28 Comments

• Could you please keep the far-right wing christian propaganda off the front page of this .NET site? I'm happy for you that you have 4 more years of your beloved Bush as president but not everyone thinks the same as you do, nor do they want to be confronted with christian morality on a .NET site. Thank you.
  

• Frans, I have respect for your coding abilities and have subscribed to your blog for a quite a while now. But if you consider me to be a far-right wing Christian, then I guess in your eyes that makes a majority of the US this as well.
  
  

• Hey, it's his blog, and he's perfectly entitled to his opinion. His opinion on this has just as much right to be here as his opinions on Singletons, design patterns, best practices etc. Give him a break.
  
  
  
  Congratulations to president Bush, and our country.
  
  

• Frans,
  
  
  
  Funny how you used the word "christian" twice, where Brenton merely stated his opinion about marriage, without even going into religious arguments about it.
  
  
  
  Having said that, if you happen to comment on every article here in the main feed which is not related to .NET, say goodbye to your day job.
  
  
  
  Cheers,
  
  Wim
  

• What right do you, the Christian right or 11 state's voters have to stick your greasy noses into other people's committed life long relationships. You can jerk your gherkin all you want about the sanctity of marriage now if you want. But when (not if) the other side win would you appreciate it if "proper" marriages were thrown out the window as irrelevant (surely if one type of marriage is irrelevant under your thinking now, it would be fair for the other side to throw your type of marriage out when they win. "Oh no" your type would say, "Our greasy noses haven't been up other people's arses. We only use lubricant for moral purposes!")
  
  And, for the record, only ~half the voters are winners. Stop trying to claim that you and your ilk are somehow superior.
  

• Frans, i'm not particularly fond of president Bush and the way he has handled things (actually i'm very much against him) but with all do respect, i think people are entitled to their opinions and thoughts.
  
  
  
  Also, this post belongs just as much on this site as all the other useless posts that have been flooding this site recently, yet i don't see you complaining about them (maybe i just haven't been looking though). Then again you are entitled to your opinion as well, but politely asking people to not speak their minds is just wrong.
  

• How come it always seems to be ok to voice a pro-Kerry / democrat / liberal opinion on your own personal blog that just so happens to be aggregated into a main feed someplace, but heaven-forbid we express a conservative opinion. It's pretty sad that tolerance is only a virtue if it's regarding something I happen to agree with...
  
  
  
  ~jason
  

• Frans is right, it's best to avoid religious themes in this site.
  
  
  
  I think this election from a European (and maybe others) point of view will be remembered for a long time as a good indicator of how different Europeans and Americans are.
  

• Hi,
  
  
  
  I think the problem is the vast majority of the world were hoping for a change of Government after the disasterous first 4 years of Bush.
  
  
  
  Clearly, the voters in the South of America must live in a parallel universe, where Bush has made the world safer, everyone respects America and the a war was not based on lies. It is difficult to criticise Iran for being led by religious fanatics when the US is being led Christain fundamentalists.
  
  
  
  In the end the choice was between 2 right of centre politician and the one with a heart, intelligence and a conscience lost.
  
  
  
  A sad night for the world.
  

• I voted for bush. I am glad that bush won. However, I disagree that this has somehow given someone, anyone a mandate. Typically, mandates are given based on large majority wins. This was not a large majority win at all. Besides, its not even official yet.
  

• Frans, not everyone thinks the same as you. In fact the majority of American voters are happy that we will have 4 more years of our "beloved Bush".
  
  
  
  I don't enjoy seeing left-wing items on technology sites but do so regularly and without complaint. Why? Because I'm not the type of person to be outrage when I don't like or agree with something.
  
  
  
  It reminds me of the reaction of "the far-right wing Christian" who listens to radio and when they hear something they don't like sue rather than change the station.
  
  
  
  They don't like to be "confronted" with diverse and differing opinions and it seems that neither do you.
  
  
  
  So continue to rage against political posts but please do so for both sides.
  

• You know, Bush's ads are right - you have to admit. The terrorists are waiting for a sign of weakness in the whitehouse to attack.
  
  
  
  They saw that sign on September 11th. They are now seeing it again.
  
  
  
  

• "I think the problem is the vast majority of the world were hoping for a change of Government after the disasterous first 4 years of Bush."
  
  - Obviously not. Bush got a higher percentage (and a majority) of the popular vote this time, and not just in the south. Look at the red/blue maps of the US and you will see almost all red across the country.
  
  
  
  Also, the last president to get a majority of the popular vote was his Dad. Not even Pres Clinton got a majority of the popular vote.
  
  

• Wim: That's true but we are not an endangered species. In contrary scarce resources will probably lead to harsh decisions in the future...
  

• Most depressing stat I heard last night - when asked if Creationism or Evolution were the most plausible explanations for life on Earth, Americans came out 2 to 1 in favour of Creationism. I think I speak for the majority of UK citizens in finding this enmeshing of religion and politics pretty confusing, the whole election felt like a secular versus religious debate; this may just be my perception but it's how it felt.
  

• Happy Hornet's Nest! (we don't celebrate Halloween)
  
  I may or may not be back.
  

• Most of us don't argue that people shouldn't be able to speak their minds (even if we're not in the US - that bastion of open minded free speech).
  
  We argue it's arrogant to assume your spoken mind is representative of the "voters", should be impressive to others (in the US and internationally) because it's unfailingly right and justified, or because it's overwhelmingly popular.
  
  

• My my my. Isn't Martin naive.
  
  The US wants to be the world's superpower/policeman without the responsibility of caring about world opinion! You and your BBC/world buddies should know where to politely shove it. (Come back in a day or two and pretend you love US policy!)
  

• (Pretty soon we're going to see a post about world wars!)
  

• And to join two thought tracks together:
  
  I've suddenly joined the fairy axis of fairy evil
  

• "You bunch of lily white bot bots didn't join till Dec 41.
  
  The UK had been fighting Germany for three years by then.
  
  If the UK had given up before 41 (and it was more their courage than your steel that stopped them) you would have been facing the combined forces of Japan *and* Germany (see real Axis agreement). "
  
  Sorry to spoil your fun, but if I say: "Duinkerken", do you then still think it was the UK who did ALL the hard work?
  

• No to be honest. Unless it's some Netherlands thing
  

• Can't we all focus on something everyone agrees on, like making fun of France?
  

• 1. Just to clear up Clinton had a Republican congress (Senate & House) all but the first 2 of his 8 years.
  
  
  
  2. The Republican majority is far from large enough even now to "push" anything through, let alone judges.
  
  
  
  3. We did support the UK with the lend lease act and our pilots years before we "offically" joined the war.
  
  
  
  4. Kerry has recently given up and I will do so on this thread. Good luck to all and I love O/R mappers.
  

• Most of America Gets it. Most of the liberal media does not.
  

• Brenton: Are you aware that the U.S. has a 50% divorce rate, and that 60% of men in some surveys admit to having had an extra-marital affair? Faced with these numbers, how can you believe that "an overwhelming majority of the people believe in the sanctity of marriage?"
  

• Frans,
  
  
  
  You mentioned "far-right wing christian propaganda", but only one candidate in this election actually gave political speeches from the pulpit of churches during their Sunday morning services, and his middle initial is NOT "W".
  
  
  
  Bush attends church, but he doesn't give political speeches in churches, aside from the special exception during Ronald Reagan's funeral, and that was just to honor Reagan.
  
  
  
  Democrats say they believe in separation of church and state, so why do they give political speeches from the pulpit of churches?
  

• I do see your point in that this shouldn't be a PURELY untechnical site. If weblogs.asp.net was filled with political banter, then it really wouldn't be what it's designed for. I will definately agree on that point.
  
  
  
  Still, it IS a community blogging site. It means that any one person CAN post what they want and should be able to do so without fear. Should it be right? Not always, but looking at Brenton's technical/non-technical ratio, a couple of political posts doesn't exactly make this blog completely political. It's still a technical blog with a majority of technical posts.
  
  
  
  On the internet, you do have free speech whether or not it exists in your country/region. You can post anything. Your government can't really do that much about it other than ATTEMPT to take it off, and that attempt is only valid if the server is in that country. Google has a cache, there are those other offline website storage places that almost guarantee what you say will stay here for a good long while. Does that mean that your country will not deport you because of it? Probably not if they could actually track you, but do most of them care? Could they even police it? Chances are no. So while at a basic legislative level you SHOULDN'T be able to have free speech, on the internet you basically do in some contexts.
  
  
  
  With regards to the home page and .Text you have 2 options:
  
  1. Don't check the checkbox, but that means your post will probably only be read by you or whoever subscribes to your blog. You wouldn't get new readers this way.
  
  2. Use the excerpt box to write either a short little blurb, or a long blurb about what the post is going to say. This gets aggregated on the home page (and home page rss feed) but the full text of the post is on your page and aggregated on your feed.
  
  
  
  Both of these require extra effort but one is easier than the other. Maybe he should have used the excerpt, but he's the one who's putting his time and energy into this. He has the right to post however he wants, simply because it's allowed. Until weblogs.asp.net changes the default behavior of the checkbox, or requires excerpts/posts to be purely technical, there's really nothing you or I can do. Brenton can do whatever he wants simply because it's allowed. It doesn't mean they won't close his account because of it, but the fact still remains that he can do what he wants with his content INCLUDING posting it on the front page.
  
  
  
  I'll agree to disagree though, because we could go on and on about how things shouda, woulda, coulda been done but it doesn't really change anything. I was definately spouting off at the mouth with probably a little more than I should have said, but the context of what you said was taken wrong and it was quite easy for the context of what I said to be taken wrong. So in the end, the 2 sides really cancel each other out and we're back to square one.