You are skipping a lot of crucial text between "The Arabs" and the predicate of the following sentence. Let me use the ellipsis properly: "The... 'Palestinians' [who] support homicide bombings... are to be considered terrorists."
The American Indians weren't too happy with settlers taking over their land and the Palestinians aren't too happy with it either;
You've got the situation completely turned around, but that's understandable considering the confusing media coverage. The "Palestinians" are Arabs from other countries who are taking over Jewish land.
On the other hand, for the Zionists and the Far Right the whole business is definitely about race and religion (trying to set up a racially and religiously Jewish state).
You really need to learn some history of the Holocaust, WWII, and the international diplomacy that was going on after the war. The problem is that most people today were not alive then and don't know history. They have no context in which to place current events.
On November 29, 1947, a majority of the United Nations members agreed to recognize Israel as a nation for the Jews. Establishing Israel as a Jewish nation made sense in light of the recent massacre of over six million Jews in Europe and the fact that the Jews, as a people, had been perpetually persecuted as fugitives in other lands for the last 2000 years.
Arabs do not merit being given another country, especially if it is to be taken from the one safe haven for world Jewry. (See picture.) You see, if Arabs are persecuted in foreign lands, they can seek refuge in one of the 22 Arab countries that exist. Jews, on the other hand, face a bleak situation. Without Israel, Jews have no refuge from Nazis, Communists, militant Muslims, and other anti-Semites in the world.
It is an act of compassion to keep this sanctuary for the Jews. This doesn't mean that other people, even Muslims, shouldn't be allowed to live there. It just means that Israel should retain a Jewish leadership and character. I suppose this would be indeed racist discrimination, but it would be of a benevolent nature as long as Israel remained a tolerant democracy. If Muslims ever became uncomfortable in Israel, there would be many other multi-ethnic democracies and Arab countries to which they could flee. (Note that this is really pie-in-the-sky anyway. There are several Arab Palestinians in the Knesset. By the way, how many Jews are in the Palestinian Authority? -0- )
If you still insist on criticizing this goal, you should take a look at racism in Arab countries. The situation in Israel would be incomparable to the malicious racism, bigotry, and sexism enforced by torture, extortion, brutal murder, etc. that permeates the authoritarian governments and societies of Arab countries.
Okay, I just went looking for the figures, and I was way off with that statement. The "equal amounts" must have pertained to a specific aid package doled out to both parties.
The U.S. does give hundreds of millions of dollars to the PA each year. This money combined with funding from western Europe and other countries does reach the billions.
Muslims worship the God of Abraham (Ibrahim) and recognize many of the same religious figures that Jews and Christians do.
It takes only one changed byte to ruin the whole program. There is a lot more than one, here.
For starters (i.e., there is much, much more I could say), the God of Abraham (Avraham) is also the God of Isaac (Yitz'chak) and Jacob (Ya'akov; later renamed to Israel by God). Since Muslims hold to the anti-Biblical belief that God made His covenant with Ishmael rather than Isaac, it cannot be said that Muslims worship the same God. Allah != YHVH
For the record, the U.S. gives equal amounts of aid to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The fact is that Israel is a hard-working nation, notwithstanding the high unemployment rate. It had a burgeoning tourism industry, which is actually many industries, that provided tons of jobs for Israelis until the Arabs began the current intifada in 2000. The modern state is just 55 years old and has been attacked virtually non-stop, yet it rivals the world with its technology and science. Its military is more sophisticated than the U.S.'s in both technology and tactics. (U.S. special ops received training from the IDF.) It even has a space program. Israel has (or had) many software companies. It's no coincidence that ICQ is more popular than other IMs (at least AIM) in the Middle East and Europe; it was made by Mirabilis, an Israeli country.
Now compare this to the Arab-controlled territories. They get $4 billion too, but what do they do with it? Where are their industries? Here's what happens:
They use the money to fund several terrorist groups; this is the highest priority of the PA.
Those groups attack Jews in Israel.
To prevent future attacks, the IDF seeks to destroy the terrorists in their settlements in Azah, Judea, and Samaria.
The Arabs in those terrorist hotbeds claim to be made impoverished by "Israeli aggression." Note: Recent polls show that 74% of "Palestinians" support homicide bombings, which means that these civilians are to be considered terrorists themselves under the Bush Doctrine.... (and now for another rant)
Profit: [deep Bob Barker voice] You, my dear Arabs, now have a chance to win... A NEW COUNTRY! A contiguous swath of land from the beautiful coast of the Mediterranean Sea to the bank of the Jordan River. You'll enjoy years of defacing ancient tombs of Jewish patriarchs, cleansing the land of infidel relics -- heck, infidels themselves, and urinating on the sepulchre from which Jesus Christ arose. (All these things are already happening, by the way.) This prize package is furnished by anti-terror-unless-it's-against-Jews president, George W. Bush.
This is better than being patted down or strip searched.
An article in the Washington Post talks about a possible electronic "fig leaf" over sensitive areas. Well, now terrorists know exactly where to put their weapons.
Maybe we could use this to replace 's' with 'z' in localisation, while reading Slashdot in the US.
I don't know if I'd prefer that. Taking note of how people spell words gives me a clue about their identity. When I see words like "localisation" and "whilst," it at least it tells me I'm getting a view from a non-American. A commenter in a recent Slashdot journal of one of my friends exclaimed "Mazel Tov!" (Hebrew for "Congratulations"), so I can reasonably assume that he is probably Jewish. If everything was automagically changed to my locale, it would look as if everybody was more like me than they really are. That would be stripping out revealing meta-information.
The good thing about locales, though, is that it gives you fine-grained preferences (if I understand it correctly; I just skimmed over a few paragraphs of the spec page).
What are the other possible interpretations of "serious consequences"? Please explain how those other interpretations would have amounted to doing something more serious than what we had done before, and explain how those measures would have been effective in disarming Saddam Hussein fully, immediately, and unconditionally.
is singled out for derision concerning its opposition to forceful disarmament of Saddam's regime (something that it agreed to in U.N. resolution 1441, btw):
The Paris-based daily (Le Monde) reported that
a third of French people want Saddam Hussein to win the war, while another third do not feel they are on the same side as Britain and America. Overall disapproval for the war is at 78%...
Also:
"France's decision to use the veto against
any further Security Council resolution has in effect disarmed the United Nations instead of disarming Iraq." - a UK Member of Parliament, March 18, 2003
But that's not what's happening. It's just two Communist countries agreeing that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." The Cold War is over, but I don't think underlying sentiments have changed much.
Native Europeans are ditching religion, but Muslim immigrants are flooding into Europe. The religious component of Europe's character is being filled by Islam rather than Christianity.
I guess sometimes, even when the sheer `evilness' of a scene strikes me, I just feel more acutely why we need God.
I agree with you very much about this. Sometimes I find myself spending all my time with other Christians and being secluded from most of the corruption out there. (Maybe I should read my own advice.:-/ *sigh*) I don't have cable TV and rarely go to movies. Sometimes it is helpful to listen to music or see movies that show evil to remind me how bad it is out there. I think that playing violent video games could actually motivate you to be a better Christian. Still, it could desensitize you to it if you play too much (and you'd lose the ability to determine that threshold), and I'd hate to buy the game in the first place which would promote the message to game makers that people want more violent games. I think the negative outweighs the positive overall.
A faith that cannot deal with death, violence, evil and malice is impratical
First of all, playing video games with evil content is not "dealing with" evil. You are participating in it! The Christian faith "deals with" death, violence, and evil by requiring each believer to put on the full armor of God. (Eph. 6:10-18) The Christian surely does not deal with evil by diving head first into it and revelling in it. The spiritual fruits of the faith include kindness, gentleness, peace, and love (Gal. 5:22-23), and love does not delight in evil. (1 Cor. 13:6)
Although not isolated from the evil of the world, we are to be insulated from it. Peter urges, "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul." (1 Peter 2:11)
A faith that does not endeavour to accept sinners is arrogant
Woooah, buddy, you are way off the reservation. How does having games with Christian themes reject sinners from the faith? Anyway, we certainly must engage all people, but our purposes are to love them, meet their needs, and share the Gospel, not so that we can partake of and enjoy their evil for ourselves.
Is there evil in a videogame? Well, then, it is a reflection of our world.
How can you enjoy games that reflect the evil things of the world? "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (1 John 2:15) This is the claim of Hollywood: "We just reflect society." Yes, the absolute worst part of society! And eventually, all of society looks like that.
How much better to reflect the beautiful things! "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy -- meditate on these things." (Phil. 4:8)
A faith that flirts with evil is arrogant and immature. Always remember the most important commandment. (Mark 12:30) Study and meditate on what it means.
There is very, very little genuine Christianity in Europe. Cathedrals stand as museums for tourists to gawk at. Europe's glorious spiritual heritage is quickly fading into history as Christianity is replaced by Islam and atheism. My brother is living in France now, and he says it is a "dark place."
I had a different reaction. I recalled these headlines...
"New Study: Men and Women Are Different!"
"War Dims Hope for Peace"
"Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures"
"Something Went Wrong in Plane Crash"
"Your Brain May Have Amazing Powers!"
Well, of course! Who would dispute that? (I refer only to the headline; not the article's content or claims.) Even accounting for the relative meaning of "amazing," it ought to be obvious that the brain is a very, very powerful thing. "We're at the same stage in brain research that biology was in the 19th century. We know almost nothing about the mind," a professor in the article said.
The task of memorizing text is a tedious task, but in truth, it is completely effortless. It's just the recalling of memories that is difficult, as the article says. I sometimes read scores of comments after a Slashdot article, come back to the comments after 300 more have been posted, and I know which ones I read before and which are new. I can watch a movie I haven't seen in years, and recall very specific facial expressions and words. I can replay several thousands of songs in my mind if I get the right memory cue for each.
When I realized that I remembered everything I read, I decided that I didn't really need to use bookmarks anymore. I flip close to where I stopped reading and within a minute find the exact sentence I last ended. I usually have to read bits here and there before I get to my place, but that helps me to bring what I last read to the forefront of my mind and improves the mental continuity from reading session to reading session by recalling my mental state at the time I stopped reading before. This function is nearly identically analagous to the Lock/Unlock feature in Windows 2000 (as opposed to logging off).
Everything you have ever seen, heard, felt, and experienced is stored in your brain! To me, that is an incomprehensible truth! (Yes, that goatse.cx image will be stored in your brain cells forever! You cannot delete it... without severe side effects.) I heard this claim long ago, but I see more and more validation of the claim all the time as I learn how to look for it.
Infinite information in a finite space -- a finite number of neurons. That means that the brain is really not comparable to a hard drive or computer. If that were the case then 640k really would have been enough memory. And the brain doesn't store only the raw information of observation, but much more data in the processed results of observation: patterns recognized, associations determined, mental creations, emotions, ideas, visions, and dreams. Can anyone explain the "mind's eye"?
There are many deep, dark, miraculous secrets in that gray mass above our shoulders. Its abilities in even the common person or mentally handicapped person are absolutely awe-inspiring. If you don't think the brain has amazing powers, either you don't know much about the brain or you just haven't sat down and contemplated its astonishing capabilities.
Moral of the story? Designers: stop sniffing. Surfers: stop spoofing. The truth shall set you free.
The truth of user agent strings shall set you free?
I agree with the poster regarding being truthful. I just disagree with his use of the phrase "the truth shall set you free." It cheapens the work of...
That's funny you mention CSS Zen Garden in trying to persuade Slashdot to use CSS. Look at what the author said:
<!--
This xhtml document is marked up to provide the designer with the maximum possible flexibility. There are more classes and extraneous tags than needed, and in a real world situation, it's more likely that it would be much leaner.
However, I think we can all agree that even given that, we're still better off than if this had been built with tables.
I really did not mean to offend. I do not use the word "fundamentalist" in a pejorative sense, because I consider myself a fundamentalist, although of a different type. (I'm Southern Baptist.) I used to get offended at the term, but then I had to reckon with the reality that I was in fact a fundamentalist. If other people use it as an insult, so be it. There's nothing wrong with having fundamentals per se, especially the ones in which I believe.
I used the term "fundamentalist Mormon" because I saw it on a pro-polygamy Mormon site -- a site that was criticizing the LDS Church for its anti-polygamy stance. I don't know if that group claimed ties to Joseph Smith. I welcome your corrections concerning your beliefs.
The modern LDS Church prohibits polygamy, but most fundamentalist Mormons do practice it. It has been a staple of Mormonism since the religion's founding in 1830 by Joseph Smith, who is said to have had 27 wives. It seems that the LDS Church has less say about the behavior of Mormons (the Church has decided it hates that term) than the Vatican does about that of Roman Catholics, and we know how strictly obedient American Catholics are to the Pope.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
The American Indians weren't too happy with settlers taking over their land and the Palestinians aren't too happy with it either;
You've got the situation completely turned around, but that's understandable considering the confusing media coverage. The "Palestinians" are Arabs from other countries who are taking over Jewish land.
On the other hand, for the Zionists and the Far Right the whole business is definitely about race and religion (trying to set up a racially and religiously Jewish state).
You really need to learn some history of the Holocaust, WWII, and the international diplomacy that was going on after the war. The problem is that most people today were not alive then and don't know history. They have no context in which to place current events.
On November 29, 1947, a majority of the United Nations members agreed to recognize Israel as a nation for the Jews. Establishing Israel as a Jewish nation made sense in light of the recent massacre of over six million Jews in Europe and the fact that the Jews, as a people, had been perpetually persecuted as fugitives in other lands for the last 2000 years.
Arabs do not merit being given another country, especially if it is to be taken from the one safe haven for world Jewry. (See picture.) You see, if Arabs are persecuted in foreign lands, they can seek refuge in one of the 22 Arab countries that exist. Jews, on the other hand, face a bleak situation. Without Israel, Jews have no refuge from Nazis, Communists, militant Muslims, and other anti-Semites in the world.
It is an act of compassion to keep this sanctuary for the Jews. This doesn't mean that other people, even Muslims, shouldn't be allowed to live there. It just means that Israel should retain a Jewish leadership and character. I suppose this would be indeed racist discrimination, but it would be of a benevolent nature as long as Israel remained a tolerant democracy. If Muslims ever became uncomfortable in Israel, there would be many other multi-ethnic democracies and Arab countries to which they could flee. (Note that this is really pie-in-the-sky anyway. There are several Arab Palestinians in the Knesset. By the way, how many Jews are in the Palestinian Authority? -0- )
If you still insist on criticizing this goal, you should take a look at racism in Arab countries. The situation in Israel would be incomparable to the malicious racism, bigotry, and sexism enforced by torture, extortion, brutal murder, etc. that permeates the authoritarian governments and societies of Arab countries.
The U.S. does give hundreds of millions of dollars to the PA each year. This money combined with funding from western Europe and other countries does reach the billions.
It takes only one changed byte to ruin the whole program. There is a lot more than one, here.
For starters (i.e., there is much, much more I could say), the God of Abraham (Avraham) is also the God of Isaac (Yitz'chak) and Jacob (Ya'akov; later renamed to Israel by God). Since Muslims hold to the anti-Biblical belief that God made His covenant with Ishmael rather than Isaac, it cannot be said that Muslims worship the same God. Allah != YHVH
The fact is that Israel is a hard-working nation, notwithstanding the high unemployment rate. It had a burgeoning tourism industry, which is actually many industries, that provided tons of jobs for Israelis until the Arabs began the current intifada in 2000. The modern state is just 55 years old and has been attacked virtually non-stop, yet it rivals the world with its technology and science. Its military is more sophisticated than the U.S.'s in both technology and tactics. (U.S. special ops received training from the IDF.) It even has a space program. Israel has (or had) many software companies. It's no coincidence that ICQ is more popular than other IMs (at least AIM) in the Middle East and Europe; it was made by Mirabilis, an Israeli country.
Now compare this to the Arab-controlled territories. They get $4 billion too, but what do they do with it? Where are their industries? Here's what happens:
An article in the Washington Post talks about a possible electronic "fig leaf" over sensitive areas. Well, now terrorists know exactly where to put their weapons.
What if Saddam DoSes your bullets?
321781: STOP A in nt!KiAttachProcess+0x12 from win32k!PDEVOBJ::UnloadFontFile in Windows 2000
I don't know if I'd prefer that. Taking note of how people spell words gives me a clue about their identity. When I see words like "localisation" and "whilst," it at least it tells me I'm getting a view from a non-American. A commenter in a recent Slashdot journal of one of my friends exclaimed "Mazel Tov!" (Hebrew for "Congratulations"), so I can reasonably assume that he is probably Jewish. If everything was automagically changed to my locale, it would look as if everybody was more like me than they really are. That would be stripping out revealing meta-information.
The good thing about locales, though, is that it gives you fine-grained preferences (if I understand it correctly; I just skimmed over a few paragraphs of the spec page).
What are the other possible interpretations of "serious consequences"? Please explain how those other interpretations would have amounted to doing something more serious than what we had done before, and explain how those measures would have been effective in disarming Saddam Hussein fully, immediately, and unconditionally.
But that's not what's happening. It's just two Communist countries agreeing that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." The Cold War is over, but I don't think underlying sentiments have changed much.
Native Europeans are ditching religion, but Muslim immigrants are flooding into Europe. The religious component of Europe's character is being filled by Islam rather than Christianity.
I agree with you very much about this. Sometimes I find myself spending all my time with other Christians and being secluded from most of the corruption out there. (Maybe I should read my own advice. :-/ *sigh*) I don't have cable TV and rarely go to movies. Sometimes it is helpful to listen to music or see movies that show evil to remind me how bad it is out there. I think that playing violent video games could actually motivate you to be a better Christian. Still, it could desensitize you to it if you play too much (and you'd lose the ability to determine that threshold), and I'd hate to buy the game in the first place which would promote the message to game makers that people want more violent games. I think the negative outweighs the positive overall.
First of all, playing video games with evil content is not "dealing with" evil. You are participating in it! The Christian faith "deals with" death, violence, and evil by requiring each believer to put on the full armor of God. (Eph. 6:10-18) The Christian surely does not deal with evil by diving head first into it and revelling in it. The spiritual fruits of the faith include kindness, gentleness, peace, and love (Gal. 5:22-23), and love does not delight in evil. (1 Cor. 13:6)
Although not isolated from the evil of the world, we are to be insulated from it. Peter urges, "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul." (1 Peter 2:11)
A faith that does not endeavour to accept sinners is arrogant
Woooah, buddy, you are way off the reservation. How does having games with Christian themes reject sinners from the faith? Anyway, we certainly must engage all people, but our purposes are to love them, meet their needs, and share the Gospel, not so that we can partake of and enjoy their evil for ourselves.
Is there evil in a videogame? Well, then, it is a reflection of our world.
How can you enjoy games that reflect the evil things of the world? "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (1 John 2:15) This is the claim of Hollywood: "We just reflect society." Yes, the absolute worst part of society! And eventually, all of society looks like that.
How much better to reflect the beautiful things! "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy -- meditate on these things. " (Phil. 4:8)
A faith that flirts with evil is arrogant and immature. Always remember the most important commandment. (Mark 12:30) Study and meditate on what it means.
There is very, very little genuine Christianity in Europe. Cathedrals stand as museums for tourists to gawk at. Europe's glorious spiritual heritage is quickly fading into history as Christianity is replaced by Islam and atheism. My brother is living in France now, and he says it is a "dark place."
"New Study: Men and Women Are Different!"
"War Dims Hope for Peace"
"Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures"
"Something Went Wrong in Plane Crash"
"Your Brain May Have Amazing Powers!"
Well, of course! Who would dispute that? (I refer only to the headline; not the article's content or claims.) Even accounting for the relative meaning of "amazing," it ought to be obvious that the brain is a very, very powerful thing. "We're at the same stage in brain research that biology was in the 19th century. We know almost nothing about the mind," a professor in the article said.
The task of memorizing text is a tedious task, but in truth, it is completely effortless. It's just the recalling of memories that is difficult, as the article says. I sometimes read scores of comments after a Slashdot article, come back to the comments after 300 more have been posted, and I know which ones I read before and which are new. I can watch a movie I haven't seen in years, and recall very specific facial expressions and words. I can replay several thousands of songs in my mind if I get the right memory cue for each.
When I realized that I remembered everything I read, I decided that I didn't really need to use bookmarks anymore. I flip close to where I stopped reading and within a minute find the exact sentence I last ended. I usually have to read bits here and there before I get to my place, but that helps me to bring what I last read to the forefront of my mind and improves the mental continuity from reading session to reading session by recalling my mental state at the time I stopped reading before. This function is nearly identically analagous to the Lock/Unlock feature in Windows 2000 (as opposed to logging off).
Everything you have ever seen, heard, felt, and experienced is stored in your brain! To me, that is an incomprehensible truth! (Yes, that goatse.cx image will be stored in your brain cells forever! You cannot delete it... without severe side effects.) I heard this claim long ago, but I see more and more validation of the claim all the time as I learn how to look for it.
Infinite information in a finite space -- a finite number of neurons. That means that the brain is really not comparable to a hard drive or computer. If that were the case then 640k really would have been enough memory. And the brain doesn't store only the raw information of observation, but much more data in the processed results of observation: patterns recognized, associations determined, mental creations, emotions, ideas, visions, and dreams. Can anyone explain the "mind's eye"?
There are many deep, dark, miraculous secrets in that gray mass above our shoulders. Its abilities in even the common person or mentally handicapped person are absolutely awe-inspiring. If you don't think the brain has amazing powers, either you don't know much about the brain or you just haven't sat down and contemplated its astonishing capabilities.
Here's your answer.
I believe that some Christian fundamentalists to this day still insist that pi=3.
Who? Name me one!
I use the SmoothWheel extension.
The truth of user agent strings shall set you free?
I agree with the poster regarding being truthful. I just disagree with his use of the phrase "the truth shall set you free." It cheapens the work of ...
The most desirable place to live in Cuba.
I used the term "fundamentalist Mormon" because I saw it on a pro-polygamy Mormon site -- a site that was criticizing the LDS Church for its anti-polygamy stance. I don't know if that group claimed ties to Joseph Smith. I welcome your corrections concerning your beliefs.
The modern LDS Church prohibits polygamy, but most fundamentalist Mormons do practice it. It has been a staple of Mormonism since the religion's founding in 1830 by Joseph Smith, who is said to have had 27 wives. It seems that the LDS Church has less say about the behavior of Mormons (the Church has decided it hates that term) than the Vatican does about that of Roman Catholics, and we know how strictly obedient American Catholics are to the Pope. ;-)