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One word... tolerance.

So they don't like caricatures of Mohammed, is it *REALLY* that important you somehow earn the right to be able to do it?

And how about if a group of Muslims in Afghanistan started posting cartoons on Facebook of injured American or British soldiers? Are you going to sit back and laugh about it because "It's their right" to do so?

Grow up, boy. When you get to middle-age like me you begin to understand that life is about tolerating and making allowances for others and not letting insignificant bits of crap ruin your day.

Join the real world, take your head out of your ass and looking around you - if you do that you'll see most Muslims are normal people like you and me just getting on with their day who don't give a toss about insignificant little bigots like you.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of religious violence, just how many gun-toting Christians are there in the US?

I'm Christian by birth, non-practicing & gave up on organised religion a long time ago because I'm a perfectly nice, law-abiding & considerate citizen without it - and anyone who knocks at my home trying to gain my interest in their religion, gets told to politely "Sod off".

However, if other people want to be part of an organised religion then I have no problem with that and don't consider it my place to inflict my irreligious views on them.

But quite clearly, the Facebook contest was done to *DELIBERATELY* incite religious harassment of Moslems and that is wrong, pure & simple. It's a well published fact that Moslems are offended by caricatures of Mohammed and I don't see how it's that important to feel the need to launch some kind of protest to force it down the throats of everyone, Muslim or non-Muslim.

Sorry, but if it was caricatures of disabled people or soldiers or killed in Afghanistan, then everyone would be up-in-arms about it and someone would be offended by it.

I'm all for Free Speech but I'm more for people demonstrating some intelligence & compassion when it comes to accepting others who look different or have different beliefs - inciting hatred is pathetic!

I'd like to see caricatures of mohammed everywhere. Give these nutters a choice of abandon your stupid ideas, or leave the internet. I've had enough of religion. Enough.

So now the Anarchist's Cookbook should have a watermark of caricatures of Mohammed. Not only does the writer get a good free speech exercise, it prevents al-queda from learning howto make bombs! Do it with top secret nuclear documents, as well.

The beauty of pretentious frauds like you is that you emit your cliches on some chemical cue without any thought process at all. You can't cite a single fact or study in support of your caricature of an opinion, can you? Of course not. You have a supply of patter routines and just wait around for the opportunity to perform one of them.

As someone with Aspergers I have found that watching sitcoms is very helpful. Since nearly every character is being sarcastic most of the time, I learn through observing caricatures of reality.

We definitely agree more than we disagree. I personally grew up in better circumstances than you describe. I'm also living in (probably) worse circumstances that you are now (with a family to support).

"you're just privileged card" with me either.

I didn't play that card, nor did I imply it. You found it yourself. I was simply speaking of others. I know plenty of folks doing substantially differently than their economic upbringing.

In the meantime, my dad was working his tail off to get an education and still provide for us.

And that example (of character) is worth ... well, it can't be quantified. What if some children are raised in an economically poor environment without examples of character?

When most people say, "we can't afford for mom to stay home," what they really mean is, "we can't afford for mom to stay home, and still have two late-model cars, America's Favorite 500 Channels cable package, a 56-inch flatscreen television, a separate media room with surround sound, a PS3 with scores of games, and three eat-outs a week."

I'm disgusted by that, myself. I also think it is a caricature. In contrast to your opinions below, most of the folks I know (including faculty at small colleges) are not in the scenario you describe of deciding about luxury goods. They are driving older, second hand cars, scrounging left and right, and generally struggling to get by. I mention this group of workers because (1) their household incomes are above median and (2) they (generally) have less interest in "stuff" and more interest in substance. Generally.

But that's not true for most people I know, and probably not true for most families in America. Most families I know could find a way to do it if it was important to them.
It's a choice that we made.

If I might rephrase your claim: most families in America could afford to live on a single income (for the purpose of having one parent at home with the kids).

Hummmm. I really don't know about that. I really don't. My brother (with a family of 4) does manage it. But, many of the families I know certainly don't have much to go around (on two incomes). I'm very curious if you live in or are familiar with folks that live in an area that has very cold winters. Seriously. The cost of heating can literally put a family in debt.

Tieing this back to the existence of an (implicit) selection process in American education, I'd like to reiterate my question from above:

What if some children are raised in an economically poor environment without examples of character (and the importance of education)?

I think the answer is that they are going to be very unlikely to pursue any sort of personal advancement in terms of college or technical education.

In fact, from spending a lot of time working with first generation college students (and their peers that are not 1st generation), there is dramatic difference in perspective and, often, ability. Hard work seems more evenly distributed but I'd probably give the nod to the 1st generation students. They know what they are fighting against.

It's hard to argue against someone who is basically an example of the "American Dream". I just don't think success for folks from less than ideal circumstances is that obtainable for the majority -- and it's not from a lack of hard work and due to too many 56" TVs.

In addition to being a terrible cookbook, it's also not very Anarchist.
  It ignores the non-aggression principle, and the fact that you can't blow up a social relationship.

  It's very much the teenage loser's cartoonish idea of "anarchism," and the book's continual resurfacing into our social mindspace perpetuates this imbecilic caricature.

Incidentally, why is Glenn Beck afraid of anarchism?

(Whoa, freaky. My captcha is "Liberty." HELL YEAH! Lol!)

It is not any more of a "falsehood" than any other caricature.

I think you told me all I wanted to know when your baseline for how much sense it must make is "any other caricature." Because that's really what it is. It's a caricature of a slippery slope scenario in which surely laws will be based on an over-simplification, and we can't possibly think in shades of grey or make exceptions where needed. And surely stuff like a bunch of women unionizing will all be an evil bunch who plan to leave toddlers unsupervised for the sake of making a point (and obviously don't fear lawsuits or laws either.) And surely it'll be as simple as some dictatorial agency kicking in your door, and/or someone actually can afford the lawsuits to prove that half the population's ordering more X than Y is discrimination and not taste preferences, and/or somehow that burden of proving a "mens rea" (evil intent) will no longer apply in court. And surely in a democracy over half of a country will vote to do that to themselves. (Oh, wait, you're in the USA, aren't you?;)

And, since that's where we started, that surely if we object to genetic testing as a reason to discriminate, it'll lead to that kind of a caricature of a distopian future. Because, I guess, once we started forbidding something, there's no way we can stop forbidding unrelated stuff.

I'm sorry, but that's exactly the problem: it's a caricature. Wake me up when you have an argument that actually applies to genetic testing and to what is, not on what surrealistically unrelated BS it might possibly lead to.

I'm not aware of any place which rounds upwards to the nearest hour

You are not aware, therefor it must be BS...

At any rate, I think it was libertarians who were into everything being solved by contract not by regulation

Yes, a contract. A contract with the worker, not their union. Surely, workers are entitled (by freedom of association) to form any groups, etc. But no one — neither the giant automakers nor the nanny-hiring families — must be legally-bound to hire union-only. And any union-won contracts to that effect must be studied with the anti-monopoly bias.

Let's keep it simple this time: are you aware of such a situation where anyone anywhere was sued for changing their pizzeria, or ordering more Italian than Chinese? Or do you think that repeating the same falsehood

It is not any more of a "falsehood" than any other caricature. Individual consumers' tastes in food aren't (yet?) targeted, but the employers' tastes in employees already are. I argue, that these aren't different from each other.

When you call for a food delivery, you are employing the restaurant. If we were to consistently apply the same laws to all employers, we'd have to study such food-ordering habits for signs of bigotry in the same way, personnel-hiring of companies is already studied by Attorney Generals.

Are you checking for my replies every ten minutes?

Please. We both happened to be online at approximately the same time. You're trying to deflect by pretending that I'm obsessed or something. Another lie.

It's flattering, really

No, it's not flattering to you, and to forestall your next claim, it's not "amusing" either. It's infuriating, and you fail miserably every time you try to hide that.

but give it a rest, you've lost

I've lost nothing. At every step I have proved you a liar, and at every step you've agreed violently with me by trying to deflect, ignoring points, and changing the subject.

and your baseless assertions to the contrary demonstrably fool no one.

That's because my baseless assertions don't exist. You're actually saying that to yourself, because you're projecting your dishonesty onto me.

Libertarians seem to believe exactly what I say they believe, despite the lies they tell themselves so they can sleep at night. Libertarianism in a nutshell: Me! Me! Me! I've got mine, so fuck the rest of you. Every libertarians secretly wants to be the master and ruler of everyone and everything, the only one with all the power.

They don't "seem to believe" anything even remotely resembling that at all, and you know it. You've never, ever, seen any real-life Libertarian (big-L or otherwise) say anything that could reasonably, honestly be taken that way. Every single thing you have said here is a straw man. You've deliberately lied about what the Libertarian positions are, because you know you can't refute the real positions and you hope that by substituting a caricature you'll "win" by default. It doesn't work, and never has.

And really, being unable to find legitimate holes in the Libertarian philosophy is like shooting at fish in a barrel - with a sawed-off shotgun - and missing the barrel.

If I sat here and drew a caricature of your beliefs, then I could easily knock it down as well. FWIW, when I first saw your signature here, I posted it on my blog, Twitter, and Facebook. It looks like I have a different interpretation, though.

While I indeed challenge the moral authority of anyone who attempts to control my personal life, I also recognize that I do not have the authority to do the same to others.

As for the "free market", I have no such allusions - it is not some mystical being that loves everyone at all. "Free markets" are simply the natural state of economies - they are what happens completely absent regulation. I observe that regulation is always a net negative - as an extension of that, I believe that an unregulated state is the optimum state for commerce.

I care deeply about freedom - the freedom to do as you please, the freedom to make what you will of yourself, and the freedom to fail. The consequences are an integral part of concept, they cannot be separated from it.

I seek the benefit of living in a society of equals, with all the consequences that come along with it.

There's precious little skepticism with regards to climate change these days, because the evidence is sufficient to convince those who were initially skeptical, but there's a hell of a lot of denial. If people who still refuse to accept the evidence don't want to be called "deniers," then you're welcome to come up with a different word -- but you can't have "skeptic," because that word already means something different.

Here, you are expressing your point of view, saying that all the evidences are enough, and that everyone that is skeptic should be called a denier. This is the same kind of argumentation that the people from IPCC had, which is that there's a consensus. Truth is: there's no consensus, and not enough real evidences.

You are basically saying that your opponent is denying all evidences that you believe in, when such evidences are contested. It's a too easy caricature to make to decide abitrarily who's the deniers instead skeptics.

We do have brains to think with, and we can make our own opinions by ourself, without needing somebody like you telling what is right or wrong, who is a stupid denier and who's a smart skeptic. For this, you do deserve a Godwin point, because there are 100s of ways to say that someone is a no brain that we should not believe, and you only choose the words related to the 2nd world war.

>It's at this point that you should realize that your understanding of Physics is a caricature of the real world.

Likewise, for you.

The total energy does not change when you narrow the river. You have X amount of water dropping by distance D. That's the energy. It's exactly the same amount of energy, whether it's flowing at 1 meter per second with a cross section of 100m^2, or flowing at 100 m/s with a cross section of 1m^2. It sure looks more impressive, but it's exactly the same amount of energy (actually, less, as the drag goes up as the cube of the speed).

These Swedes are speeding up the rate of traverse through the water, but that's just in order to have enough speed to match the intake speed needed for a tiny turbine. And it HAS to be a tiny turbine as the weight of a turbine goes up as the CUBE of its linear dimensions, while its power only goes up as the square. So a floating turbine has to live on the low end of the weight/power curve.

Your vituperation would be more effective and justified if you'd include just a smidgen of a hint that you know anything about energy conservation.

Food for thought:

Let's say you have a river. That river has width A. How deep is the water in the river? How fast does the water flow? What's the total energy in the river? How much can be captured by a turbine of width B, where A >> B?

Let's say you narrow the river to a width of B at the point where the turbine is (and only at the point where the river is. What's the total energy in the river? How deep is the water at the turbine? How fast does the water flow at the turbine? How deep is the water after the turbine? How fast does the water flow after the turbine?

It's at this point that you should realize that your understanding of Physics is a caricature of the real world.

But why computers? Why do we have to suffer from a lack of this suspension? It works for hospital dramas where they hire doctors to make it accurate, it works for military dramas where they either get clued consultants or even gain the support of the military altogether, it works for pretty much any kind of setting. Why not computers?

Is it because hacking is, when done properly, not really a spectator sport, so they have to "spice it up"?

Does it? I've never watched a hospital drama with a doctor in the room - and I've never watched a war movie with a military man in the room...

Well, I did watch "Aliens" with my dad in the room, and he thought the dropship pilot was delightful - but that, I think, was more a matter of a caricature that resonated with him, rather than any kind of factual accuracy about military pilots.

The fairness doctrine does not promote the availability of more viewpoints. When the fairness doctrine was enforced, broadcast shows fell into two categories. Those that avoided all divisive issues at all cost and those that presented caricatures of viewpoints opposed to that held by the producers of the show.
As a result people were left with the impression that everyone who disagreed with the view favored by those who controlled the media were nutjobs.

I'm sorry, Colonel "FuckYeah!" (with his coffee mug on a heli-platform that goes 30 degrees when making a turn, yeah right) was such a caricature it took me out of my suspension of disbelief. Sure, I enjoyed the movie, especially the abrupt ending, but saying that the eye candy and caricatures were the best parts of the movie must be some sort of sarcasm. I really liked that the movie could have ended 1.5 hours in, but had another 1.1 hours to make things right (well, right in some senses; I may be alone in thinking that he (and Grace! -- her memories are now part of Eywa, as his will be when he dies) are traitors to our race).

What I am starting to notice is that when I talk about IT, I am talking about programmers, developers. But others are thinking about tech-support which I personally put closer to janitors and such. And no, I don't think low of janitors, but there is a difference between the person who keeps the building running and those who run it. Of course as a web developer lots of "real" developers consider me barely worth stepping on.

This show is probably funny if you are in a support role and have to deal with the endless clueless users. However if you are a user with a clue and you ever had to deal with clueless tech support not for support but to get them to do their bloody job, it is not so funny. And of course if you are a clueless user, then you will just find it offensive.

I think the show is "young". It tries to hard. It is like a teenager trying to impress girl by wearing ten different aftershaves at once and buying 100 red roses and a corsage the size of the rainforest. It lacks the flow of older series with more experienced staff. It tries so hard to create stereo-type characters that they lack any normality, any humanity that allows you to sympathize with them, see them as real people, not just caricatures.

Take the bit about the shoes that are to small. It is to extreme, size 8 in 5? And yet all her other clothes are normal. Certainly a woman that vain would also be putting herself through hell with other parts of her body? The gag doesn't fit in its make believe world. And the problem with that is that while the gag may be funny, gags should be short. We got it, the shoe is to small. Haha. NEXT! Stand-up comedians who do gags quickly switch subjets, think the late night tv monologues, it makes no sense for Jay Leno to whine about his pinto because he would never own one, so don't dwell on it.

Longer running comedy stories, need to make the world "believable". That is why Porridge and Only Fools and Horses work so well, the characters are not just a bunch of gags in half an hour, but human beings living a life. A funny one, an unlikely one, but "believable".

The IT Crowd tends to be liked by the kinda people who claim "Every geek's favourite non-sci-fi show" despite clear evidence to contrary.

It is funny, but funny is easy. Good lasting comedy, that is very very hard and the IT crowd ain't it. It is closer to that kids show you really really liked and then your grow up and wonder how you could every tolerate it.

Frankly, I am to old to still crack up about how stupid people can be with computers. Yeah yeah, they don't know how to operate a button. I know, the joke has been done. Move on.

I was of course not serious, I'd think the fact that I was quoting a game from 1993 and talked about blowing up pinecones would be obvious!

There's a somebody-or-other's law that says that extremists are impossible to satirize, because no matter how extreme a caricature of their positions you come up with, they'll always come up with something at least as extreme and be deadly serious about it. Sorry that I didn't realize you were kidding, but you have to understand that there are large numbers of people who would agree with everything you wrote, and not as a joke.

As for the issue of a charismatic dictator convincing the whole planet that he's a benevolent savior, I'm not too worried about it. Hitler rose to power in a very specific place and time; a decade earlier or a decade later, even in Germany as it was, and he couldn't have done what he did. The same applies to Napoleon and France, and Caesar and Rome. Alexander and Genghis Khan might well have become what they became in any age, but they still had to convince primarily their own people. The world's enormous diversity of cultures, political systems, and economic conditions makes it very unlikely that anyone will pull off that trick on a global scale.