Senator Hillary Clinton is really the one with all speeches and no results. She claims that she has been fighting for poor people for 35 years. According to U.S. Census bureau, Arkansas state ranked 49th in people with college degree (almost dead-last) and 6th in people living below poverty level. The truth is: technology boom did far more for the good economy of the 90’s than Bill Clinton. For example, Mark Cuban became a billionaire within 4 years! Billary have nothing to do with it.
If Billary cannot lift a small state like Arkansas out of poverty, how can they do it in Ohio and Texas?
Bill and Hillary need to come up with a different line of attack apart from experience. Obama actually have more total legislative experience (Illinois and Washington) than Hillary. Billary have talked about experience so much, you will think Senator Obama just graduated from college in 2007 instead of 20 years ago.

CNN (aka Clinton News Network) and other media outlets covered plagiarism charge made by the Clintons at least 100 times more than when Hillary humiliated herself by shop lifting words from Bill Clinton and John Edwards on the same night.
CNN covers Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton campaign at least twice as much as they cover Barack and Michelle Obama.
Same CNN and other media outlets drank the Clinton Kool-aid causing them to believe that the media favor Obama over Clinton. Go figure!!

Auto insurance is mandatory in Texas and most states, yet many drivers in Texas do not have it. Just because Hillary mandate health insurance does not mean everyone will partake. Robert Reich, former labor secretary for Bill Clinton, studied both Senator Obama & Hillary plan – he concluded that Senator Obama’s health-care plan will cover more people.

Dissapointed,

Billy

Linux won’t play the MSNBC debates (PCLinux OS, updated, FireFox and Opera)

Windows XP in Firefox displays a static error message saying something like “No such video”

On my system only XP/IE plays the debates.

By the by, on all systems the advertisements stream just fine so it is not much of a technical issue.

It makes the Dems look really technically ignorant, to be nice about it..

There is nothing prohibiting you from recording the debates on your VCR. Make a copy on your VCR if you want to watch it over and over again, ad nauseum. Or borrow mine.

“There is no reason why taking small portions of the debates[…]”

The amount (a fair use measure I do believe) should not even be a consideration. These debates should be considered as much owned by the public as they are the broadcasters. These are political debates, not expressions of art!

“[…] furthermore, the broadcasters have made serious (and expensive) concessions to allow for the broadcast of their material on more than just television (where they make a profit).“

I suppose what I find most disturbing (given the context) is the idea of putting private for-profit interest ahead of the public. A possible approach to this whole process would be to pass a law stating that any coverage of a public political debate must be released under an appropriate CC license or to the public domain. As well, a law stating that at least one primary broadcaster of those debates be the government itself so that an appropriate file format can be legislated because as ACS says,

“There is, of course, no requirement on the broadcasters to release their footage on any particular format, that is a question for them“

Or does that sound more like something those crazy Canadians might consider?

Jairdeno- you are certainly correct in one sense in that there is a definite enlargement of democracy by the mere publication of the debates.

The problem raised by Peter Rock et al (under the hyperbole that “Democracy is stifled by intellectual property ownership”) is a furphy. There is no reason why taking small portions of the debates and using them in other works would not be protected under the “Fair Use” (or in Australia “Fair Dealing”) defence as “criticism or review”. Freedom of speech is not impeded here at all, furthermore, the broadcasters have made serious (and expensive) concessions to allow for the broadcast of their material on more than just television (where they make a profit).

Rocks complaint actually relates to the file format that the works will be released on. Peter and co wish to make “mashups” of the debates or watch them on their linux systems which do not, apparently, support the file formats used by the broadcasters.

There is, of course, no requirement on the broadcasters to release their footage on any particular format, that is a question for them. The copyright argument is, if anything, a bad disguise for the open source community to complain about proprietary software – yet again.

Just ignore it – it will go away.

“Is this about being able to watch the debates or about democracy or about copyright.“

It’s about free speech. The technology of today offers an opportunity for average citizens to participate in ways not possible before the 21st century.

An All Rights Reserved copyright on the debates implies that a citizen remixing and redistributing new material based on those debates may face prosecution. That’s not just.

A debate released in a proprietary format (e.g. WMV) implies forcing citizens to use proprietary software in order to view or remix those debates. Proprietary software puts users at risk. It’s one thing to cajole consumers into downloading the latest media player so that they are able to watch the latest Britney Spears video but quite another to force citizens to install a proprietary media player so that they may fully participate in the democratic process.

Technology can enhance participation but only if that technology is accessible (from the source code up) and the associated content is licensed appropriately. If this is true, then you have free speech.

It wasn’t that many years ago that those were your only choices. Not too many years before that you didn’t have even that capability. An interesting fact is that with each leap in technological access fewer people watch the debates. Go figure, with greater access – less viewership. If viewership is your measure of participation then democracy seemed to function better then, than now.