Domain: laweekly.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to laweekly.com.
Comments · 103
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Re:Vinyl is imperfect
The dynamic range compression required to stop the needle jumping out of the groove
Actually, it's called the RIAA curve. It's like freaky mirror-universe version of that Meghan Trainor song, where it's now all about that treble, no bass.
Relevant quote from this article:
In 1968, a 23-year-old audio engineer named Bob Ludwig at New York's A&R Recording was asked to create a test pressing of The Band's debut, Music From Big Pink, so that the producers could hear what it would sound like on LP. During the process, he especially tried to preserve as much as possible of the deep low end of the band's sound, which he believed was critical to its music.
But when he heard the final LP that was released, he was stunned. "All the low, extreme low bass that I knew was there, was chopped right off."
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Re:I think I'm voting for Trump now
People do have a tendency to call people racist when they really mean they disagree about race relate political issues. But that isn't what is going on here. Trump's words far exceed any sort of attempt to enforce current immigration laws. For example, his claims that Mexico was deliberately sending its criminals to the US http://www.laweekly.com/news/heres-a-fact-check-of-donald-trumps-mexico-bashing-5754639 which was demonstrably false. He plans on making a wall between Mexico and the US and making Mexico pay for it, despite the fact that the number of illegal immigrants has in the last few years been stable or declined http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/19/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/. He's claimed that a judge in a legal case was biased against him purely under the basis that the judge was Hispanic http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-02-27/trump-university-argues-ex-student-can-t-bow-out-as-trial-nears. And then there was the bit where he refused to disavow the KKK and then lied about it, claiming it was due to mishearing the question when his response indicates he understood exactly what was being asked http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/28/politics/donald-trump-white-supremacists/
And this is before we get to the fact that many of his other policy ideas about immigration have nothing to do with enforcing current rules (e.g. his ideas about banning all Muslims from entering the US).
I don't know if Trump is racist, but he's made a lot of comments that certainly move in that direction, and if he isn't racist he's making a concerted effort to appeal to racists and general xenophobic sentiments.
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Ironically...
This appropriateness of this code is based around an interpretation of the novel that the creator doesn't share:
“Useless,” Bradbury says. “They stuff you with so much useless information, you feel full.” He bristles when others tell him what his stories mean, and once walked out of a class at UCLA where students insisted his book was about government censorship. He’s now bucking the widespread conventional wisdom with a video clip on his Web site (http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home_clips.html), titled “Bradbury on censorship/television.
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PMP
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Please think of the children!
One could argue that this doesn't belong in any educational setting.
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Re:Yeah....
You do realize that there is no service that is less conducive to violent or property crime than Uber, right? It would be like a store owner with video surveillance in his own store raping someone as they come in. Might as well walk into a police station and rape the guy at the front desk. There is literally no way you can't get caught. Your every move is tracked by GPS. Christ, you fucking liberals and your "basic needs". You'll have us all living in caves before you're through.
I don't remember a lot of stories about people being attacked by their taxi driver. But I do remember this and this and this. I'm not saying Uber is inherently dangerous. But it seems more than "no service that is less conducive to violent or property crime than Uber". According to my unscientific quick Googling, it seems regular taxis are safer.
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Re:turn-about isn't just fair-play, it's PROPER pl
PopeRatzo was making a reference to the Barney Frank Rule. It's okay that you didn't spot it (not everyone knows everything), but now you know.
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Uber: It's UBER Safe!
Seven Year Old San Francisco Girl Struck and Killed By Uber Driver; Uber Denies Responsibility http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/...
Boston Uber Driver Charged with indecent Assault and Battery http://www.bostonglobe.com/met...
Off-Duty LA Uber Driver Accused of Sexual Assault http://www.bizjournals.com/los...
Chicago Uber Driver With Felony Conviction Charged With Battery For Allegedly Hitting Passenger http://www.forbes.com/sites/el...
Writer and Activist Reports Being Choked in DC; Uber Denies The Event and Responsibility http://valleywag.gawker.com/ub...
DC Uber Driver Allegedly Assaults Customer for Burping http://www.washingtoncitypaper...
San Francisco Uber Customer Claims Abuse and Assault by Uber Driver (Pando) http://pando.com/2013/11/25/ub...
Passenger Struck In Head With Hammer by UberX Driver http://www.forbes.com/sites/el...
Uber Driver Pulls Gun on Valet in Atlanta http://pando.com/2014/09/08/at...
Uber Driver Punches Passenger in Oklahoma http://newsok.com/oklahoma-cit...
Lyft Driver Attacks Pedestrian in San Francisco http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news...
Lyft Driver Brandishes Knife in Los Angeles http://www.laweekly.com/2013-0...
Uber Customer Sues for $2M over Alleged Driver Stabbing in DC http://dcinno.streetwise.co/20...
DC Uber Driver Allegedly Rapes Customer http://betabeat.com/2013/03/ub...
Uber Driver Charged with Fondling Passenger in Chicago http://valleywag.gawker.com/ub...
DC Uber Driver Arrested for Alleged Rape But Not Charged Despite Strong Evidence http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Another DC Uber Driver Accused of Molesting Uber Rider http://valleywag.gawker.com/an...
Passenger Struck In Head With Hammer by UberX Driver http://www.forbes.com/sites/el...
Uber Driver in India Accused of Rape http://www.bbc.c
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Re:Default Government Stance
Stingray was already being used by LAPD in 2006:
http://www.laweekly.com/news/l...Maybe this is an issue that actually has little to do with the President and is just a result of the general move across local, state, and federal government that we prefer less privacy if it *sounds* like it is making us safer.
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Re:So what will this accomplish?
And they make money by ensuring that there are drivers.
Oh, there's going to plenty of supply of drivers if you charge a whopping $357 for 14 miles. What sane person would ride during surge pricing times?
You can rent a car for 3-5 days, with insurance, for that much money. Surge pricing is more about ripping people off when they need something the most than it is about maintaining a supply of drivers.
I'll bet in a blizzard you could go door to door and get the ride for half that much, and in less time. Lots of people who would never drive for Uber, especially at the normal rates, would do it for under $200. I doubt you'd need to go to the third house.
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Re:So what will this accomplish?
And they make money by ensuring that there are drivers.
Oh, there's going to plenty of supply of drivers if you charge a whopping $357 for 14 miles. What sane person would ride during surge pricing times?
You can rent a car for 3-5 days, with insurance, for that much money. Surge pricing is more about ripping people off when they need something the most than it is about maintaining a supply of drivers.
You contradict yourself. You begin by questioning the sanity of a person ever paying such a high fare for a taxi and then speak of a hypothetical person's great need to get from A to B. In actuality, a great need can not only cause a person to pay a high price for satisfaction of that need given a lack of alternatives, but it can be a good deal for both parties.
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Re:So what will this accomplish?
And they make money by ensuring that there are drivers.
Oh, there's going to plenty of supply of drivers if you charge a whopping $357 for 14 miles. What sane person would ride during surge pricing times?
You can rent a car for 3-5 days, with insurance, for that much money. Surge pricing is more about ripping people off when they need something the most than it is about maintaining a supply of drivers.
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Re:Moron
Thai food is known for its balance of flavours. It's a delicate balance of a minimum of 2 (but usualy 4) of spicy, sweet, bitter, salty and sour in a dish.
It's also VERY easy to screw up.
As an aside, Jet Tila was appointed the Culinary Ambassador to Thailand for his role as a guide to Thai cuisine. (People from LA and Food Network viewers will recognize the name for he's had numerous appearances on various shows).
I guess we'll have a new Food Network special - Jet Tila vs. this machine.
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Re:Strict government control is not good
Obviously, no.
Teacher, Mark Berndt, Pleads Guilty To Feeding Students Semen-Laced Cookies In Los Angeles School
Case against ex-Miramonte teacher Martin Springer dismissed
http://nypost.com/2014/05/13/notorious-pedophile-teacher-gave-victims-drug-laced-oreos/
Girl was victim of both teachers charged in L.A. child abuse cases: report
Mark Berndt: Profile of Perversion
LAUSD Molestations Spark Grim Federal Complaint
Berndt allegedly kept a jar of Vaseline on his desk which he used to masturbate in class, and sometimes wore a "freakish" Mickey Mouse costume with women's tights, the parents say. They claim the school's principal Martin Sandoval walked into the classroom as Berndt was videotaping students but let him off with a verbal warning. The parents claim LAUSD ignored those red flags and other instances of "freakish behavior." "LAUSD ignored multiple prior student complaints about Berndt and a district attorney investigation. LAUSD ignored parent complaints and failed to detect the massive number of lewd acts committed by at least three active child predators on one small campus for years," the complaint states.
Just In: CA Ballot Initiative to Target Sex Abusers in Schools
Teacher puzzler: Part-time porn star fired, semen-feeder paid off
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First Swatting Victims Were Conservative Bloggers
Among the first instances of swatting I was aware of were conservative bloggers like Aaron Walker, Erick Erickson and Patrick Frey, all of whom were working to expose convicted felon and "Speedway Bomber" Brett Kimberlin.
There may have been earlier instances, but those are the first I'm aware of.
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Re:Constitution free zone
>Next they will start to shoot journalists
That's so last century. There are more exciting high-tech to dispose of pesky journalists. -
Re:Yes, but what about banking?
Also relevant: DEA bans Armored car services from picking up Pot Shop cash
Step 1) Prevent credit cards from being used
Step 2) Prevent armored car services from being used
Step 3) Complain about the high number of robberies and crime that type of business "attracts" and use that as justification for more regulation / bans -
actually, not so much
451... Nice... Ray Bradbury would be proud
:)Actually, not so much. While most people assume 'Fahrenheit 451' is about censorship, Bradbury claimed it was really about TV replacing books. He even fought (unsuccessfully) to keep Michael Moore from using the title 'Fahrenheit 9/11' for his film.
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Re:Reference to...
For those who missed the reference and didn't click the links, this is a reference to Fahrenheit 451.
Fahrenheit 451 is interesting, because contrary to what many believe it wasn't really about government censorship, and the culprit in the story isn't the state, but the people, and how they embraced apathy and lack of substance with watching TV over reading books. Source:the author
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Re:This guy has got a bright future ahead of him
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Fahrenheit 451
My younger sister was assigned to read Fahrenheit 451 for one of her classes. I read through it because I had never been assigned it and was curious about the storyline. Personally, I thought it sucked compared to many of the more advanced Sci-Fi stories exploring the human condition that I was reading at the time.
She had to write a report on the meaning of the book. I pointed out to her that the writer's forward actually said that he wrote the book because he was tired of his editors screwing with his book manuscripts and deliberately or accidentally changing the meaning of his books. So she wrote her report and got a poor grade because it wasn't what the teacher either expected or believed, despite the fact that it was there in black and white for all to see.
Most teachers interpret Fahrenheit 451 as being about deliberate censorship. Bradbury, a few years before he died, interpreted his own work to reflect a society where there is more interest in entertainment and less and less interest in reading, so books get condensed to the point where the meaning is lost and society grows to despise books.
http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/
The point is that English departments have been interpreting books for years and have taught their "official" interpretation to students with no flexibility for students to come up with their own unique meaning. In my opinion, it's this institutional method to reading that makes it a chore. What makes reading fun is the ability to approach the material on your own and develop your own interpretations. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen because it makes it harder to grade...
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Re:Forced convergence is all the rage.
He's obviously new to this. Here is a primer.
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Re:To hell with that, WE demand more!!!
I disagree.
Just because you happen to be able to create music doesn't mean you're fantastic at engaging fans. Some are, some aren't. But saying their ability to earn a living should suffer because of something not directly related to their skill as a musician seems wrong.
I'll also give you a hint: that thug ass gangsta rapper selling you CDs has no interest at all in music, he just wants your money. Here's a good write-up on that:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2012/03/venice_beach_mixtapes_hustle_a.php -
Building Is Cheap, Repairs Are Expensive
Despite the rambling, the TFA made it's only salient point with the following:
there's less need to clog up existing lanes with orange cones and repair crews.
Compared to repairing existing roads, new road construction is the cheaper option, even with the costs of additional steps such as planning and grading. Repairs are incredibly expensive and inconvenient for exactly the above reason; it's much harder, much more dangerous, and much slower work to repair a surface in active use, and in the meantime some fraction of that infrastructure is put out of use. When you do need to make significant repairs, what you end up with is Carmageddon, which users can't put up with for long periods of time.
Simply put, many of these major roads are too important and too busy to take out of commission for any period of time for repairs. Your best option quite often comes down to building a parallel track, at which point the original track becomes free for repairs (or more historically, decommissioning).
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Re:That settles it...
You're probably right about There Will Be Blood. The interesting thing is that the lines from the movie were based on reality:
"I must admit to you where that came from," Anderson says giddily, noting that the eccentric metaphor comes straight from the congressional transcripts of the 1920s "Teapot Dome" scandal, in which New Mexico Republican Senator Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes for the oil-drilling rights to public lands in California and Wyoming from several oil-industry fat cats (including Edward Doheny).
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Re:Signing Statement?
Obama directed the DOJ not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. He could do the same with any other law. This is why his argument that "we have to enforce the law" when it comes to Cannabis dispensaries is entirely bankrupt.
In that situation, we put the Justice Department in a very difficult place if we're telling them, "This is supposed to be against the law, but we want you to turn the other way." That's not something we're going to do.
That's not a difficult place at all, and entirely within his powers as the chief law enforcement officer in the country. He has the power to set priorities for federal law enforcement, including priorities of zero.
If you're someone who wants to laud Obama for his Civil Rights record, ask yourself how many gay people there are in jail for being gay. Then ask yourself how many Cannabis smokers there are in jail. Why not attack the bigger problem first?
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And California doesn't?
Coff.
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Re:Seems a little inflated...
I'll see your unsubstantiated anecdote and raise you the Los Angeles Redevelopment Authority, an organization that existed to manipulate land values and funnel money into the coffers of politically connected developers:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/01/cra_la_jerry_brown_billion.php
Now we're talking *billions* of dollars in misappropriated funds in the guise of helping poor and blighted communities. This included a $52 million dollar parking garage for a wealthy real estate mogul's private museum, and several high-end condo projects sandwiched next to freeways. They also eminent-domained and tore down a historic theater started by Al Jolson that was undergoing renovations. It has been wonderfully re-developed into a weed-covered field. Because, you know, that helps poor people.
I've gone easy and only listed examples of municipal waste. If you really want to get into it I could start in on the department of defense...
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Re:I'm actually ok with this
This one is virtually indistinguishable from an ipad.
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Re:Single point of failure developmentThat's typical fed idiocy, but it's not invading your privacy...at least until you get a letter back from them:
"Dear business, it appears that one of your online database connections was made with your 401st install of Microsoft Windows 7(R). According to the BSA, your business owns only 400 licenses.
Who the fuck is that breaking down our doors? Do they have badges?! What the fuck? This is America! Not Germany in 1939!
Get down on the fucking ground. Now. NOW! Hands behind your head. FBI/ICE/BSA Joint Intellectual Property task force...I said DON'T FUCKING MOVE! Back up the breadbox, we got servers to sieze...I bet the communist pinkos were even downloading music too...illegally...for FREE.
But, but...we PAID for that extra license!
Hey, who's got the gun and the boot on your neck...you, or ME? I used to work for Blackwater, I can do whatever the fuck I want! I work for the DHS and I hide meth and illegals in my house and I don't afraid of anything!
Barack Hussein Obama: Yeah, we can do whatever we want. Sorry guys...Hope and change! Schlimma-shlamma ding-dong!
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Re:800 employees?
Didn't SpaceX get fined for cutting too many corners? Yep, you don't need many people if you don't intend to do the whole job.
Nice try, but not quite:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/environment/elon-musk-environment-fines/
What did it do? Move the kids out of the room for this:
SpaceX was found to be improperly storing or disposing of
...-Isopropyl alcohol!
-Acetone!
-Acid etch corrosive waste!
-Rags with chromium on them!Eh. This is all stuff you'd find in your local grease monkey's garage. It's not that bad. In fact, we talked to they Environmental Protection Agency inspector who visited SpaceX, and he wasn't horrified by what he saw. (Sorry Elon haters).
"I would say there was nothing egregious, as in nothing was spilled on the ground," said U.S. EPA enforcement officer James Polek. "The manufacturing facility is very well organized. The hazardous waste storage are was not."
Darn.
What's more the inspection took place last year and the company already corrected the violations, Polek told the Weekly.
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Re:NSFW?Maybe the link on the right for the 'Mad Men' Burlesque @ Bordellois why?
Do have to say the though, the one of Boba Fett is definitely my favorite
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Disgusting, gross injustice
Justice would mean him being tried in the UK, just like any other UK citizen. Now he is going to get 60 years in the for-profit American prison industry for guessing a few passwords. For an example of how people with Asperger's are treated there, see the Billy Cotrell case.
The US would sooner start a war than extradite one of their own to another country, even for war crimes. One-sided extradition treaties give the US legal jurisdiction over Europe but not vice versa. We Europeans are pussies. We've truly let ourselves become satellite states of the Empire of the United States of America.
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Re:Hmmm..
Actually, Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 as a condemnation of television and the death of a literate and curious culture.
http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/
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whiners never win
Evidently, whatever imagination and insight led him to write his great stories has since abandoned him.
From http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/
:Now, Bradbury has decided to make news about the writing of his iconographic work and what he really meant. Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands.
Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.
I have no objection to some level of concern about television culture, and I have no objection to his advocacy in support of libraries. However, if he were really concerned about those things, he would support technological efforts to bring literary and educational content to people surfing the net or TV, rather than just whining and moaning that there are young whippersnappers on his lawn who have no respect for books.
He also seems to be engaging in a bit of historical revisionism. He couldn't possibly have been too concerned with the television culture when he wrote F-451 in 1953. Maybe he ought to reread his own story, and then chase it down with 1984. No matter how legitimate his current complaints are, he shouldn't rewrite history.
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Re:Hmmm..
To be fair, the guy was so dense that he wrote a book about how awesome books are compared to television. The fact is, he will be remembered for something he did by accident. He didn't intend to write a book about censorship, and he denies that the book is about censorship.
That book? Fahrenheit 451.
And I quote:
Bradbury: "Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship."
Bradbury still has a lot to say, especially about how people do not understand his most famous literary work, Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953.
... Bradbury . . . says it is . . . a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature. -
Re:FCC redacted data adverse to BPL
You should probably tell them that. It looks like their prior strategy of just borrowing actual feds for raids wasn't good enough for them.
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Re:Depends on the terms of the agreement ...Though, in the comments on the laweekly.com story, a Rick Klau, "product manager on Blogger" does say [Feb 8th, 2009, 14:16 pm], when taking down content:
we send an email to the blogger using the address associated with their account and submit the original DMCA notice to chillingeffects.org. If a blogger wishes to challenge the DMCA notice, they can file a counter notice, at which time the original DMCA complainant has 14 days to file suit, or we will reinstate the removed content.
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Re:The Coda
Of course now that he insists Fahrenheit 451 isn't "really" about censorship (see http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/2 ), who knows what to make of that.
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Ray Bradbury Loves Bush....http://www.spaceagecity.com/bradbury/quotes.htm
POLITICS:
[George W. Bush is] wonderful. We needed him. Clinton is a s***head and we're glad to be rid of him. And I'm not talking about his sexual exploits. I think we have a chance to do something about education.... It doesn't matter who does it -- Democrats or Republicans -- but it's long overdue. (Salon.com, August 29, 2001)The great thing is our counter-revolution that occurred in the polls a few weeks ago. I think it's great. All the Democrats are out and the Republicans are going to have a chance in a couple of years. It doesn't make a difference what party you belong to--it's a chance for a fresh start. It's very exciting. (Speaking about the "Republican Revolution" of 1994)
Oh yeah, and he says that Fahrenheit 451 isn't really about censorship or oppressive governments:
http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/2
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Re:ActuallyThe point though is that Abstinence is going to be taught in places where it is by Sex that AIDS is spreading. In those places Abstinence works 100% of the time.
I was trying to work out if you were taking the piss, but you're not, are you?
Abstinence teaching has never reduced AIDS anywhere. In many areas where abstinence-only programs have been preached, infection rates have risen.
It never ceased to amaze me how you religious types can close your minds to all the real evidence while pushing your dangerous dogma despite the evident harm it causes.
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Obligatory link
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Re:been done before...
... PS2 clusters have been used for calculations by the NCSA. And supooosedly (insert grain of salt) Saddam Hussein was buying up PS2's to get around those pesky export restrictions to build a computing cluster for a weapons program.
Why would he as the US sold him the equipment he needed.
http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/made-in-t he-usa/3025/
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/bioter/iraqgermsusfranc e.html -
Re:Except
I was moreover commenting on the first segment. This one: http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/music-industry-
p uts-troops-in-the-streets/2111/ -
Since you asked, you can have it...
After LA the incident in May where protesters and cameramen kept running into police batons and shooting themselves with stolen police guns, the LAPD wants the city council to ban masks and goggles from public demonstrations. A law somewhere in Europe against masks was recently applied to burkas (no source, but google can backup any claim).
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Re:ResponseThey made comments that offended people, those people stopped buying records. Radio stations stopped playing them because people were mad at them.
They were banned from Country radio.
But The Dixie Chicks survived and found a new audience. Cecilia Peck - Shut Up & Sing
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Re:uncle sam (will) say so
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Oh, so surprising.
Wait, wait, I can tell you how this is going to go down.
The LAPD is discovered to be corrupt. Officers from Rampart Division are dipping into the dope stash in the evidence room, or some officers are engaging in "monkey slapping time". There's an outcry. Something Must Be Done. The Christopher Commission or its like is convened. Anti-corruption measures are proposed. Memory fades, and they never really get implemented. Lather, rinse, repeat.
You can go back to 1902 with this shit. -
Check out this storyIf it's not doing things like falsely accusing someone of being a child molester, what the fuck does it really matter?
And perhaps even if it is? Read Navahoax: a story about a very similar situation as this one, where a writer made up supposedly nonfiction autobiographical accounts and was published (the publishers here also say we don't fact check such stories). The stories in this case do deal with child molestation, among other things, and while the stories are not accusations per se, one wonders about the implications of publishing material like this under false pretenses. I tend to agree that it doesn't make that much difference, since one can perhaps get greater truths from fictional works, and if the phony "memoirs" label makes it easier for some people to accept those truths, what's the harm? On the other hand, I would think a publisher should make it their business to know whether this was really a memoir or is a fictional memoir, since it is their decision to market the book a certain way. Of course, even in truthful autobiographies there will be exaggeration and writer's license to interpret things in various ways; I'm not sure there's always an easy line to draw between truth and fiction.
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Aww, crap :(
Speaking as a King Crimson fan of more than 20 years, I'm a bit gutted about this. Apart from anything else, Fripp has shown interesting signs of 'getting it' with regard to copyright and the Pigopolists. See eg. this article on the company he started to buy back his copyrights, and indeed this previous post on a previous Slashdot article.