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I don't think it's Islam per se that's the problem here. I think it's the combination of Islam (or any fundamentalist religion) with an 'honor' culture that thinks it's okay to kill to avenge an injury to your honor. These killers think it's okay to kill your sister because she dishonored you by getting raped. So if their religion defines a caricature of the prophet as dishonor, killing is an appropriate response in that culture. I'm sure there are fundamentalist Christians that would be plenty upset about a cartoon that defames Christ. But most of them don't live in societies that condone killing to avenge your honor.

Because people who are irrationally afraid of flying don't condemn those who aren't afraid of flying, as somehow being "morally inferior"

Nor do most of the people who profess a belief in God, Allah, or Jehovah. What's your point?

It is perfectly possible to hold a high political office without being afraid to fly.

And it's perfectly possible to hold a high political office without believing in God. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

People who are irrationally afraid of flying aren't actively working to strip everyone else of the legal right and the physical means to fly. They aren't willing to close down airports or shoot pilots.

And you and I both know that it is a remarkably small minority of Christians who are doing anything of the sort. Just as it's a remarkably small number of Muslims who are engaging in terrorism - do you feel comfortable painting with that broad a brush when it comes to Muslims?

The Op-Ed in the WSJ was not seeking to "strip you of your rights," or "shoot anybody," even figuratively. It was an opinion piece, simply stating that "Science is discovering that the conditions for life appear to be more and more rare - therefore, I think there might be something to this Intelligent Design argument, and maybe you should think about it too." That's it.

You should really get your irrational fears of religion and faith under control - you're likely to overreact just as irrationally as the people you like to caricature.

Anthropomorphizing is not this ridiculous caricature. It is a very effective process by which we relate new information to information we inherently have. Would you rather relate new information in a way you and others can readily understand or in a way you and others can't readily understand?

Sure, it's not perfect, but usually you're looking for good enough, not perfect. For example, consider this example from my neighbor, Yellowstone National Park. You are tourist and come across a bull (male) elk. It's a 600 pound member of the deer family with an antler spread around two meters wide. There are correct and incorrect ways to anthropomorphize the behavior of that bull elk. The following is the incorrect way which unfortunate, real world tourists use each year: "That's a pretty elk. I know he wants me to pet him, because I would like being petted if I were a pretty elk too!" Their world gets rocked as a result. Consider the alternate approach: "That's a big elk in the middle of rut season. I bet he'll be pissed if a crazy human tries to touch him. I would if I were running around hyped up on hormones." Look! No headbutt Ma! Obviously, neither approach captures what it means to be elk or those elk sensibilities. There is this certain lack of nuance of the elk point of view. But one approach, which I would go as far as to label an entirely correct approach to understanding in this scenario, keeps you from finding out what pointy antlers backed by 600 pounds of enraged elk can do to a person.

My view is that humanity and our behaviors are sufficiently complex that one can shoehorn any understandable phenomenon into an anthropomorphic basis. The real problem is not the process, but insufficient understanding of the problem needed to come up with a sufficiently correct anthropomorphic model.

From TFA:

"In June 2014, the Delhi High Court ordered a block of 472 file sharing websites including Google Docs and Pirate Bay following a complaint filed by Sony Entertainment. The entertainment company was hacked and contents from its servers were shared by hackers on various file sharing websites. In earlier instances, many websites have been blocked for copyright infringement as well."

Word has it that next the FBI will be announcing that, indeed, they were wrong, and it was not North Korea that hacked and leaked. No, it was ISIS/L, instead, and the so-called "insiders" were charter members of the Culver City chapter. And, no, LQ is not ISIS, just an affiliate group, though indictments are being prepared for them as well. Ok, so that's all supposition and caricature, but I've seen the Fibbies and the Justice Dept. claim dumber stuff than NK crack-fu.

All begs the question, why a 1st amendment? Censorship is evil. Copyright is by definition, censorship. Finish the syllogism. Explains all the hate for Sony[*], MPAA, and the make-it-so mentality of bonehead courts and governments, though, doesn't it?

Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke, anyway. Look, they get a big box office out of what would have been a turkey, and the MPAA will have Congressmen and Senators asking how four-square they need to come out against terrorist copyright piracy. Easiest way to tell LQ is Federal. Follow the money. So why are we dolts putting up with this shit?

You know, about 150 years ago those borders did not exist much either.

What a pile of nonsense. There are caricatures from the middle ages about the insanity of borders. True, it wasn't nation states, it was kingdoms and duchies and baronies - but between some cities that we consider neighbours today you would pay tariffs three different times.

Except for the part about having too much gore, I completely disagree with you. It does falter a bit when it tries to switch between comedy and action modes as the plot to kill Kim Jong Un unravels. But it still works well as a satire of our celebrity obsessed media culture.

James Franco plays his character perfectly. (Granted his character is the sort of smug, smarmy asshole which is not a huge stretch from Franco's current media image.) Kim is more than just a caricature here. He is portrayed as a charismatic master manipulator with breathtaking daddy issues. A lot of the movie looks cheap and fake but even that very fakeness starts to make sense when you see just how far Kim is willing to go to make his "worker's paradise" seem real.

So while this movie may not work for film aficionados who only like the kind cinematic masterpieces put out the Herzogs, Kurosawas, and Michael Bays of this world it is funny and watchable. Obviously if Seth Rogan and James Franco give you a huge hate boner, this is not the film for you. But if you usually like their work, you'll enjoy this movie too.

Step 1: Stigmatize the traits that lead people to excel in tech fields, men posessing those traits, and anyone in tech
Step 2: Watch as that stigmatization isolates and ostracizes people in tech as "nerds" "dweebs" "dorks" "losers" and so on
Step 3: "WHY AREN'T THERE MORE WOMEN IN TECH?!!!!"

Tech fields aren't some fortress designed to keep women out, they're a ghetto that unattractive or non-conforming men were shoved into. That's why the "neckbeard" stereotype is pushed so hard these days, nobody wants to give up bullying these people but they need to find some way to JUSTIFY it that also covers for the fact that bullying is exactly why the gender gap exists in the first place. So they invent this massive straw misogynist "neckbeard" caricature and start pushing it everywhere. Now it's not just that nerds are losers, it's that they're misogynist losers and that's why it's totally ok to bully them because it's all their fault anyway.

But I am a Nerd/Dweeb/Dork/Loser, so why get upset about it ?

Step 1: Stigmatize the traits that lead people to excel in tech fields, men posessing those traits, and anyone in tech
Step 2: Watch as that stigmatization isolates and ostracizes people in tech as "nerds" "dweebs" "dorks" "losers" and so on
Step 3: "WHY AREN'T THERE MORE WOMEN IN TECH?!!!!"

Tech fields aren't some fortress designed to keep women out, they're a ghetto that unattractive or non-conforming men were shoved into. That's why the "neckbeard" stereotype is pushed so hard these days, nobody wants to give up bullying these people but they need to find some way to JUSTIFY it that also covers for the fact that bullying is exactly why the gender gap exists in the first place. So they invent this massive straw misogynist "neckbeard" caricature and start pushing it everywhere. Now it's not just that nerds are losers, it's that they're misogynist losers and that's why it's totally ok to bully them because it's all their fault anyway.

It's not how she acted, and nobody's perfect.

It's not Objectivism, it's not what Rand thought, it's someone else's caricature you've bought into without knowing anything about the topic yourself.

Laughing doesn't change your ignorance, or reality.

I can't even imagine what a caricature of Kim Jong Un would be like. It's hard to parody an out of touch dictator that rules with absolute power. He's gone rather mad.

However, unlike The Interview, they generally have the tact to make it a FICTIONAL CARICATURE of the president in question...

BULLSHIT

However, unlike The Interview, they generally have the tact to make it a FICTIONAL CARICATURE of the president in question, assuming it's not an entirely stereotypical archetype (usually grey or white haired caucasian depicted as culturally insensitive, possibly a coward, and usually thuggish.)

Hell, the 2012 Hunter x Hunter even made reference to Kim Jong Un during the Chimera Ant arc, but they neither cited him by name, nor made him out as the villain (There were at least 3-5 different groups vying for that title over the course of the arc, and the only remaining one by the end was the World Government.) Not being plugged in to Asian culture I have no idea if there was any NK hostility over that show's depiction of him, but it did give a good example of the issues with the American media's reference in comparison to the global standard for such things.)

I take it you've never been to Bed-Sty. Guess what, lots of the cops there are black too.

> Fucking blacks [...] I have no sympathy whatsoever for their plight.

Now I really know you've never spent any time in Bed-Sty, or even know any black people on a meaningful personal level.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for you or the people who upmodded you.

pro-tip: don't condemn and lump an entire community into one caricature, Timothy McJimBob.

I'm not talking about the caricatures that they weave at WATTS.

I'm not trying to defend them, they're as ridiculous a caricature of villainy as you can get, but they're a product of the east west dynamic much more than a product of Islam.

Right .....

ISIS Jihadis Get ‘Slavery for Dummies’

One of the biggest problems the West has is recognizing them for what they are based on their actions and who they say they are as opposed to what the politically correct nonsense being published in the West says about them.

Unfortunately it isn't just ISIS, Al Qaida, and company.

Russian Blondes Wanted for Islamic Sexual Slavery
“I hope that Kuwait will enact the law forsex slaves”

If you're a religious fanatic in the Middle East and want to kill Christians you become a terrorist. ...

Or, you can join ISIS (the army killing and/or enslaving/raping everyone including Christians).

So there's an equal choice to be had, yet some are choosing to capture and harm non-military forces - those people doing so have been wholly Muslim.

To be fair we are bombing ISIS territories and various Arab nations (via drones) and killing a crapload of non-military forces.

I'm guessing they're able to rationalize attacking our civilians without too much trouble.

I'm not trying to defend them, they're as ridiculous a caricature of villainy as you can get, but they're a product of the east west dynamic much more than a product of Islam.

Joel Spolsky's example touches on those too: "i might be of a type that has operator= overloaded, and the types might not be compatible so an automatic type coercion function might end up being called. And the only way to find out is not only to check the type of the variables, but to find the code that implements that type, and God help you if there’s inheritance somewhere" and so on.

It's a caricature of real world's examples meant to illustrate this: when you read competently written C++ code, you don't know in your head what's going on on the machine level without going outside of the code block you're reading to check. With competently written C, you do. I don't think there is much dispute over that.

The question is, does that matter? That's (more) up for debate. My conviction is yes, it matters for system code, and no not quite, it doesn't matter as much for app code. When I look at system code, I want to know what happens at the CPU level. When I look at app code, I want to know how these abstract elements combine to make something new.

As for operator overloading, I agree there are C++ things that are more invisible. With operator overloading, I just don't like it because of precedence and all. The sole purpose of overloaded operators, I believe, is to make the code more readable, by one person's standard, but readability is in the eye of the beholder. I prefer chained function calls as I find it easier to map the code in my head to the process at runtime.

Oi, I realize this will woosh right over your partisan-baked brain, but I'll bite:

"What makes you think that anyone is entitled to someone else's money?"
How did they get that money in the first place? Through a societal system they are able to take advantage of. Never completely on their own like libertarians are want to believe. Our current monetary system is based on debt leveraged on debt based on a promise. It's purely imaginary, fiat, whatever. The real deal is the cost of energy, resource extraction (also a function of the cost of energy), and labor cost (which is decreasing due to automation/globalization). Money is just a convenient shorthand.

"you're trying to impose your beliefs as facts"
I'd like you to meet Kettle, Mr. Pot. Also...notice that I used words like 'could'. It was pretty clear I was speculating, not claiming anything as a fact (otherwise I cite that shit).

"How (who?) defines how much is "basic"? That is a good point. If I'm able to filter out your partisan ObamaPhone/Nike bullshit I can see where you are going (though your mental image of what constitutes a poor person is a hilariously on-message Fox News caricature). Who or what defines a living as basic is a pretty subjective thing. A good place to start is being able to eat real food and have a stable place to live. I'd go so far as to include internet in that mix.

"The problem with Socialism is eventually, you run out of other people's money."
Nice quote there Thatcher. Got any good Rand for me?

  "you're so useless, we'll pay you to not work so you will go away and we can ignore you"
That is not the message. The message is "everybody is worth something, regardless of whether or not you are capable of 'meaningful work'. Mentally ill people, physically disabled people, etc.

The value of meaningful work != the monetary value. With a basic income if somebody wanted to make art baubles and somebody else found value in them...how is that less meaningful than cleaning a bathroom at a movie theater?

So, having said that. I'm sure there would be some negative consequences. Since I'm speculating as much as the next guy, what would some be? If people got a basic income, then they wouldn't be forced to work in a Tobacco field for minimum wage (or less in a lot of cases) to make rent. What would happen O sage of the free market? Would the wages for these shitty jobs raise to meet the demand of the no-longer enslaved lower class? Would that then cause the price of cigarettes or whatever else to go up? Would inflation explode to make the basic income essentially worthless? (a possibility smarter economists than I say is unsupported by evidence...no cite though)

Seriously though, Mr. Libertarian, go fucking live on an island. If you want to say 'I got mine, fuck off' so badly, GTFO.

Star Trek Voyager: Say what you will about the series as a whole (admittedly having problems whose root cause starts with the words "Brannon" and "Braga"), but Janeway generally had the respect of her crew, spoke to the other female characters about whatever the relevant topic was (engineering, Seven of Nine's character development, etc.), and ultimately got her crew home.

Mass Effect: FemShep does her thing the same way male Shepard does, by diplomacy, by 'bigger gun diplomacy', or both. She speaks to whoever she wants, however she wants, and gains the respect of virtually everyone she crosses paths with...ironically, most anti-Shepard sentiment is based upon her being a human, not her being a female.

Metroid: you kick butt the entire game and THEN find out that Samus is a girl.

Clearly not an exhausive list, but off the top of my head, there ARE examples of strong female protagonists that aren't vapid caricatures.

Big Bad Microsoft is going after Poor Innocent Google? How terrible!

I can't really say much else here. Your post is a caricature already.