Slashdot Mirror
Torvalds Uses Profanity To Lambaste Romney Remarks
netbuzz writes "Last night Linux creator Linus Torvalds took to his Google+ page and called Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney 'a f***ing moron.' Torvalds' stated reason? Romney's much-ridiculed suggestion that air passengers would be safer in emergencies if aircraft windows could be opened (a suggestion which some, including Snopes.com, have taken as a joke). Torvalds also recently called Mormonism, Romney's religion, 'bats**t crazy.' Is this just Linus being Linus? Or does such outspokenness on non-technical matters reflect poorly on the Linux community that Torvalds leads?"
I had no clue in Romney's tone or anything else he was joking.
What a loaded question. "Does it reflect badly and cause of loss of reputation", what... that someone calls a batshit crazy religion batshit crazy? Didn't hurt Mark Twain's reputation much.
http://www.salamandersociety.com/marktwain/
So I guess the answer is no.
Aren't they too busy being "bats**t crazy" to care about what Torvalds says?
Though I admit, getting my very own planet in the afterlife is a pretty tempting proposition.
[I know too many really good and decent devout people to absolutely discount religious beliefs, and the big ones are based upon centuries, if not millennia of tradition. So I have something of a grandfather-clause when it comes to ridiculing religion. If your religion was created after the development of the steam engine, you're a crackpot. If your religion pre-dates the steam engine, I'm careful not to insult your beliefs. I'm considering pushing it back to Newton, but for now, the steam engine is the cutoff.
I know it's kind of arbitrary, but I've found it to be a very reliable rule-of-thumb. ]
You are welcome on my lawn.
... We're considering him for a president. I'd rather debate on his policy, record, etc. And I'm not claiming to agree with all of it or think highly of him on these merits, but this is the domain we need to be in, not the "batshit crazy." ...
Romney is the candidate for everyone. No matter what your position is on anything, he has held that position at one time or another..
Oh, I can certainly point out some odious Democrats.
During the SOPA hearings, I became particularly incensed at Maxine Waters. What a waste of everybody's time she is. She and a most on both sides of the aisle didn't particularly "get" why SOPA was a bad idea. Watt was similarly a waste of oxygen and body heat in that chamber. Only a handful like Polis (D), Lofgren(D), Lungren(R), and Issa (R) and got it. Hell, Polis even understood what the hell Bitcoin, TOR, and Silk Road are. The response on /g/ was "oh god, he knows!"
--
BMO
People make this complaint about every president - the president really has no choice in the matter, he can't book a ticket on a commercial flight and slip away to NYC for a private weekend with his wife. All of his trips, regardless of reason come with immense security that most individuals cannot afford to pay, so every trip is on the taxpayer's dime. This is the tradeoff we make between protecting our top leaders and saving money. Is there any candidate that will promise to never go on vacation? Would you want such a candidate in office?
But if something did happen, can't you just elect a new president?
Sure, and there is a succession plan 18 people deep to decide who would take over in the interim and it would take up to a year for the special election to take place. In the meantime the VP is next in line to become president, and there are few vice presidents (or speaker of the house, or secretary of education, or any other people in the succession plan) from either party that I'd want to be acting as president. Especially in a crisis like the death of a sitting president.
The costs from the financial turmoil from even an unsuccessful assassination attempt would be far greater than the cost of providing years of first class security to the president.
Joseph Smith also married the wife of Orson Hyde while Hyde was away serving a mission in Jerusalem/Palestine. While Orson and Nancy Hyde divorced later in life, THEY WERE MARRIED when Smith supposedly received a revelation from God that they should be married, despite Nancy Hyde already being married to Orson Hyde.
The events I'm referring to are colloquially known as "history" and you should try reading some before repeating the same nonsense you've been told since you were a kid. Do some research and you'll discover the exact same things I discovered. IT SUCKS. I was devastated. I eventually got over the fact that the people who lied to me were well-meaning and didn't realize they were lied to as well.
Uncle Joe was a con-man, a swindler, and a womanizer and he documented such in his own journals. Read the Joseph Smith Papers, volumes 1 and 2. Prepare to have your faith shattered, my friend. He documented his own exploits and still people believe the nonsense, it's absolutely incredible.
Agreed, Mormons are no more bat shit insane than any religion. in fact they are arguably better than most.
Mormons have no paid clergy. No one in the Mormon church is making a living of it's members unlike most other religions
Mormons don't believe in a vengeful God
Mormons have their own welfare system and prefer members that need it take from the church not from the government
Mormons believe God exists in this dimension, not some alternate unseeable dimension like most religions
Mormons believe we are literally Gods children as in if we do well we'll grow up to be gods. From the pov of most religions that might seem strange but from another pov it adds a kind if logic the others lack. You don't have to try to be good to avoid hell (Mormons don't really believe in hell like other religions) .. You need to try to be good because you can't be a god if you can't be trusted with that kind of power
Note: the Mormon religion is just as stupid as other religion on the general sense but it's certainly not more insane.
How many rational people strap the dog kennel to the roof of the car?
On behalf of all Mormons, you guys are making a far bigger deal out of it than we are. I read it and just went... meh.. it's Linus being Linus.
I think we can handle' Linus' opinion after. oh, having the US Gov't try to exterminate us and being the target of 'Christian' hate, I mean Love, for a couple hundred years that resulting in smear campaigns, regular protests in front of our places of worship, tar and feathering, burning down our homes, raping our women and killing our children and murdering our leaders....
Linus, no problem. I'll take Linus' love over 'Christian' love any day.
I agree with your analysis that the fragmentation of US national solidarity for health insurance etc. is founded on sublime racism. It is a quite Straussian perspective but I think it applies.
In Europe freaky aggressive policy communication is usually the business of the "progressive" left and the right fringe. Conservatives are conservative, that is they restrain themselves. They don't engage in negative campaigning. You could say, conservatism is policy making for grandpas, not disgruntled haters. Europe is multicultural but equally struggles to create cohesion. But we see the emergence of right wing populist parties like FPÖ in Austria, PVV/Wilders in the Netherlands and others which adopt communications similar to US Republicans. They are mostly immune to scandals, poltical legacy and refuted facts, thus not conservative. Even Obama's positions would be unacceptable to modern European conservatives because he endorses death penalty, torture and targeted killings.
There are hundreds of other candidates, none of which are will likely even have a remote shot of actually winning the election.
One person that is likely going to at least appear on a number of ballots throughout America is Gary Johnson, the current Libertarian Party candidate. If you really can't stomach either Romney nor Obama, that is at least one person to cast that kind of dissenting vote against both political parties. There are currently a total of five presidential candidates that in theory could win the presidency by virtue of the fact that they are officially on enough ballots in enough states with enough electoral votes that something really drastic happening between now and November could open a way for one of those other candidates to actually win. Outside of those five candidates, everybody else really is a fringe candidate and doesn't even have a theoretical chance of winning.
I'm still undecided in terms of who I will vote for this November, and Gary Johnson is looking pretty nice right now. I'm under no illusion that he even has a remote shot of winning, but it at least gives me somebody to look at other than those other two major party candidates.