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Those who understand and approve of the death penalty are far too often caricatured by the extreme left as being bloodthirsty or depraved or having some moral bankruptcy. But in actuality many of us simply understand the situation as it is, not as many wish it could be.
The situation is that we cannot rehabilitate people. Some people are rehabilitated because they want to change. Most do not. Many criminals are hard-set in criminal mentality. The death penalty is a practice to attempt to counter this: it is the statement that some crimes are so heinous that one cannot atone for them in any manner. One can never be reformed from those crimes. So for the protection of society the offender must be destroyed.
One can talk about the inhumanity of this all they want, but real life is inhumane. And frankly I would rather the bad fall more heavily on the criminal than the victim.
An example of the backwards thinking that dominates our penal system: I live in Canada, and recently a sex offender who had been convicted multiple times was released from prison simply because his sentence had run out. Nobody believed he was reformed. He had been offending for more than 40 years. Upon his release the police informed the entire community that the man was being released; that they believed he was still a danger; and that they would be keeping an eye on him.
One has to ask themselves what possible rationale could justify this approach. The entire community was put at risk so that one convicted multiple offender's 'rights' would not be infringed. Luckily for the community the offender immediately violated his parole conditions and went back to jail. But consider what could have happened. If this man had raped and/or killed someone, could anyone honestly say to their parents/children/loved ones that this was the right course of action?
Criticisms of the death penalty based upon racism, wrong convictions, etc are all quite valid and must be considered. But criticism based solely upon the idea of 'these criminals are people and have the same rights as you and I' are simply childish.
Actually, in one of my pre-recruitment interviews I told the interviewer that I read Slashdot and he was enthusiastic because he did too. :) That was an interview by technical people for a technical job, though, not the generic screening interviews that all Israeli teenagers do. (Recruitment is mandatory in Israel)
However, it should be noted that this was news to me, as I know quite a few people who played or still play D&D and other RPGs (I did, too) and served in highly classified jobs (Like myself).
Also, a prominent Israeli portal posted this caricature about the issue.
The guy on the dragon is saying (Very loosely translated) "I won't go anywhere but Golani", which is an elite unit.
And for the Slashdot crowd, the artist (Miki Mottes) was once the Sysop of a major Israeli BBS.
Oh, so you've seen it, then?
Crap. Utter crap.
The plot is dire, lacking even quality Dr Who campness. The acting is awful (and Christopher Eccleston at least should have been capable of better). The dialogue is stilted and largely irrelevant to the actual plot (such as it is), and to top it all off the entire episode looks like it was made on a budget of about £12.50.
And apart from all the generically dire aspects of it, it looks like they've tried to make it so "English" that it just ends up being a caricature of itself. London bus? Check. Thick regional accents? Check. Prominent london landmarks every five seonds? Check. Jesus...
I never, ever thought I'd find myself saying this, but I actually enjoyed the dire americanised Dr Who "Special" (special... in the same way a turd in the bed isn't mundane) more. Sure, it completely dispensed with the Dr Who universe almost in its entirety, the Doctor is half-human, and even snogs his assistant, but at least by pretending it wasn't Dr Who you could derive some vague enjoyment out of it.
If this was on at 16:00 on after-school kids TV, it'd be fantastic. As anything else, it dies on its Gallifreyan arse.
No that IS the creationist viewpoint. They state that the universe and everything in it was created about 6000 years ago. God created the heavens and the earth then stuck us on it. If that was true, how can stars be millions of light years away? And what about supernovae? How can a star explode before it even existed?
If you remove them somehow after their existence, of course they would. But if you believe God created the physical universe for us, then he could have easily created it without these distant stars and it would have had no effect on us.
This is just more of "God works in mysterious ways" crap. It is what creationists say when they cant explain something logically because it conflicts with their beliefs.
A. Who said God created the entire universe for the benefit of humans? That seems to be a caricature of a creationist viewpoint.
This verse indicates the universe exists for God's pleasure, not only mine or yours: Bible reference
B. Stars and galaxies invisible to us may still have a _huge_ bearing on our existence. You didn't answer my question: Or do you think excising invisible stars and galaxies has no effect on the structure of the universe?
C. Yes, everything *has* a purpose. But can any human understand the purpose of *everything*? Nope.
Is caricature the only way to sustain your beliefs
Nope, it's just a fun way to express them.
? Inquiring minds want to know.
the first is a moral issue, which has little bering on corporate profits (except the sick little monkeys in the execute-minors-industry). This case has to do with fear. Fear of losing control of 'properties'* and fighting tooth and nail (and no small amount of kicking under the table) to strangle consumption of their goods. Get the crap out there in volumes and at fair prices and pirates will be a thing of the past. Withhold it and then even rip off consumers with alleged-Widescreen (cropped from pan-and-scan) and you get those around the cracks and seams who will provide for themselves.
*most of which should have fallen into the public domain, by now, including a well known mouse caricature.
The REAL problem with political blogging is many-fold. The first is that they do not attempt anything like a NPOV in selecting stories.
...That is to say, most political idealogs believe in the incompetence of everyone but their side
True... but this is a problem with ANY news source. People have points of view and this comes out even whey they attempt(!) to be neutral. The multiplicity of news sources & commentary from many points of view is a positive development in this regard. True, many readers limit their sources to those they agree with, but by and large even stories that contradict their assumptions tend to bleed into those sources because their ideological opponents have the same ability to publish and popularize their views. It is effectively impossible for stories to be buried anymore. "The truth will out" is more true today (and much quicker) than when there were only a handful of news sources.
Another thing that is REALLY wrong with blogs is that they are at best tertiary sources of information.
Directly linked to the secondary sources we had before in the news media, and pretty often linked to primary sources as well.
The more interesting blogs to me are those by actual experts in whatever field they are blogging on, the people that otherwise would have been quoted briefly (often innacurately) in a news article. Or blogs by actual witnesses to events in the news (i.e. iraqi blogs, soldiers blogs) These people have the same problems of bias compounded by being passionate participants but that is typical of *primary* sources, which these blogs are. Views and opinions of participants which in a news article would be reduced to a one line summary (or caricature) are given in full.
You think this is limited to political ideologues? It is implicit in having an opinion, any opinion, that you believe any and all contrary opinions are wrong. Now how you react to those contrary opinions can be respectful, can be open-minded or can be dismissive or insulting. Bloggers are individuals, some are obnoxious in their opinions some are open-minded and participate in intelligent debate. This librarian is an example of someone who is somewhat obnoxious in his opinions - "the absurd idea.." The breezily presentation of his opinions as something "everybody knows" (i.e. Google's "notoriously inefficient search engine.") when in fact "everybody" knows no such thing. It's a tactic to shut down debate and "win" without actually having to present evidence supporting your contention. He's very dismissive of his opponents "I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts." without providing any evidence to support this view. Contrary to his contention many of the most popularly read bloggers are academics themselves, Glen Reynolds for instance is a professor of constitutional law. He may write Instapundit in the casual manner typical of blogs but I suspect he does plenty of "sustained reading of complex texts" probably more so than Michael Gorman (have you ever read books on constitutional law? The field is pretty damn close to the the sine qua non of "complex texts").
This rant is better written that the average blog post but as logical argumentation and respectful debate it is down there with the worst. Professionals are by necessity threatened by the democratization and commoditization of their professions, that is all this rant amounts to.
The image that this woman is describing of a blogger is preety extreme and bogus. Sure, I read Slashdot, I read some comments and I post some comments. Period. I don't consider myself a blogger. I also watch TV, read books, the NYT and listen to the radio. None of these media by themselves would accurately describe my life. Nor they are my only source of knowledge (by all means!).
I don't think that most of the people around here devote their lives to blogging. If you work at slashdot, or you are an editor (I don't know how that works) you would be considered a "pro" blogger. Big deal. Any profession confines you to an area of specialization, I don't think that this is particularly harmful in that respect. Even in this case I'm preety sure that is better than people that dedicate their lives to cat shows as far as intellectual development goes.
If this is all you read, this is all you write and if you think that you are changing the world by ranting about MS in this forum, yes, you are a /. blogger and the description of this woman may very well fit you.
I remember talking once to a person of a numerically unimportant religion, considered to be a little crazy. She said to me: yes, there are some people like that, but for some reason, people tend to identify us with the most exaggerate ones; they are a minority in our group and they don't run the show.
True bloggers are a tiny minority, not representative of the crowd.
- # -
You my friend have become a caricature of your own people. And now, everybody thinks that they are all like you.
[i] I dont beleive they have any sorta case. You can't copyright cel shading. And the main character is the player's work of art. End of story.[/i]
Not correct. The actual problem is that they are using the EXACT same Type of cell shading the EXACT same proportions on the eyes/mouth, the same proportions in the hairstyles and even the same COLOR PALETTE. there are hundreds perhaps thousands of ways to do cell shading and anime but these guys are using EXACTLY the same one! (example at hand: check the style of the late "true fantasy online" is similar but not quite the same)
Believe me these guys worked and worked hard to get exactly the same graphics style than Wind Waker. Trademarks are valid in Character likeness, caricatures and imitated work. These guys carbon copied these characteristics from WW and then from the logo font and style to add insult to injury.
Nintendo HAS a case and a very strong one. Is sadly obvious that the gamemakers planned to use these likeness as a game feature and profit from it which is a huge copyright violation (basically the same than using a pirated version).
Besides thats not just some player character thats the game promotional screens! You dont see a spiderman "look alike" in the cover of City of heroes do you?
My 8 ball sees this game getting sued, and quickly dismantled shortly after.
"The old Disney and Bugs Bunny cartoons of the WWII era...mostly propaganda, with caricatures of Japanese and Germans in them...totally gone from TV (I remember seeing them in the afternoons after school, and I'm not THAT old)...this is history."
I'm 39 and do recall those cartoons from my pre-teens. Given the pretty ugly stereotypes they portrayed, I'm wondering if the reason they're not shown anymore isn't because of some law, but because any TV station that did show them would have to put up with free market ramifications like angry phone calls, a reputation as The Racist Station, or the inability to get advertisers to sponsor that old propaganda.
I agree with the rest of your post.
I dunno. I'm not for nazi ideals nor what they stood for, however, they ARE a part of history, a big part of Germany's history. Isn't it often said, those that don't learn from the past are destined to repeat it? Well, if you try to completely eradicate parts of the past, and censor it into oblivion, then how can future generations learn from it to avoid it?
Same with racial topics....even in the US we deal with this (though not governmentally regulated yet). Movies like Song of the South, by Disney never see the light of day. Sure, they have racial stereotypes from the past, that are not the norm today, however, it IS a picture of history of many ideals held in the past not only when the movie was made, but, of the time period it portrayed. People need to see this, to understand where and why things are the way they are today. The old Disney and Bugs Bunny cartoons of the WWII era...mostly propaganda, with caricatures of Japanese and Germans in them...totally gone from TV (I remember seeing them in the afternoons after school, and I'm not THAT old)...this is history.
While you may not agree with the way people thought and acted in the past, it is important NOT to whitewash history, and re-write it, less it be forgotten, and have a future generation hit upon these old ideas as new ones...and have them possibly start up anew in ways to destroy any progress we have made over the years.
to caricature it as...
You didn't finish your sentence.
Any so-called worldview you're working with here would condone Mengele in the same sentence as DB2
What?
You may not agree with open-source philosophy, but to caricature it as "only choosing to do business with inferior tools when superior tools are widely available because the inferior tools conform to some arbitrary standard of ideological acceptability"
Any so-called worldview you're working with here would condone Mengele in the same sentence as DB2, an overstatement so broad it's ironic coming from the keyboard of the person who criticized using the wrong tool for the job.
Whether the universe is eternal is quite irrelevant to the theory of evolution.
No, we do not know any such thing.
So?
Prove it. A Nobel Prize awaits you. Note: nonsense arguments like monkeys typing Shakespeare or a tornado in a junkyard building a 747 are just that: nonsense. All calculations that ID theorists present are specious, because they do not model evolution; they model a silly caricature of evolution in which all outcomes are assumed to have equal probability, ignoring the biases introduced by mechanisms of crossover, natural selection, self-organization, etc.
That's true, but it doesn't change the fact that there are no scientific arguments supporting the existence of an intelligent designer.
He's probably talking about this epsidode:
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - Game
"The squad is at a loss on what to do with a violent homicide when Stabler's son points out that the event is straight out of a video game. Interviewing the game's creators leads them to a former employee, who then leads them (with a few other steps along the way) to a teenage couple who claim to be unable to distinguish fantasy from reality."
I saw the episode, the game in question is caricature of GTA. In the game, and the crime in the episode, the character(s) drives down a woman (hooker?) and then beats her up and steals her money.
The reason Star Trek Enterprise failed..and it DID failm, was that Trip was not allowed to actually marry T'Pol. That cut the heart right out of the series. That her character was make to pander to marriage to an evil slimy oligarch went against all that Star Trek has stood for. Over thirty years of Trek has shown that goodness and honor were valued, and now comes the groom of T'Pol, a lying assassin and scheming blackguard, poor caricature of all things reputed to be Vulcan....and HE gets to marry and keep the best looking Trek lady since 'Seven of Nine' just because he is a scumbag. The series died there in the second episode of the last season for me. All the so called justifications for it are just pandering to a criminal oligarchy as depicted in the show's presentation of the Vulcan government.
A presentation, I might add, that paints a dark picture of a world where evil is rewarded and the earth is encouraged to emulate. Make no mistake,
many viewers will not really know just why they
tuned trek out. Many will say that reception of monopoly controlled UPN free to air stations was poor if one lived over 20 miles from a tower. Many others will say that they were not going to fork over thirty bucks a month to a crooked monopolist of a small dish service provider just to see UPN because that small dish provider had bought out or threatened all the competition into silence or compliance. Still others will say that they were willing to watch it on GB-603 on C-Band where KTVD, UPN20 Denver, Colorado showed it for more than a year until the monopoly threatened it into silence just two months ago. MILLIONS WATCHED IT FREE ON C-BAND UNTIL THAT ACT!!
Unless the show can be brought back on C-Band
in its natural home, the Sci-Fi Channel so that a-la-carte big dish viewers can watch it for two bucks a month; and unless the bad plots as detailed above can be changed by better writing...(read LEAVE THE GREEK TRAGEDY AND SO CALLED REALITY TV TO THE 'COPS' SHOW); and unless Trip and T'Pol can put the heart back in the series like Tom and B'Lanna did on Voyager
and Keiko and O'Brien did on STNG, I really fear that this series is dead. Future series take note! We the public will not watch the bad guys win. We watch for enjoyment and escape. We want to see the bad guys' butt seriousely kicked, and when we do not see it happen, we turn it OFF!
In a world with software patents, Microsoft has no choice. Stallman, being essentially a caricature, blames them for a world they didn't create, but do have to live in. Now that Microsoft has a bunch of capital in the form of patents amassed to defend itself, it's only reasonable to protect it's position. People will usually choose certainty over uncertainty.
Stallman's irrational denial of reason in the pursuit of a sweet but foolish ideal doesn't exactly make him the most effective choice for a poster boy.
He deserves a good bashing.
on par with the discussion of virtual celebrities; this was a character in a cartoon series who actually had a couple albums produced - unlike cartoon caricatures of real music stars. Let's not forget William Gibson's Idoru, either.