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  1. Re:Ratings Creep on PG-13 Rating Turns 20 · · Score: 1
    Does this really surprise anybody?

    No, but it might be surprising how much the ratings have creeped. I know a lot of people don't care. Some people do.

    Those specific set of standards they include according to the rest of the article include "biblical values/morals". Do we really want that as the basis for our rating system?

    Why not? They've served us well on this continent for over 300 years. The founders of the country desired them to be the basis of the country. Even the founders who were Deists appreciated the Bible's moral teachings, and, in fact, knew that a free society was dependent on such a moral foundation.

    Anyway, there's no need to criticize CAP's analyses since the MPAA doesn't have anything to do with CAP. Moreover, CAP's scores are based on numerical observations. It does not set ratings; it shows raw scores resulting from deductions when violations of Biblical morals are observed. The scores are broken down by category so that a movie goer can determine if the movie's content is acceptable to his own level of standards. CAP doesn't tell you what score is "too low" for you to see. It's your choice.

    I would imagine that anything remotely homosexual would immediately bring about an R rating. Saying Jesus Christ or God damn would also be an instant R.

    You would be wrong. The movie characters could say "G- d-" a millon times, and the movie could still earn a high CAP score. Read the CAP methodology.

    First of all, as I mentioned above, CAP does not issue ratings. It's up to parents to decide what they consider to be "PG" or "R" by this system.

    Secondly, saying "G- d-" would fit into only one investigation area from which points could be deducted. If we guesstimate that such a violation causes a subtraction of two points (each violation incurs 1-3 points deduction) from the starting score of 100, it would be possible for a movie to have 50 instances of "G- d-" (actually, infinite instances since subzero scores are marked as zero) and still receive an overall score of 80.

  2. Ratings Creep on PG-13 Rating Turns 20 · · Score: 3, Informative
    It already has! Researchers call it R-13.
    A Christian ministry advising parents about the content of popular movies says its not surprised by a Harvard University study finding films within the same rating class are getting raunchier, noting it made the same discovery four years ago.

    ChildCare Action Project Movie Ministry indicates the Harvard data echoes its own findings from 2000. The Harvard study, released last month, shows content of movies with specific ratings is getting stronger, meaning a film rated PG-13 today likely would have received an R rating several years ago.

    Researchers looked at films released between 1992 and 2003. The study found more sex and violence in later PG movies and more of the same, plus more profanity, in PG-13 movies. It also found R-rated movies contained more profanity and sex.

    Today's PG-13 movies, it was found, are inching toward what R-rated movies looked like in 1992.

    Even films rated G were found to have more violence, especially in animated features.

    The CAP Ministry notes it scrutinized films for eight years using a specific set of standards and mathematical formulae. The group's statistical analysis found PG-13 movies consistently including more objectionable elements as the years went on, leading the researchers to coin the rating "R-13."

    "In the first five years the percentage of R-13 movies more than quadrupled (an increase of 459 percent) which says in the year 2000, 450 percent more of the PG-13 audiences were fed R-rated programming than in 1996/7," the Christian research said.

    Researchers from both CAP Ministry and Harvard noted the movie rating system used by the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA, is too general.

    Said CAP Ministry founder Tom Carder: "The CAP Analysis Model could replace the MPAA. And the CAP Analysis Model provides it objectively, not vulnerable to mood and preference subjectivity so you can be in a better position to have the information you need to make an informed moral decision whether a film is fit for your kids (or yourself)."

    Read more

  3. As the crow flies on A Flying Leap for Cars? · · Score: 1

    You should take into account that flying vehicles can get from point A to point B "as the crow flies" instead of being slaves to the roads. They won't have to travel as many miles as ground cars do.

  4. Re:MLK on anti-Israel sentiment on Yahoo! Not Protected From French Anti-Nazi Laws · · Score: 1
    What land is this ?

    Aza ("Gaza Strip") and Judea and Samaria ("West Bank"). See here. There are a lot more militant/terrorist Arabs (who do not respect Israel's existence) than Jews in these territories. The leadership of Israel is too scared about world opinion to take out the terrorists and claim its land.

    I mean i dont think EU or US or CHINA etc would mind Isreal claming there lawful land.

    Most of the world considers the Arab-occupied areas to be disputed territories. In fact, they usually call them "Israeli-occupied," turning reality on its head and inexplicably perpetuating the Arab terrorists' propaganda. As I mentioned before, both personal bias and professional incompetence on the part of the media are to blame for this skewing and distorting of the public perception.

    In the view of Islamic countries, the Arab-occupied areas are loudly proclaimed to be part of "Palestine," a mythical Arab state that is implied to have existed before 1948 where the nation of Israel sits today.

  5. Re:MLK on anti-Israel sentiment on Yahoo! Not Protected From French Anti-Nazi Laws · · Score: 1
    those who held the religious belief that the plot of land called Jerusalem belonged to the believers of the jewish faith, and to the loosely defined ethnic group termed jews, because of what the Torah told them), religious zealotry. I, personally would not tolerate this from any religion,

    You wouldn't tolerate it because you don't believe it. Yet, it is true. The Lord of all has ordained it.

    Okay, so a lot of people don't believe it. But it's not racist or evil. There is no comparable belief in Islam that Muslims were given that land or any land by God. Jerusalem is mentioned nowhere in the Qur'an. Islam began in Saudi Arabia. Its "holy" cities are Mecca and Medina. If Muslims would respect their own religion, they would let the Jews have Jerusalem. Jerusalem meant nothing to Mohammad.

    There is lots and lots of undeveloped land in Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries. The truth is that the Arab countries are perpetuating the "refugee camps" in Arab-occupied Israel in order to gain the world's sympathy. The goal is to bring the wrath of the world down on Israel. It's working very well.

    Arabs don't care about the land. There was never an Arab state of Palestine. The "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" is not a conflict over land. The conflict is that the Arabs don't think Jews should be allowed to live. The Jews disagree strongly with this view; they arrogantly purport that they should remain living. They even built a wall to protect themselves. How dare they!

    Even if you don't believe in God, there is an excellent secular case to be made for Israel as a Jewish state. You might want to check out The Case for Israel by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.

  6. Re:Nature vs. Nurture relate to Free Will on Red Brains vs. Blue Brains? · · Score: 1
    I have more respect for the old testament, and the rabinical law than I do the new testament and the derivatives from there

    Are you Jewish?

  7. Who ya gonna call? on Internet Meltdown Predicted for Tomorrow · · Score: 1
    Terrorist Busters!
    Did the CIA's web site already get hacked? Looks like fark fodder.
  8. Re:Care to define that? on Internet Meltdown Predicted for Tomorrow · · Score: 2, Informative
    According to the CIA FAQ...
    -- The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.

    -- The term "international terrorism" means terrorism involving the territory or the citizens of more than one country.

    -- The term "terrorist group" means any group that practices, or has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism.

    I assume Russians define it pretty much the same way. Cyber terrorism is just the above that involves computers that are used to attack and/or are being attacked.
  9. Re:MLK on anti-Israel sentiment on Yahoo! Not Protected From French Anti-Nazi Laws · · Score: 1
    The "land without a people for people without a land" "thing" is as true today as it ever was. Just because Israel is better able to defend itself should not be a reason to withdraw your sympathy. The people there want peace very desperately. They bend over backward to accommodate the wishes of the Arabs at the expense of their own security (and sanity). Israelis treat wounded Arab terrorists in their hospitals. They've given the PLO their own radio and TV station. The Israeli government gives millions of shekels a year to their sworn enemies who shoot at them day and night!

    Israel received such a small fraction of the Palestine Mandate, yet most of them are willing to give up half of what's left. Muslims have 22 countries, and Jews have this one tiny sanctuary for themselves in a world full of Jew haters. Where is your compassion? Hitler wiped out so many Jews. They were kicked out of Israel 2000 years ago, and they've been persecuted ever since. Now, the Jews have gotten some tanks, so that makes them automatically become the bad guys? They were attacked by Arabs well before 1948. There was a major massacre in the 1920s, as just one example. The Palestinists claim they were kicked out of places like Haifa. No, Israel tried to convince them to stay. It was the invading Arab countries who demanded and threatened them to leave. They said they would be in danger when the war started. The Arab nations were supposedly going to come in and demolish the whole place.

    Israel has always tried to act with the utmost kindness to its most vicious enemies. It lets them take jobs in Israel, buy products there... Could you imagine the U.S. allowing Al-Qaeda members in like that?? IDF soldiers risk their lives to go in and try to kill only specific terrorists when they could've had the air force demolish the whole neighborhood and spare IDF lives. But what happens? While the Israelis are trying to spare Arab lives, the Arabs are trying to take more Jewish lives.

    The images you see of IDF tanks knocking down Arab houses are done only after many Jews are murdered by their occupants. Any civilian Arabs killed by the IDF are by accident, which is easy to do when weapons are stored in houses, human shields are common, and young children are recruited to fight for Arafat's band of terrorists. When the Arabs kill, they target civilians. They shoot at cars going along the highway. They stab pregnant mothers. They blow up restaurants. The Israelis never ever ever could imagine doing such things!

    The media distorts the news, partly out of vicious bias and partly out of incompetence. They report the Palestinist propaganda without question. Palestinists dig up recently buried Arabs and parade them in front of the cameras to pretend that Israelis killed them. During melees, they even shoot their own people (for "honor killings") and blame it on Israelis. The Palestinists in Gaza smuggle weapons in through tunnels to Egypt (violating Egypt's peace treaty with Israel). They shoot rockets into peaceful (there is no other kind) Jewish homes and communities. They shoot at playgrounds. They use ambulances as terror attack vehicles. That's why Israeli security forces have to delay their entry into Israel and risk Arabs dying in transit to medical help. (Israel has the better hospitals, of course, and they never discriminate by race, religion, or politics regarding either availability of service or quality of service.) Arabs have perverted things meant for good to use them as things for evil. Just like life itself - suicide bombers. Children are raised with the notion that the best thing in life is to die - and take as many Jews with you to death as possible. Is there any equivalent of this death cult propaganda in Israel? Not a trace! It's absolutely unthinkable across the political and religious spectrums. How can people equivocate and say that Israel is just as bad as the PA? There is no comparison. They are black and white, night and day. If you think they are the same, then you have been ma

  10. Re:Here's a link on Yahoo! Not Protected From French Anti-Nazi Laws · · Score: 1
    With their concentration camps

    That is nonsense, balderdash, baloney, bilge, bosh, bull, claptrap, fabrication, flimflam, garbage, hogwash, hooey, horsefeathers, poppycock, propaganda, rot, slander, slime, rubbish, trash, and tripe.

    They're called prisons. They're not supposed to be Hiltons. You must be one of those people who thinks that putting a sack over someone's head is "torture." Never mind that Muslim men they make their own women wear burqas every day of their lives for the Islamic crime of being born women.

    walling off citizens in their neighbourhoods

    They're protecting Israeli citizens from Israel-occupying Arab terrorists. The anti-terror barrier is not to keep people inside an area; the purpose is to keep people out of an area. If Palestinists would stop shooting rockets into Israeli homes and murdering Jews on the street, this measure wouldn't be necessary.

    and cleansing entire areas

    The only cleansing Israel is doing is cleansing the land of Israel of Jews! Prime Minister Sharon is hell-bent on expelling 8,000 Israeli Jews from Gush Katif in the "Gaza Strip," and he wants to uproot and kick out the quarter million Israeli Jews of Judea and the Shomron (which comprise the "West Bank"). The IDF has destroyed synagogues multiple times. Yassir Arafat and the Palestinists should be cheering for Sharon. He's making large swaths of Israel Judenrein for them.

    I don't know how you get off implying that the land is being cleansed of Arabs. The current government of Israel is adamant about destroying "illegal" Jewish homes and communities but doesn't do anything about the thousands of illegal Arab and Bedouin settlements and structures. The IDF is even reluctant to tear down many Arab structures used by terrorists to murder Israelis.

    Who is cleansing whom? The Muslims have "cleansed" almost the whole Middle East of Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims. Islamic intolerance and persecution is causing a mass exodus of Christians out of Iraq. There are virtually no Christians in Bethlehem and a relatively small percentage of Jews in Jerusalem, the first holiest city to Judaism. They cleaned out the Holy Land of non-Muslims, and they're committing genocide all over Africa and Asia. Countless Christian villages (mostly African) have been burned to the ground just in the last decade. (Where is Kofi Annan?? Jesse Jackson?? All the leftist "human rights" phonies? Dirty secret: They hate Christians more than they care about blacks.) This is the way Muslims are. They're imperialist, warmongering fanatics who don't tolerate diversity or freedom. They've "cleansed" a third of the world of non-Muslims. They're about to start taking over Europe again, too. Russia, France, and Britain know it, make no mistake.

    Israel is the only country on Earth where Jews are a majority. They're an "endangered species" of peoples. Israel is a sanctuary of preservation, but it's surrounded by ravenous wolves who want Jews to go the way of the dodo bird. The anti-terror barrier is to protect the peaceful people from the bomb-throwing wolves.

    It should be noted that the barrier is being built with great reluctance by even its strongest supporters. Three objections: 1) The wall gives the impression of a political boundary, but much of Israeli land is on the predominantly Arab-occupied side. 2) There are several Jewish communities on the predominantly Arab-occupied side of the barrier who are not protected by it. 3) The necessity of it is the result of Israel's failure to prosecute the war on the occupying, militant Arabs on its land. Israel has failed to respect its own sovereignty and boundaries; therefore, nobody else respects them either.

    It's interesting that Arabs characterize the barrier as walling them into an area. Umm, excuse me, but the other side is open-ended, you dunderheads. Ir

  11. Re:France has never been big on freedom of the pre on Yahoo! Not Protected From French Anti-Nazi Laws · · Score: 1

    Rest assured, it was meant to be funny. It would be funny (or scary) if someone modded it Insightful. :-)

  12. MLK on anti-Israel sentiment on Yahoo! Not Protected From French Anti-Nazi Laws · · Score: 1
    There is a strong anti-Israel sentiment in France, but despite what pro-Israel groups would have you believe, that isn't quite the same as anti-semitism, because it is motivated by national politics rather than religious belief/ethnic identity.

    "When people criticize Zionists they mean Jews, you are talking anti-Semitism." -- Martin Luther King, Jr. at Harvard University, 1968

  13. Re:Here's a link on Yahoo! Not Protected From French Anti-Nazi Laws · · Score: 1
    Europeans don't try to deny Nazism, what they do (and this law is a clear example of it) is deny neo-Nazis the chance to use Hitler's Third Reich as a tool to spread hatred and evil today.

    No, what Europeans do is funnel their support for Nazism through the PLO. The lesson Europeans learn from Holocaust museums is that it's evil to slay the Jews when white Europeans are doing the slaying. But you don't see anything wrong with the Arab Palestinists doing it. You funnel your money to the Hitler in a headscarf in Ramallah. The ultra-nationalist Arab führer doesn't use swastikas or sprechen Deutch, so his systematic genocide of Jews must be okay. In your upside-down view, the Jews are persecuting the Nazis now, and you're siding with the Nazis.

  14. Re:Here's a link on Yahoo! Not Protected From French Anti-Nazi Laws · · Score: 1
    They tried to hide it by putting it on a public web server? Right.

    Bot compliance with robots.txt is voluntary. There's no law enforcing it.

  15. Re:France has never been big on freedom of the pre on Yahoo! Not Protected From French Anti-Nazi Laws · · Score: 3, Funny
    I'm so glad CNN and Fox News aren't in the hands of those dirty commies, so we always get FAIR AND BALANCED reporting from the US press.

    That's what Slashdot is for.

  16. Re:Nature vs. Nurture relate to Free Will on Red Brains vs. Blue Brains? · · Score: 1
    Picking religious tenets by convenience isn't something I like.

    While cherry-picking does go on, most supposed contradictions of Christians are due to the critics not understanding the Holy Bible. Also, the critics conveniently ignore that 1) there are scores of denominations with different understandings of issues (e.g. pacifism vs. just war) and 2) all Christians are still sinners and don't always abide by what they believe.

    Out of curiosity, did you leave the church because there were hypocrites? As for me, I don't care what other people do, because I know that it doesn't change the facts; it in no way alters the truth and history and prophecy of the Holy Bible and my need for salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. Why should your beliefs be dependent upon how good other Christians act? Would you choose hell over heaven because the people around you weren't acting consistently with their beliefs?

  17. Re:Nature vs. Nurture relate to Free Will on Red Brains vs. Blue Brains? · · Score: 1
    Conservatives tend to believe that people behave in the way they do as a result of something about them in particular - their nature. Some people are just good and some people are just bad

    As a conservative, I thought it was the exact opposite, especially for religious conservatives. "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6) Whether a person is good or bad (not using absolute theological terms here) is seen as being determined by how they are raised. It's largely determined by the home environment, school environment, and community. This is why the family and one man-one woman marriage is so important to the right. Religion assumes nurture over nature. It acknowledges tendencies of nature (lust, jealousy, etc.) but advocates choosing good no matter what you feel or rationalize.

    The Bible very much promotes reform by choice. That's what repentence is. It's one of the biggest messages of the New Testament. Renewal, being "born again." "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2) Bad people are supposed to change and become good people.

    You're not looking deep enough into these issues. You're grabbing hold of this nature/nurture/free will thing and trying to define the world in its terms.

    Gun rights are about decentralizing power and putting it into the hands of the people. That's why Marxist Democrats are against it. The scientific free will divide isn't relevant to this and most other political issues. The sides are not divided along party lines.

    Conservatives believe that once you've grown up to be a bad apple, it's probably too late to change you. This is borne out by the facts. Most people become oriented politically, religiously, and morally at an early age. Most people don't change very much once they're adults. "Being stuck in your ways" is more literally true than most people realize. As one grows, the impulses in the brain become more consistent in their paths. (There was a /. article about this years ago, but I'm not a scientist.) You become a fuddy duddy about a lot of things even when your habits aren't the most logical.

    Also, once you commit a crime, it is easier to imagine yourself doing it again. For me, murdering and raping are not temptations. But if I did rape a woman, it would become an ever-present temptation in my mind for the rest of my life, and there would be a much increased likelihood of me doing it again. That's why we throw people in prison. Besides punishment and deterring other would-be criminals, we want to protect everyone else from those who are prone to commit violent acts.

    Liberals seem to think that most criminals and "bad" adults can be easily reformed by government programs or UN programs if we're talking about terrorists. 1) It's not likely that they can be changed, especially with some worthless, leftist, secular everybody-smile-and-be-nice-mmkay programs that are incapable of transforming an evil adult into a loving person. 2) It's not the government's job to do such things. This is what the church is for. Bush's faith-based initiative is about ending the discrimination against religious organizations from receiving federal money to help people in ways that the government is less competent in doing.

    Conservatives make no effort or attempt to explain why bad people are bad. They just are. Ocaisonally you'll hear talk of religion or evil or satan, but these ideas don't have anything to do with free will. Bad people still choose to do bad things.

    You contradict yourself here. Before, you said liberals were the ones that believed that people could choose to change.

  18. Re:Do you believe in God? on Red Brains vs. Blue Brains? · · Score: 0
    I think you'll be putting a lot of bio-ethicists out of their jobs.

    Any bioethicists who think abortion is ethical should be out of their jobs! Good riddance.

    With "ethics" that say killing babies is good, we need not fear whatever we would call evil.

  19. Re:Do you believe in God? on Red Brains vs. Blue Brains? · · Score: 0
    I don't see many world leaders "turning the other cheek".

    Jesus' lesson of "turning the other cheek" is not applicable to governmental international relations. Furthermore, it's not about letting yourself be a doormat for your enemy. Do a little research.

  20. Close-up of the U.S. on Composite Of Earth At Night · · Score: 1

    Here's a more detailed picture of the U.S. for those interested.

  21. Light for Security on Composite Of Earth At Night · · Score: 1
    Blinds and curtains to prevent inside lighting from leaking out into the neighborhood.

    It's not "leaking." A lot of people want their neighborhoods to be lit up in order to shine the light on would-be criminals.

  22. Re:Actually, it is surprising on One, Two, Many - Language Shapes Thought · · Score: 1
    I had to count them because the Xs were so close together. Try it this way:
    X X X
    X X X
    X X X
    The quantity, when laid out neatly, can be comprehended and later recalled without needing a name for the number.
  23. Re:I'd like to agree with you, but wow... on Writing Software for Worldwide Distribution Proves Difficult · · Score: 1
    Hey, if we want to display your flag upside down or in rainbow colors, just lighten up and accept it!

    Slashdot's topic icon for the U.S. has an American flag with only 12 stripes.

  24. Re:Insular US on Writing Software for Worldwide Distribution Proves Difficult · · Score: 1
    There are over 30,000,000 functional illiterates here in the United States.

    Does that include illegal immigrants?

  25. Re:Please remember on Hackers Take Aim at Republicans · · Score: 1