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Stories and comments across the archive that link to blupete.com.

Comments · 9

  1. Re:Easy enough to balance the budget by QuoteMstr · · Score: 3, Insightful · on Obama's Space Plan — a Conservative Argument

    See, the conservative mindset is that lack of success is a moral failure on the part of the failed. If someone is down on his luck, he must have done something wrong, and therefore must be punished. It's really a modern breed of Calvinism, the religion tenant that God has pre-destinated certain people for heaven and others for hell, and that he demonstrates His grace toward the chosen by handing them with worldly success.

    It's a wicked, wicked idea. Society should be built around the idea of helping everyone succeed, not rewarding an arbitrarily-chosen lucky few while punishing everyone else for things that aren't their fault.

    "Whatever is, is right" is an evil idea.

  2. Science Bio suggestions by AssetYoYo · · Score: 1 · on Scientists Biographies for 5th and 6th Graders?
    Good list at http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Scie nce/Scients.htm

    my nominees:

    Madame Curie, Galielo, Copernicus, Tycho Brahae, Messier, John Wesley Powell, Roy Chapman Andrews, Hubbell, Michaelson & Morley, Lavoiser, Mendeleev, Werner Von Braun, Goddard, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington Carver, Admiral Hyman Rickover, Charles Darwin, Freud, Watt, Archimedes, Da Vinci, Amundsen, Peary, Lewis & Clark, Frank Lloyd Wright, Wilbur & Orville, Rudolph Diesel, Thomas Edison, Marconi

    .sig out for maintenance

  3. Re:Why? by TheoMurpse · · Score: 1 · on Court Rules Burning Porn = Making Porn
    Why do you care about the message the punishment sends? Is the punishment a deterrent for the commission of the crime?
    Because if a pedophile knows that raping a child will get her the same punishment as downloading child porn, she might just choose to go do the thing that gives her the greater high -- actually raping a child.

    In this country we have a judicial system that is based on the prevention of crime, not retribution.
    If you are talking about the US, you could be wrong. As legal theory goes, there are generally few reasons for punishment:
    1)retribution/revenge -- we are morally bound to punish wrongdoing/lawbreaking OR the person "deserves it" and we should "get even"
    2)local deterrence ("reform") -- the punished person will not commit the crime again
    3)global deterrence ("protection of the state") -- no one will commit the crime because of fear of punishment
    4)incapacitation -- the person cannot commit the crime due to incarceration

    You may also consider a different set of similar reasons:
    6. The Purposes of Punishment: 3 to 5 purposes are traditionally cited:
            a) reform or rehabilitation
            b) incapacitation
            c) general deterrence and/or the securing of social peace
            d) retribution

    Or these:
    First, they review four traditional arguments justifying capital punishment[:] retribution, deterrence, reform and protection of the State.

    The US system is largely based on #1 only -- retribution is the just reason for prosecution and punishment. As I am not a lawyer (yet), I do not consider myself an authority on the subject, but I have had law professors lead me through this concept before, and they have all come to the same conclusion -- the US system of justice is based largely upon retribution.

    One such example that Western justice systems serve the purpose of retribution is the Nuremberg courts. It is pretty obvious that there is no method of deterring dictators from committing crimes against humanity. Thus, Nuremberg did not occur for #3. There was also no need to make sure the men on trial were prevented from committing the same crimes again -- it was virtually impossible for them to rise to that level of power and instigate another Holocaust. Thus, #2 as well was not a reason (similarly #4 was not a reason). That leaves retribution.

    Some information about which I speak:
    1 - It is to be remembered that one of the primary reasons for the law's existence, indeed the state's existence, is that people are to be relieved of their need to strike out against those who have wronged them. Not to argue the rights or wrongs of it; it is entirely natural for an individual, when injured or harmed by another or others, to seek revenge and retribution.

    OK, I'm sure that I've sufficiently lost any reader, as I've lost myself in all this HTML mark-up I've done in this comment, mixed with the myriad of sources I've drawn from here. You can forget this comment ever existed, or you can use it as a springboard into more information on theory of punishment ("penology"). It really is quite fascinating.
  4. Re:Free market by RacerZero · · Score: 1 · on Fructose Linked to Obesity, Diabetes

    Corporations are artificial government creations that are granted special rights that often superseded the rights of the individuals that work there and consume their products.

    This is another example of government interference in the market place. Smith would not have approved of the special citizen rights granted to corporations. If there is not an individual accountable for the actions of the business then who do you arrest when a business kills someone?

    If you want to get a quick understanding of Adam Smith see this article:
    http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Phil osophy/Smith.htm

  5. Re:Oh yes, and this foolishness by Oligonicella · · Score: 1 · on EU, UN to Wrestle Internet Control From US

    "Schopenhauer did not believe that people had individual wills but were rather simply part of a vast and single will that pervades the universe: that the feeling of separateness that each of has is but an illusion."

    http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Phil osophy/Schopenhauer.htm

    Never remove a quote from the context of the individual who made it.

  6. Re:used to work with a guy who knew ingres by tootlemonde · · Score: 1 · on CA Dangles $1M Bounty for Ingres Conversion Tools

    She then made a disparaging but very amusing comment about "rocket scientists"...

    A similar and possibly authentic story is told about Einstein:

    Meanwhile, like any demigod, he accreted bits of legend. That he opened a book and found an uncashed $1,500 check he had left as a bookmark (maybe--he was absent-minded about everyday affairs). That he was careless about socks, collars, slippers . . .

    While Einstein was known to be unfailingly polite, Newton "had a suspicious and quarrelsome temper" and was "very irritable when contradicted."

    We clerks in this world must be prepared to cut the geniuses among us some slack. If we can't learn anything from them we can at least turn the inconvenience they cause us into amusing anecdotes.

  7. Re:Great Quote by Copperhead · · Score: 1 · on Peruvian Congressman vs. Microsoft FUD

    Edmund Burke

  8. Steam engines by streetlawyer · · Score: 1 · on Magnet Patent Suits
    all of these were obtained during an era that didn't have patents to protect the "Intellectual Property" of these ideas.

    In fact, the first workable steam engine (certainly the first that could have supported the Industrial Revolution) was patented by James Watt on 25th April 1769, receiving patent number 913 just to prove it.

  9. Re:Signifying nothing - Unseen hand by idic · · Score: 1 · on Gore: White House May Get Involved in MS Settlement Talks

    Adam Smith's unseen hand can take care of software buyers far better (and a darn sight cheaper) than paying for the new age gestapo agents at antitrust.

    Microsoft and its tactics are all competing organizations need. BeOS, FreeBSD and Linux don't need the help of the USG to sell their product