the man, need to know how he's going to deal with the boogey man; pointing at him and jumping up and down isn't winning my vote. Figuring out how to use the new agencies would be a plus. At the least, when he bitches about the Patriot Act, he should say how he plans on ammending or scrapping it, and what's going in it's place if it's scrapped.