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No, not at all. That's a ridiculous (although not uncommon) caricature. I won't deny that occasionally Christianity has become a tool of the state, and in those cases it has become one of a number of means by which the state attempts to control its population, but control over the masses is really foreign to the Christian ethic. It's far more about the individual learning to control himself. When it becomes about controlling others, it devolves into a mere cult.

It indeed is intended to draw focus away from earthly things -- or rather, one earthly thing: the self. The only path to heaven is on earth, by doing good for others, treating them the way you would wish to be treated, giving what is needed. It is all about serving others. Most Christians do not forget the admonition in one of the Epistles that faith without works is dead.

If this is "population control", then so be it.

He's not saying "poison" in the poetic sense you dunce, he's saying it in the technical sense.

What? Did you think I was imagining him cackling and holding a small bottle with a skull and crossbones on it?

Of course I meant the technical sense, and I'm still not convinced that "poisoning" is a good description of what the EU (or whoever else; let's be honest, this isn't just an EU thing) would be doing. "Splitting" or "forking" are more accurate.

"You're an ignorant American" rant regarding "US Values" and the idea that Americans think that Europeans are all "Socialist Cheese-Eating Europeans".

"Poisoning" implied wanton destructiveness on the part of the EU. This didn't describe the reality of the situation (see above).

No, I don't think that all Americans view Europeans that way. But I'll bet a notable minority do; and I wasn't necessarily assigning this view to the guy I was replying to.

First of all, look around in Europe, they have some of the most socialistically set up economies around, so that's a valid point.

I don't think any country in Europe is especially socialist, except in comparison with America, perhaps. Which ones did you have in mind?

Anyhow, the example was a deliberate caricature (and not especially exaggerated) of how some Americans see Europe; and how anything smacking of "socialism" is Godless and basically just communism by the back door.

Also, the internet has nothing to do with values, or America, so please stop trying to turn this into an "Americans think they're so good, blah blah blah" argument.

*I* didn't say that. However, use of a similar argument has been used by Americans elsewhere in this thread. If you disagree with that, please take it up with them.

No government should have a control over DNS at all due to the threat of censorship.

So you're saying the US government don't have a disproportionate influence over the current set up?

As for Europe, here's my issue. Just what have your countries contributed recently compared to the US? Not a threat, not an insult, just a simple question. Name some positive things you have done that come close to what the US has done.

The World Wide Web?

It's sure as hell more usable than gopher. :)

I won't even bring up the issue of WWII etc.

You just did. The EU didn't start that; actually, the EU was set up to avoid things like that ever happening again. If you want to start blaming the Axis powers specifically, be my guest.

Maybe it seemed way ahead of its time, if you didn't compare it with any non-X86 environments. At the time Netware was in its heyday, the networking and clustering capabilities of DEC's VMS made Netware seem like a crude caricature of networking.

Well I believe it'll be the same for Omar Simpson: the original Homer is funny because it deforms and amplifies flaws in the US society.

Which is exactly why it will succeed in the Arab world. Can't you see them loving to laugh at caricatures of Americans?

Now the more conservative crowd may take offense to this, but having them laugh at us is good. There's many funny things about laughter. Over time, laughter endears you to what (or who) you're laughing at. You don't laugh at something you fear. (Or rather, when you laugh you're generally not afraid.) Laughter makes you susceptible to suggestion and acceptance. These are all features we would like in the Arab world's attitude towards us. If our aim is to win over hearts and minds, having the Arab world laugh with us (and even at us) is a vital step.

If you think Norm's on your side, you're deluded. His nose is so far up Bush's ass he can smell what's on his fork.

I live in Minnesota, and Norm is the living embodiment of Mayor Quimby right down to the accent. He's shameless. He'll kiss your baby, make speeches about healthcare, then turn around and vote to make it illegal to declare bankruptcy for poor people drowning in cancer treatment bills, pushing them out of their home. He'll say whatever it takes to get the spotlight, kiss up to whoever's in power. He's a caricature of a politician. I wouldn't wish him on my worst enemy.

agreed! look at the ridiculous scupltures on fashion catwalks [ i refuse to caqll them clothes] that sell for hundreds of thousands as collectible art and fuction as composite caricatures of the coming trends the design elite have deemed suitable for us to wear thus tipping off the lower down the chain manufacturers as well as being test balloons to gauage reactions within the indistry and the market as well as stimulating interest and genrating massive publicity.

Nintendo, cel shaded? I'm curious of exactly what games you're talking about, since I've had a GC for a few years now and I've only played one cel shaded game, and that was Wind Waker, the only other one I can think of is Paper Mario 2. I've honestly played far more cel shaded games on the PS2 then on the GameCube. Sure, first party Nintendo games are meant to be "comic" in style, but very very few of them use cel shading. Then there's the discussion of what "cel shading" is, cel shading is just a graphic technique, and it's probably as widely varied as traditional textured polygon graphics. It can be used in a variety of ways and achieve numerous effects. Just compare the cell shading of Wind Waker (which, I might add, is probably the most unique use of cell shading I've yet to see) with Wild Arms 3 or Dark Cloud. Sure, they both may look cartoony, but similarly, I don't see anyone complaining that Cowboy Bebop is trying to look anything like Mickey Mouse.

I just think you're falling victim to your own arguement (of which I agree with). Instead of sticking with and examining the nuances of a certain graphical style, most companies tend to shift to extremes of realism to surrealism, when they've hammered one particular style to death. Nintendo, on the other hand, has been one of the only game companies that has not been wildly influenced by the latest trend, and tends to have a consistant aesthetic. When other companies were making Golden Eye, Unreal Tournament, Final Fantasy VII, and Half-life, they were doing Starfox 64, Mario 64, F-Zero X, and Majora's Mask. You have to remember that Nintendo is, and always has been, primarily a cartoon and comic based game company, in the same way that Pixar doesn't make realistic films. Sure, there's always Nintendogs and a few others that break the mould, but they're few and far between (and I wouldn't exactly put Nintendogs in the same genre as Halo 2). Their primary audiences are <12 and >20, children who either innocently accept the surealistic cartoon, and adults who are eager to retain some of that "lost" innocence. When I was little, I had trouble accepting it, but now I realize that my parents really did enjoy taking me to see a good cartoon at the movie theater, not just because I wanted to see it, but because they wanted to as well. Cel shading is a technique that "draws" objects in a way similar to traditional cartoons. If you're trying to make a game that draws on the feel of hand drawn caracatures, it's a pretty good way of doing it. I'm surprised that Nintendo hasn't done it more. Remember Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island? They developed some new advanced graphical techniques specifically designed to make the game world more hand drawn and innoncent looking in a very similar way that cel shading is used for Wind Waker today. Their aesthetic has changed very little over the years, as neither have many historic film and cartoon companies.

The teenage years aren't good for Nintendo, many mainstreem teens are likely to avoid cartoony looking things for fear that they may be seen as immature at a time of life when the most important thing is gaining independance and the recognition of being a mature "adult". At this time, "tastes" tend to swing wildly as far away from the caricaturistic as possible, which is why "ultra-realism", depicting all that was forbodden to them as children (violence, sex, language, etc.), is the style of choice. Teens have something to prove to the world, as they should, it's their time to gain self-recognition as an individual. But it's for this reason that the game industry has "turned" to ultra-realism. It's actually always been there, but it's hard for us to look back on the 8-bit era and see anything as "realistic", as we'll probably look back at the 2000's as an "age of innocence" come 2020.

I hate to come across looking like a fanboy of any company (who does?) but more and more Nintendo is emerging, in my mind, as the most cohesive and steady company in the industry. I watch as these Halos and Maddens come

If you are conservative, your non-activist Hero is Scalia, who believes that constitutions and statutes should be interpreted according to the words written in light of their meaning at the time they were written

First if you believe the USA Constitution means what it says and follow with the Federalist Papers in believing in a liberty and small government then you're talking about Liberalism and liberals. Scalia is pretty much a Christian Conservative translating the Constitution with a Christian bias:

How the conservative justice legislates from the bench.
Cathy young

With the Supreme Court back at the center of national attention, left and right alike point to Justice Antonin Scalia as the very model of the modern conservative jurist. President Bush has cited him, along with Clarence Thomas, as the sort of strict constructionist he'd like to see on the bench. Meanwhile, as the country debates whether John Roberts deserves to replace Sandra O'Connor on the Supreme Court, the left's greatest fear is that the president's nominee will turn out to be "another Scalia." For many liberals, the justice is a conservative crusader whose professed adherence to the Constitution is a cover for a social, religious, and political agenda of his own.

Commenting on Scalia's strongly worded dissent in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which struck down state sodomy laws, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd blasted him as a black-robed Archie Bunker, "misty over the era when military institutes did not have to accept women, when elite schools did not have to make special efforts with blacks, when a gay couple in their own bedroom could be clapped in irons, when women were packed off to Our Lady of Perpetual Abstinence Home for Unwed Mothers."

Contrary to the caricature, Scalia has delivered some surprisingly "liberal" opinions over the years. In 1989, three years into his tenure on the High Court, he ruled with the majority that flag burning was a constitutionally protected form of expression. (Centrist O'Connor and liberal John Paul Stevens were among the dissenters.) More recently, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), Scalia joined Stevens in a dissent that went far beyond the majority opinion in arguing for drastic restrictions on executive power to detain terror suspects without due process. (His frequent ideological ally, Thomas, took the most pro-government position in a separate dissent.)

But Scalia's liberal critics have a point: His moral views have a habit of grafting themselves onto his constitutional philosophy. No one expects him to be a libertarian; he has stressed that his opposition to expanded federal power applies only to instances in which it is explicitly limited by the Constitution. But you might at least expect him to be oppose federal intervention within the parameters of his originalist vision. Or rather, you might have expected that until Gonzales v. Raich, this year's medical marijuana case.

Scalia voted to uphold the federal government's prerogative to go after medical consumers of homegrown pot, on the grounds that this activity supposedly affects interstate commerce. This ruling prompted Thomas to note in a caustic dissent, "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything--and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."

You could easily conclude that Scalia is a hypocrite willing to cast his principles of limited government aside in order to further his anti-drug social agenda. Writing in The American Spectator, John Tabin offers a different theory. Tabin points to a 2001 case, Kyllo v. United States, in which Scalia wrote the majority opinion siding with a convicted marijuana grower who contended that drug agents had engaged in an

It seemed to me like the script for the second season was crammed into two hours. I think that the movie lacked some of the subtlety of the series; I felt like the characters were caricatures of the ones in the show.

To me, the biggest appeal of the show was that they weren't "saving the universe", but getting into adventures while going about thier business. I suppose this development was inevitable, but I still didn't like it.

I was suprised that more /.ers weren't more critical of the movie. Reviews here were so glowing, I thought perhaps Apple had a hand in making the movie :)

There's so little to go on concerning the true character of Socrates. AFAIK there's Plato and Xenophon. I can't remember reading Aristophanes The Clouds wherein Socrates was caricatured.

Burnet (as I read in Russell's History of Wester Philosophy) wrote: 'Xenophon's defense of Socrates is too successful. He would never have been put to death if he had been like that.' Personally I like the bit on Socrates attributed to the prosecution: Socrates is an evil-doer and a curious person, searching into things under the earth and above the heaven; and making the worse appear the better cause, and teaching all this to others. The, perhaps apocryphal, report that near death he asked a friend to pay a debt owed, a cock to Asclepius, is cool, as such a debt was paid when the debtor recovered from an illness.

I think Plato did history a disservice in his fictional representation of Socrates. Given you're posts I think you're better read in terms of Plato than I am (not a difficult feat);) so I'll defer to your characterization. I can't immediately recall the Classical Greek concept of history but I seem to remember their concept of history was radically different than ours.

What would help the most if the religious freaks did not get away with attacking science.

Fuck you, bigot. I'm hardly going to listen to someone who thinks in caricatures opine about science.

Well, no. Actually that's a cynical straw-man caricature of a typically American idea. The actual idea you are thinking of goes like this: "many problems, even really big problems, are often solvable if you are clever and keep trying to solve them". The prevalence of that idea is one reason why America is a superpower today, and many other countries are not.

you don't think companies aren't already throwing billions into the first to have an aids cure and cancer treatments?

They sure are, but inventing cures/treatments is only part of the solution. The other part is getting those treatments to the people who need them. That step is currently largely unaddressed, mainly because the people who need them don't generally have the money to pay for treatment.

someone who wants terrorists to be able to bomb up whoever they want because they can't be searched

That was your comment, not mine. You're the one who was being a knee-jerk reactionist by deliberately caricaturing the views of someone else for the sole purpose of easily knocking over a straw man argument.

Nobody is claiming the police should never be able to search people, nor is there anyone who "wants terrorists to be able to bomb up whoever they want".

We just don't think it is cowardice to state publically that some searches are unreasonable, nor is it courage to think that someone with a badge is always right and should be able to do whatever they want. As usual, the truth is somewhere in-between.

How dare you play the knee-jerk reactionist card to get modded up, that's abusing the system.

"Abusing the system" because I disagreed with your silly statement on cowardice? What are you, 12?

I swear if it wasn't for the over-the-top caricatures that get constantly vomitted out by the right wing, I'd never know how evil liberals like myself are supposed to think. Why not just accuse us of eating babies while you're at it?

Has it never occurred to you that these constant ad-homeneim attacks are designed to do exactly what you criticize liberals of doing? i.e. if you can hijaak the debate into a discussion of how liberals are stupid/crazy/naive, you never have to worry about inconvenient facts or "understanding of processes". Every discussion becomes a childish mud fight, which is where the sneering Rush Limbaugh set feels most at home.

This is why intelligent debate is such a rare thing in the US media. Why solve problems when it's so much easier to call names?

hope you dont invalidate it because i misspelled something, but i know thats just the way some people cope with ideas they do not like

No, people usually do that with a strawman and caricatures.

Actually, it's not about obeying the leaders, but doing what's best for the country.

Well, that's what we all want.

When I said "allegiance to country, obey your leaders, right or wrong! Good healthy Conservative values!" it was a caricature, a mirror to the all to common accusations of Liberals as UnAmerican and UnPatriotic.

Conservatives, on average, are more inclined to respect and follow authority because it is authority. That the authority aquired authority for good reason, and that everyone needs to pull togther and fulfill their roles for effective action. As you said later "I continue to stand behind him because he IS our Commander-in-Chief... And while we are at war, I will stand staunchly beside whatever leader we have in power. Even if it's a Clinton ... gawd, I don't treasure the though of supporting Hillary if she's elected. But I will."

Military recruits are overwhelmingly Conservatives. As a soldier your job is to obey orders. When you're in a foxhole under fire you don't want some guy in the squad questioning whether the General's orders are good or not. It could get the whole squad killed. Sometimes following bad orders is better than disruption.

Liberals, on average, are more inclined to question and challenge authority if they do not believe that authority is acting in our best interest. That the authority has authority for a purpose... and faster to lose respect/legitimacy is that authority is seen as incompetent or malfeasant.

People who choose to be scientists and teachers are more often Liberals. Progress is primarily made by overturning authority. An authority who is wrong is just plain wrong. A challenge to authority will stand or fall on it's own merits. The authority only is given respect and defference so long as it continues to warrant it.

Sometimes all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Sometimes it is vital to oppose bad leaders and bad orders.

Side note: Perhaps "flaky" ideas are more tolerated in education as a normal part of the constant challenging and competition for truth and progress, in the full expectation that flaky ideas will simply fail of their own defects.

How can you defeat an ideological movement in existance for 1400 years, though?

One of the most important rules in war is to Know Thy Enemy.

We had victory in our hands, and Bush turned it into defeat. Bush did exactly what bin Laden wanted him to do.

Unfortuantely few people really understand bin Laden's motivations. Bin Laden is evil, but he's not irrational. The administration paints a silly image that they attacked us "because they hate our freedom". That's nonsense. Bin Laden doesn't give a rat's-ass what we do over here. The heavy media censorship of bin Laden's messages was bad. We are supposed to have a Free Press, but the press came under extreme pressure as "UnAmerican" if they tried to carry anything that was not edited and approed by the Whitehouse. Sure it was a noble desire not to spread bin Laden's message, but it was counter productive. If we do not analize and understand what bin Laden is saying then we fail to understand the enemy.

Bin Laden's motivation is to create a single pan-arab fundamentalist Islamic government across the entire mideast. Bin Laden wants to overthrow all of the currupt arab governments. Bin Laden believes that the only reason the common arab pupulation has not overthrown their governments... believes the only reason he has failed in this mission... is that the US and "the west" are supporting/propping up the various arab governments.

Why did he attack on 9/11? He didn't have some silly idea that we'd say "ouch" and run away. He attacked us to provoke a reaction. He KNEW we'd strike back. He WANTED us to trike back. He wanted us to provoke arab outrage against us. He wanted us to kill innocent arabs. He wanted us to build his army for him. He wanted

Slashdot might not like this but the only thing Bush had in his favor was a clear anti gay position. Most Americans have similar views but are afraid to express them publicly.

Huh? The problem was not Bush, it was that for some reason the Democratic party couldn't field a viable candidate (any moderate who seemed to have leadership qualities -- such as being able to make up their mind -- probably would have worked). This is amazing given what an easy win the election should have been for the Democrats. Hopefully the Democrats learned something from the humiliating loss in 2004. Sadly, I'm afraid they didn't because the main agenda of many Democratic party members still seems to be "Bush bashing" (even to the extent of wasting time Photoshopping childish cartoons and caricatures) rather than formulating constructive concrete proposals.

My personal opinion is that ex-governors are more compelling presidential candidates than Senators because governors actually have experience with taking responsibility for making decisions - Senators just take 1% of the responsibility.

Speaking of US-centism, this kind of political spectacle is something which Soviet Union was constantly accused (wrongly) by the US. But to me it looks that the United States today looks worse than the very worst caricature of the Soviet Union.

I read a story (from 7.05.2005) today in "Red Star" (an army newspaper in Soviet Union/Russia) about their relationship with Stalin (who was the Chief of Staff). For example, in 1943 a journalist (E. Gekhman, "Red Star") found that food supply of the army on Kalininsky front was appalling. He was asked by the editor to send a report to Stalin, the information was checked and the order N3425 of the Chief Defence Committee (24.05.1943) was issued to fix the problems. During the 2-day discussion of this problem in the CDC Stalin concluded "Only the reporter told the truth.

Do you think that Bush Jr. would react similarly to a reporter sending him a report saying "New Orleans is not prepared adequately for the flood, do something"? I don't.

In Soviet Union the very idea of pre-approving the questions to an official for a town-hall meeting would be completely against all rules and principles. And the press was tasked with ensuring that people are well informed, not just entertained. The propaganda was there, but what's wrong with propaganda if it is true?

So what if the current job market for artists/designers requires you to know Photoshop version X, Macromedia, Pantone, etc. You should be able to learn that stuff in a timely manner. But if you can't draw and aren't creative in the first place, maybe you're in the wrong field - it might take a bit too long to teach you that eh?

What's worth it is learning stuff that would take you a lot longer (like maybe never) if you had to do it yourself, or interesting things that you would never have thought of learning - never knew was there to be learnt in the first place. So what if it seems "Theoretical" only.

If I were an employer, I'd ask you what projects you'd recently done for fun, not because you were told to or forced to do by your course or previous employer.

If you call yourself an artist and the last time you drew something was 3 months ago as part of your college course, well that just isn't very convincing. In contrast, you're a pretty good artist if you're absentmindedly doodling a decent caricature of me during the interview ("right brain" just has to do something whilst "left brain" is talking to me).

Same goes for programmers. I'd expect your college to teach you the theory stuff that will remain true for decades at least - algorithms, information theory etc. But I'd expect you to mess around with current stuff too, on your own, just for fun/interest - it doesn't have to be very much, and nowadays most stuff is just a few google searches away.

Oh yeah, it's fine if you don't know the fancy tools/buzzwords in the industry. But if you can't do the programmer equivalent of using a "pencil" and sketch something passable, there are plenty of cheaper people in India who can and _will_.

Saying you know UML and all the buzzwords won't be as compelling to me as you actually having written something interesting which you can describe and explain to me in the interview what bits you think are nifty.

Anyone can say they know some buzzword and regurgitate the relevant keywords and phrases, and stick that in their CV. If people needed that, they should use google. If they only need just a bit more AI, maybe they should outsource ;).

However, I'm not an employer at the moment, so maybe you should go with the flow, and listen to that buzzword guy ;).

yes, state and corporate power are merged as you say, but it's hardly a move rightward. they want all the big government amenities and protections.

You're just illustrating your lack of understanding of the political spectrum.

It *is* a move rightward because it *is* using the power of the state to give power to the wealthy and corporate interests at the expense of individual liberty and society.
That, by *definition* is rightward.

i am a federalist, small government conservative. i would vote against gay marriage,

Now, this right here is absolutely illustrative of what I'm talking about. You have claimed to believe in two diametrically opposed viewpoints.
That is a contradiction. You absolutely can not believe in both at least not and expect to be treated as if you were rational.

If you actually believed in small government, just about the last thing you would ever support is a law whose only possible purpose is to marginalize a large segment of the population because they were born different than you.
Do you truly not see the fundamental incompatibility between those two viewpoints? How else are you going to enforce a law that is entirely oppressive and discriminatory in nature?
It demands big oppressive right-wing government.

but if my state voted for it, then it's the law. i accept that. neither the right nor the left would accept voting. both want the courts to impose the law. it's sad.

Now that is a patently ridiculous statement that shows your political ideas come mainly from Rush or Fox news or the like rather than any knowledge of the actual basis of our system.

Hate based legislation like you are promoting is unconstitutional. The courts aren't imposing shit. They are doing their job which is to restrain the legislative branch from making laws imposed by the many as a direct attack against the few. It's a sad fact of human nature that there are people like you who think it's ok for you to use the force of government to oppress innocent people. The framers of our country were well aware of it and they took steps to prevent it.
The people who gave you that ignorant little sound bite are also aware of it, and they don't like it becasue it is an inherently Liberal idea and it is supposed to prevent extremists of any ilk from pushing through their unconstitutional laws. It's a case of the system working and you don't like it bacause it is promoting equality which you have stated that you are firmly against.

real problem is is that we've cocooned ourselves into our little enclaves. think about the red/blue map. you could drive from coast to coast and never leave a red county. the red gets redder, the blue gets bluer. the blue "enclaves" and th red sprawl rarely come into contact. they see each other less frequently, interact less with them, and end of with a caricatured view of each other.

This is absolutely a huge problem. In fact, I'd say it's the fundamental cause of the issues I'm talking about.
The red states vote Republican, indicating their support of capitalism to the extreme, yet they live under a particularly rotten type of socialism. Their lifestyles are entirely depend upon the charity they receive from the blue states in the form of tax dollars well in excess of what they put into the pile.
Further, they demonize the lifestyles of those who pay their bills for them all the while contributing to the decline which they are helping by voting for the party which wholeheartedly promotes that decline.

Now as capitalism is slowly working its way into their secluded enclaves, they are beginning to see the flaws inherent in the system. They don't like it, but rather than looking into solutions that could address the issue they choose to be led in bleeting about the evil "Liberals" and so push for even more of what causes their problems in the first place.