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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
As someone who's been want to do serious history research for my own purposes lately, I just wanna lament the barrier that is academic journal paywalls and no longer having student access to them through universities. I really need to get myself some community patron access to the library of the nearest college one of these days. Or move closer to my old school where I'd have alumni borrowing privileges.
If you think that the political system is so badly corrupt that it cannot be meaningfully influenced by enough people getting out and voting, then you should start planning alternatives. For example, withdrawal from society (an anarchist commune that can actually feed itself, perhaps) or some form of direct action. Whining apathy only helps the psycho fanatics.
Academic paywalls can fuck right off. They're bad even for active students, and i recall at one point sending an expletive-laden email in the "questions/comments?" box of one such pernicious organization.
Usually not an advocate for law-breaking, but that one guy who hacked open an academic database and dumped all the paywalled content out onto the internet is a hero.
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As I've said before, I'm not a political nihilist. For now at least, we still have the ability to influence society through voting, though I am somewhat concerned that's also beginning to slip away. I am deeply cynical about the state of human society, but I also hold out hope that we can, if only by inches, effect meaningful improvements to the human condition.
edited 4th Oct '16 10:37:04 AM by CaptainCapsase
Important distinction, the items that guy liberated from that database were those old enough to legally be in the public domain to begin with (making putting them behind a paywall extra scummy). As someone working on being a writer I have to have a little sympathy for others that write for a living (though the mechanisms for making scholarly articles available need serious work.)
</derail>
Edit: ...oh, hey, I didn't know NY residents could get free access to a number of academic databases including JSTOR through the state.
Yo, Cap, you're eligible for this.
Edit 2: Ok, maybe not as good as I thought...about half of the stuff requires the higher tier of state library card which is only availible to doctors, lawyers and government employees.
edited 4th Oct '16 11:25:13 AM by Elle
538 has Clinton above her pre September 11th odds in all three projections. Polls-only is giving Clinton every swing state, other than Iowa. Ohio is still effectively tied. North Carolina is still red according to poll-plus, but that projection takes longer to respond to new polls.
I don't think the VP debate will have much of an impact, barring a Biden 2012 style rally or a total implosion (on the part of two vanilla, veteran politicians? Unlikely) this evening.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.While the shooting itself might be "old news" at this point, Jacob Hall, the 6-year-old killed by the 14-year-old shooter in South Carolina, is having a superhero-themed funeral
, as his parents don't want to frighten the other children who might attend and as a way to celebrate his life. Jacob himself will be dressed as Batman, which was his favorite hero.
An uncle, Johnny Bridges, told CBS Spartanburg affiliate WSPA-TV that Jacob will be dressed as Batman, his favorite superhero. Bridges said the family wants to celebrate what Jacob enjoyed instead of focusing on negative memories.
“I don’t want suits and ties and all that,” Renae Hall, Jacob’s mother, told WHNS-TV. “There will be a lot of children there and I don’t want it to be scary for them.”
edited 4th Oct '16 12:15:49 PM by ironballs16
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
Oh, how Harsher in Hindsight that his favorite hero was Bruce Wayne . . .
Just had a customer in who described Clinton and Obama as "Luciferian" (or however that would be spelled - Loo-si-fair-e-n for phonetic), based on their being fans of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals".
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"![]()
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This country is not a strict democracy.
And voting gave us Bush... thrice!
Also conspiracy bullcrap
edited 4th Oct '16 1:46:37 PM by flameboy21th
Non Indicative UsernameDemocracy and rule of law are meaningless to these Russian proxies. No, they detest Obama and Clinton for daring to tell them to their faces to shut the hell up.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Like, they've been doing this for years for their own purposes but suddenly the NSA gets involved and it's the worse thing in the world?
Oh really when?