There is quite a differnece between speaking english and writting PERL.
YThe human mind is quite capable of picking up on meanings from context and all sorts of things.
The simple fact is that English can be pretty damned "Bad" and break alot of the ruls, and still be understood.
In perl I can't just start using a new function and have the language figure out what the function is suposed to do and do it from context. Humans can, fo rthe most part.
If I say "Witch store are you going to?" yes I used the "wrong" spelling for the word "Which" but...does that mean you didn't understand it?
I don't know about you, but I know a few people who are not native english speakers, and who have pretty horrid english grammar (mostly I imagine as a result of their native language not containing certain verb tenses and things like that) yet...I have no trouble conversing with them
little irks me more than to see someone make a valid statment on a topic, then see people degrade into attacking the grammar or spelling of the words and sentances used, rather than contributing anything usefull.
If all a person has to say is "Duh, you spelled it wrong your an idiot" or "duh you left your particple dangling"....then in the words of Red Green "Then you have nothing to say, just shut up"
1) Allow Faculty to conceal and carry. Yes normal faculty should be able to carry concealed weapons if they wish.
Think about it...if you and a friend were going to "Go in" and shoot up a school...the first target is any armed gaurds (if there are any).
If even 1 or 2 teachers in Columbine had a gun with them, it could have been ended alot faster. (not that there were many casualties considering that it WAS a completly unarmed population... deathtoll should have been, by all rights, more on the order of 50 or 80, given the firepower of the 2)
2) require psychiatric training of all teachers I am not saying make them all psychologists...just some basic training. Not too much more then it should take to give the DSM IV a glance.
The reasoning for this is so that teachers can learn to recognize dangerous patterns. Perhaps this wont aid security too much, but it may help them get help for some disturbed individuals who slipped under normal "Radar" be gotten help.It should also help advance those students who cause trouble because they are bored and ready for higher level of learning (under the current system they are labeled "Troublemakers" and sent off to slower classes)
> as I said before, of the very well defined line > between being a criminal and just being > different. And you can always punish a > guard for abusing his/her power.
Yes, tomorow when the gaurd first enters the school you can, sure. Have you not noticed that the most well defined "Line" today can easily be "Nudged" tomorow?
The fear is this... today its armed gaurds at the door. They watch the metal detector and get called if there is a fight or gun.
Tomorow...well since we already HAVE the armed gaurds and are paying them, lets expand their duties a bit! Why not have them search for drugs too.
You know they have been doing such a splended job, and we have had no problems with the gaurds ...lets have them do all locker searches.
hmmm... this is working out great. Lets just give them the power for random locker searches.
The problem here is that each day the line moves a little farther. Its the nature of power, once you put someone in a position of power, they want more power.
Look at the government and our police. Every day it seems the line between where they are allowed to search without concent and where they arn't seems to blur a little more.
Under current law, police can sieze your property, money, car, etc without even charging you with a crime, or worst...after you have been aquitted of a crime! (its a civil case)
Where does the money go after they have auctioned off your car? back to the police budget.
Do you think this came over night? It was numerous years and differnt sucessive laws that made this possible. First forfeiture laws. Then drug laws, then finnally laws that let them forfeit more easily in drug cases, etc.
Witha little research you will see that abuse of this system is so rampant that some police departments practiclly run themselves off intimidating drivers and "Forfeiting" their money once the officer "Sees marijuna residue" on the money (what that is exactly several people woulf like to know)
Our society is slowly creeping towards a police state. More and more laws. More and more power to the police. Putting armed gaurds in schools serves ONLY to further that agenda by de-sensitising kids to it.
Lets take a little history quiz: Name a program where little kids are "trained" by men in uniform. They are taught all forms of propaganda and lies about "The Enemy" and encouraged to turn in ANYONE who they see doing bad subersive things ESPECIALLY their own parents (so we can get them help of course)?
A) Hitler Youth Program B) The Dare Program C) Both
Ill give you a hint...the answer is C. But perhaps we think its right that the government use children as spys against their own parents. Maybe its good that we take children away from parents, no matter how loving and fair, just just because their kid caught them smoking a joint. (Its happend, I have personally talked to people who saw this happen first hand)
I don't see why now is the time to impliment security in schools. As Mr Katz said, student violence has actually reached its lowest levels in many years. Obviously then something is being done right in the absence of "Security". Why not foster that?
If you really want "Security" then its simple. Mandate mandatory firearms safty at a young age, then let every kid and every teacher carry guns to school.
A psychotic gunslinger wouldn't make it 5 feet if people were armed. The simple fact people forget is that guns are to people what Atom Bombs are to nations. If everybody has them, then nobody can use one, without immediate and deadly retaliation (possibly from 3rd parties)
This owuld also have the effect of teaching kids enough about guns in the safety course that they would know how to handle one (thus loweing the chance of gun related accidents)
Patent laws are National. If some country doesn't want to impliment patent laws they do NOT have to. If they decide not to honor US patents, they don't have to.
If any country isn't playing fair it is the USA! The worlds last SuperBully, who seems to enjoy making policy and forcing it on other countries with political and economic pressure.
In any case...yes Patent preditors ARE playing by the rules...that doesn't mean that they are playing fair (unless you are a legalist..and thus believe that the Law is always right and fair no matter what the law says)
If a big company comes to you and says "We have 1000 patents, your software is violating 30 of them, pay us $30,000 or we will sue" What do you do?
Do you have the resources to verify that you are in fact violating any patents? Do you have the money to fight it in court?
The simple fact is that you might NOT be violating their patent. In fact, it may not even be a rightful patent, you might be able to show prior art and invalidate it. However, the time and resources to find and demonstrate prior art in court for 30 patents (hell, even 1 patent sometimes) might be alot more than they are asking for!
Interesting but.... I remember it stated on one of the big MP3 talks a while back (where a lawsuit was involved) That the law could be interpreted that once you HAVE an mp3 it is legal to USE it...even if the SOURCE was illegal (ie, Fair Use applies just from having a copy, legal or not)
I don't know if this would aply to software (it would in my eyes, but courts may see it differntly) but Reverse Engineering IS fair use.
Then again...large companies et al seem to conviniently forget about fair use (RIAA being just one example) Unfortunaly...it seems the courts do too ocasionally:(
I am not a legalist. The laws of the country are wholly inconsequential to my world veiw. The law, even the constitution can say one thing, and still be wrong.
I never said the first ammendment garaunteed free speach or freedom from censorship. ALL it does is say that congress can not impose censorship.
Freedom has very little to do with government (except in that governments are instituted to protect freedom under many philosophies)
What I say is that ANYONE has the RIGHT to say whatever they wish at ANY time. Regardless of what any government says. Speaking ones mind can NEVER infringe on someones rights (speaking ones mind meaning expressing oneself...the ONLY things it does not include, in my eyes, are devulging private facts about another person, and acts of slander)
There is no:Right to not be offended". Whether you are offended or not is your choice. Not listening to what someone says, is your choice.
As such yes...I took too literal an interpretation before of "your fist, my nose" (or vica versa).
If I say "I don't see any moral problem with killing babies that are disabled" I have not "Hit your nose" yet...I have stated _MY_ opionon on a subject.
If I say in public "This man contraced AIDS by having sex with his homosexual partner" then... I have slammed my proverbial fist into your nose. (whether its true or not)
is that a better one?
All john Katz, or I are arguing for is this: That people should be allowd to express themselves. People should be allowed to put forth topics for intellectual discussion.
If anyone has a problem with these topics the RIGHT thing to do is to either ignore it and "not listen" or...put forth a usefull argument (you know...attack the idea not the person... "This man is advocating murder" is not constructive)
In the end the basic human rights (which are the basis for my worldview) are that of "Life, Liberty, and property". Safety is not a basic right, food is not a basic right, water is not a basic right, and if those are NOT basic rights, then certainly the "Freedom from offence" is not a basic right.
I liked the site. Its too bad the guy was hunted down like that. I mean Come on people... if you don't like the joke then shake your head in disgust and move on.
Noone was forcing anyone to read it. if it doesn't suit YOUR sense of humor then fine. Don't read it.
Ok yes...secrets need to be kept from the enemy during a hot war. True.
However the government should NOT be able to make documents secret from its people.
So barring troop movements and wartime weapons development...the government should have NO secrets. The people should know EVERYTHING about the killing of JFK that the gov does... the CIA should not have been allowed to destroy most of the MKULTRA documents. No secrets at all. very simple. Hell I was GLAD when China stole our nuclear secrets. I don't trust our government with nukes any more then I trust the chinese, at least if we both have the same technology, there is a better chance we wont use them. of course what do I know? I think the Army should ONLY be applied when we NEED to engage in total warfare and that advancing the political agendas of a meglamaniac or two is not a valid use of an army (however...thats all we have done with the army since WWII)
Heres a good one... early 1980s Reagan Becomes president with Bush at his side as VP. Who is Bush? Ex head of the CIA. What do they do? Turn up the heat on the drug war even more. Make prices of drugs like cocaine go up. What does the CIA do? They start selling crack in poor neiborhoods. Coincidence? I think not. As for the NSA...im not sure what to make of them. they keep secret and I don't like that. Government shouldn't be allowed to keep secrets.
Well the idea of not allowing evidence in court is to make the search futile...so theoretically it protetcs a person from the search happening.
Hows this. Give the prosecutor discretion on using the illegal evidence. If he does use it, then he and the officer who obtained it illegaly should be charged with "Conspiracy to violate the rights of a citizen" with a mandatory minimum sentance of 4 years. They should be charged whather the evidence wins the case or looses.
Well the greeks and egyptions did some pretty advanced stuff for their day....
I have to admit I am still learning about TTFonts themselves. I mostly just try to maintain and fix problems in the supporting code, get documentation correct, etc. Want to learn more about truetype fonts themselves but...time is getting in the way (or rather lack thereof)
Hopefully this can all get resolved peacefully (or the patent can run out...just another 10 years or so)
xfstt did take some brilliant programming. As the current maintainer I can only take credit for a few of the newer features...mere hacks compared to a complete rendering engine that was written from scratch by the original author.
However we do need to hope that Apple doesn't decide to use their patent...defending it could mean costly legal battles for some of us.
As the Xfstt maintainer I thought I should post a note. I was informed of this patent a few weeks ago but hadn't had a chance to really look at it beyond a quick glance.
Suposedly it only covers "hinting". Someone had said to me that prior art almost definitly exists (going back to the egyptions and the ancient greeks no less).
It was also pointed out that Apple has never pressed this issue with anyone. I have been to busy lately to figure out how/if to respond to this problem.
As it is now I plan to release xfstt 1.0 within a few days (no major changes since the last one.. just a few minor fixes and updates that make things a bit more polished).
If Apple isn't enforcing the patent...then might as well let sleeping dogs lie. At worst it can be moved to servers and maintainership outside of the non-free world.
Pihkal and tihkal are great books. However if you think they will teach you to make drugs well...not without a lab.
ALl of the drug synthesis in these books are written up and designed for a competent chemist in a lab. Remember, Shulgin (the author) had a DEA schedual 1 chemicals licence...he could obtain virtually any chemical he wanted without the DEA even batting an eyelash.
If you tried to buy the precursors he used you would be laughed at. If you did buy the, the DEA would be knocking on your door promptly.
However the book is great. Part 2 of each book is available online (www.lycaeum.org under transcribed books) with the authors permission. Tho I suggest buying the book sbecause part 1 (the novel...kind of autobiographical of Shulgins life) is excellent.
Have you ever read the libertarien statement of principals? Here are a few choice quotes: (emphasis added by me)
"We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they DO NOT FORCIBLY INTERFERE with the EQUAL RIGHTS of others to live in whatever manner they choose"
"...--accordingly we opose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminant domain, and support the PROHIBITION OF ROBBERY, TRESPASS, FRAUD, and MISREPRESENTATION."
Libertarianism is about freedom.
The movie companies are doing what they do not because of fear of warping childrens minds (which is an absurd idea in the first place) but because congress has expressed interest in the insane notion that watching movies and playing video games can be harmfull to children if they see "Bad Things".
In attempting to regulate entertainment industries (which they tried to do a few years ago) the government is overstepping its bounds. It is not the job of the government to play moral gardian.
Why is "breaking the law" the important metric? What about Civil Disobediance?
This is about protesting the attitude of these corperations in an effort to make them change. If breaking the law in a non-violent manner is what it takes...then I say do it. Be willing to face any consequences if they should arrise (like lawsuits and jail time) but do it.
Ok... your right we shouldn't restrict prayer in school. We should teach kids right. You tell all the children to bring their prayer rugs and I will go to the schools and make sure to figure out which way is the proper direction to face Mecca so that they can face the proper way as they pray 5 tim...oh...that wasn't what you had in mind? Ok...then I will recruit some Rabbi's to lead prayer every day...oops no? How about a Catholic preist? or maybe a Baptist? Too bad David Koresh is gone..im sure he would have been happy to do the job. How baout this..lets keep it secular! AFAIK there is no law anywhere saying that kids CAN'T pray in school, just that the faculty can't organize them and make them do it. I am fine with that! If a student wwished to pray during the day and isn't allowed to or is stopped from it...then I say we have a problem.
Also who are you to judge the mother or Mr Katz? Are you saying she is a horrible mother because she trusts her children? Perhaps because she feels that they are mature enough to watch this movie or that she does NOT believe that movies are harmfull to children? That would make her a horrible mother wouldn't it.
Sure Mr Katz lied and cheated. Was that the best way to do what he did? no perhaps not. However it worked. In the end all he did was uphold the mothers Wishes.
Slashdot Mirror
I AM a programmer.
There is quite a differnece between speaking
english and writting PERL.
YThe human mind is quite capable of picking
up on meanings from context and all sorts
of things.
The simple fact is that English can be pretty
damned "Bad" and break alot of the ruls, and
still be understood.
In perl I can't just start using a new function
and have the language figure out what the
function is suposed to do and do it from context.
Humans can, fo rthe most part.
If I say "Witch store are you going to?" yes I
used the "wrong" spelling for the word "Which"
but...does that mean you didn't understand it?
I don't know about you, but I know a few people
who are not native english speakers, and who
have pretty horrid english grammar (mostly I
imagine as a result of their native language not
containing certain verb tenses and things like
that) yet...I have no trouble conversing with them
little irks me more than to see someone make
a valid statment on a topic, then see people
degrade into attacking the grammar or spelling
of the words and sentances used, rather than
contributing anything usefull.
If all a person has to say is "Duh, you spelled it
wrong your an idiot" or "duh you left your
particple dangling"....then in the words of
Red Green "Then you have nothing to say, just
shut up"
1) Allow Faculty to conceal and carry. Yes normal
faculty should be able to carry concealed weapons
if they wish.
Think about it...if you and a friend were going
to "Go in" and shoot up a school...the first
target is any armed gaurds (if there are any).
If even 1 or 2 teachers in Columbine had a gun
with them, it could have been ended alot faster.
(not that there were many casualties considering
that it WAS a completly unarmed population...
deathtoll should have been, by all rights, more
on the order of 50 or 80, given the firepower
of the 2)
2) require psychiatric training of all teachers
I am not saying make them all psychologists...just
some basic training. Not too much more then it
should take to give the DSM IV a glance.
The reasoning for this is so that teachers can
learn to recognize dangerous patterns. Perhaps
this wont aid security too much, but it may help
them get help for some disturbed individuals who
slipped under normal "Radar" be gotten help.It
should also help advance those students who
cause trouble because they are bored and ready
for higher level of learning
(under the current system they are labeled
"Troublemakers" and sent off to slower classes)
hmmm ok so I have 2 steps so far...
> as I said before, of the very well defined line
> between being a criminal and just being
> different. And you can always punish a
> guard for abusing his/her power.
Yes, tomorow when the gaurd first enters the
school you can, sure. Have you not noticed that
the most well defined "Line" today can easily
be "Nudged" tomorow?
The fear is this... today its armed gaurds at the
door. They watch the metal detector and get called
if there is a fight or gun.
Tomorow...well since we already HAVE the armed
gaurds and are paying them, lets expand their
duties a bit! Why not have them search for drugs
too.
You know they have been doing such a splended
job, and we have had no problems with the gaurds
...lets have them do all locker searches.
hmmm... this is working out great. Lets just give
them the power for random locker searches.
The problem here is that each day the line moves
a little farther. Its the nature of power, once
you put someone in a position of power, they want
more power.
Look at the government and our police. Every day
it seems the line between where they are allowed
to search without concent and where they arn't
seems to blur a little more.
Under current law, police can sieze your property,
money, car, etc without even charging you with
a crime, or worst...after you have been aquitted
of a crime! (its a civil case)
Where does the money go after they have auctioned
off your car? back to the police budget.
Do you think this came over night? It was numerous
years and differnt sucessive laws that made this
possible. First forfeiture laws. Then drug laws,
then finnally laws that let them forfeit more
easily in drug cases, etc.
Witha little research you will see that abuse of
this system is so rampant that some police
departments practiclly run themselves off intimidating drivers and "Forfeiting" their money
once the officer "Sees marijuna residue" on the
money (what that is exactly several people woulf
like to know)
Our society is slowly creeping towards a police
state. More and more laws. More and more power to
the police. Putting armed gaurds in schools
serves ONLY to further that agenda by
de-sensitising kids to it.
Lets take a little history quiz:
Name a program where little kids are "trained" by
men in uniform. They are taught all forms of
propaganda and lies about "The Enemy" and
encouraged to turn in ANYONE who they see
doing bad subersive things ESPECIALLY their
own parents (so we can get them help of course)?
A) Hitler Youth Program
B) The Dare Program
C) Both
Ill give you a hint...the answer is C.
But perhaps we think its right that the government
use children as spys against their own parents.
Maybe its good that we take children away from
parents, no matter how loving and fair, just
just because their kid caught them smoking a
joint. (Its happend, I have personally talked to
people who saw this happen first hand)
I don't see why now is the time to impliment
security in schools. As Mr Katz said, student
violence has actually reached its lowest levels
in many years. Obviously then something is being
done right in the absence of "Security". Why
not foster that?
If you really want "Security" then its simple.
Mandate mandatory firearms safty at a young age,
then let every kid and every teacher carry
guns to school.
A psychotic gunslinger wouldn't make it 5 feet if
people were armed. The simple fact people forget
is that guns are to people what Atom Bombs are to
nations. If everybody has them, then nobody
can use one, without immediate and deadly
retaliation (possibly from 3rd parties)
This owuld also have the effect of teaching kids
enough about guns in the safety course that they
would know how to handle one (thus loweing
the chance of gun related accidents)
Other nations didn't play by patent rules?
Patent laws are National. If some country
doesn't want to impliment patent laws they
do NOT have to. If they decide not to honor US
patents, they don't have to.
If any country isn't playing fair it is the USA!
The worlds last SuperBully, who seems to enjoy
making policy and forcing it on other countries
with political and economic pressure.
In any case...yes Patent preditors ARE playing by
the rules...that doesn't mean that they are
playing fair (unless you are a legalist..and thus
believe that the Law is always right and fair
no matter what the law says)
If a big company comes to you and says "We have
1000 patents, your software is violating
30 of them, pay us $30,000 or we will sue"
What do you do?
Do you have the resources to verify that you
are in fact violating any patents? Do you
have the money to fight it in court?
The simple fact is that you might NOT be violating
their patent. In fact, it may not even be a
rightful patent, you might be able to show prior
art and invalidate it. However, the time and
resources to find and demonstrate prior art
in court for 30 patents (hell, even 1 patent
sometimes) might be alot more than they are
asking for!
is that fair?
Interesting but....
:(
I remember it stated on one of the big MP3
talks a while back (where a lawsuit was involved)
That the law could be interpreted that once you
HAVE an mp3 it is legal to USE it...even if the
SOURCE was illegal (ie, Fair Use applies just from
having a copy, legal or not)
I don't know if this would aply to software
(it would in my eyes, but courts may see it
differntly) but Reverse Engineering IS fair
use.
Then again...large companies et al seem to
conviniently forget about fair use (RIAA being
just one example) Unfortunaly...it seems the
courts do too ocasionally
I am not a legalist. The laws of the country
:Right to not be offended". Whether
are wholly inconsequential to my world veiw.
The law, even the constitution can say one
thing, and still be wrong.
I never said the first ammendment garaunteed
free speach or freedom from censorship. ALL it
does is say that congress can not impose censorship.
Freedom has very little to do with government
(except in that governments are instituted to
protect freedom under many philosophies)
What I say is that ANYONE has the RIGHT to say
whatever they wish at ANY time. Regardless of
what any government says. Speaking ones mind
can NEVER infringe on someones rights (speaking
ones mind meaning expressing oneself...the ONLY
things it does not include, in my eyes, are
devulging private facts about another person,
and acts of slander)
There is no
you are offended or not is your choice. Not
listening to what someone says, is your choice.
As such yes...I took too literal an interpretation
before of "your fist, my nose" (or vica versa).
If I say "I don't see any moral problem with killing babies that are disabled"
I have not "Hit your nose" yet...I have stated
_MY_ opionon on a subject.
If I say in public "This man contraced AIDS by
having sex with his homosexual partner" then...
I have slammed my proverbial fist into your nose.
(whether its true or not)
is that a better one?
All john Katz, or I are arguing for is this:
That people should be allowd to express
themselves. People should be allowed to put
forth topics for intellectual discussion.
If anyone has a problem with these topics the
RIGHT thing to do is to either ignore it and
"not listen" or...put forth a usefull argument
(you know...attack the idea not the person...
"This man is advocating murder" is not constructive)
In the end the basic human rights (which are the
basis for my worldview) are that of "Life, Liberty, and property". Safety is not a basic
right, food is not a basic right, water is
not a basic right, and if those are NOT basic
rights, then certainly the "Freedom from offence"
is not a basic right.
I liked the site. Its too bad the guy was hunted
down like that. I mean Come on people...
if you don't like the joke then shake your
head in disgust and move on.
Noone was forcing anyone to read it.
if it doesn't suit YOUR sense of humor
then fine. Don't read it.
Ok yes...secrets need to be kept from the enemy
during a hot war. True.
However the government should NOT be able to
make documents secret from its people.
So barring troop movements and wartime weapons
development...the government should have NO
secrets. The people should know EVERYTHING about
the killing of JFK that the gov does...
the CIA should not have been allowed to destroy
most of the MKULTRA documents.
No secrets at all. very simple. Hell I was GLAD
when China stole our nuclear secrets. I don't
trust our government with nukes any more then
I trust the chinese, at least if we both have
the same technology, there is a better chance
we wont use them.
of course what do I know?
I think the Army should ONLY be applied when
we NEED to engage in total warfare and that
advancing the political agendas of a
meglamaniac or two is not a valid use of an army
(however...thats all we have done with the army
since WWII)
Heres a good one...
early 1980s Reagan Becomes president with Bush
at his side as VP. Who is Bush? Ex head of the
CIA.
What do they do? Turn up the heat on the drug war
even more. Make prices of drugs like cocaine
go up. What does the CIA do? They start selling
crack in poor neiborhoods. Coincidence? I think
not.
As for the NSA...im not sure what to make of them.
they keep secret and I don't like that. Government
shouldn't be allowed to keep secrets.
Well the idea of not allowing evidence in court
is to make the search futile...so theoretically it
protetcs a person from the search happening.
Hows this. Give the prosecutor discretion on using
the illegal evidence. If he does use it, then
he and the officer who obtained it illegaly
should be charged with "Conspiracy to violate
the rights of a citizen" with a mandatory
minimum sentance of 4 years. They should be
charged whather the evidence wins the case or
looses.
Well the greeks and egyptions did some pretty
advanced stuff for their day....
I have to admit I am still learning about TTFonts
themselves. I mostly just try to maintain and
fix problems in the supporting code, get
documentation correct, etc. Want to learn more
about truetype fonts themselves but...time is
getting in the way (or rather lack thereof)
Hopefully this can all get resolved peacefully
(or the patent can run out...just another 10
years or so)
xfstt did take some brilliant programming. As
the current maintainer I can only take credit
for a few of the newer features...mere hacks
compared to a complete rendering engine that
was written from scratch by the original author.
However we do need to hope that Apple doesn't
decide to use their patent...defending it
could mean costly legal battles for some of us.
As the Xfstt maintainer I thought I should post a
note. I was informed of this patent a few weeks
ago but hadn't had a chance to really look at
it beyond a quick glance.
Suposedly it only covers "hinting". Someone
had said to me that prior art almost definitly exists (going back to the egyptions and the
ancient greeks no less).
It was also pointed out that Apple has never
pressed this issue with anyone. I have been to
busy lately to figure out how/if to respond to
this problem.
As it is now I plan to release xfstt 1.0 within
a few days (no major changes since the last one..
just a few minor fixes and updates that make
things a bit more polished).
If Apple isn't enforcing the patent...then might
as well let sleeping dogs lie. At worst it can
be moved to servers and maintainership outside
of the non-free world.
Pihkal and tihkal are great books.
However if you think they will teach you to make drugs well...not without a lab.
ALl of the drug synthesis in these books are written up and designed for a competent chemist
in a lab. Remember, Shulgin (the author) had a
DEA schedual 1 chemicals licence...he could obtain
virtually any chemical he wanted without the DEA
even batting an eyelash.
If you tried to buy the precursors he used you
would be laughed at. If you did buy the, the
DEA would be knocking on your door promptly.
However the book is great. Part 2 of each book is
available online (www.lycaeum.org under
transcribed books) with the authors permission.
Tho I suggest buying the book sbecause part 1
(the novel...kind of autobiographical of Shulgins
life) is excellent.
And if your mother is at a public school which
added censorware they can expect the students
and the ACLU to sue them....
just can't win can they?
As a libertarian I am apauld by your implication.
Have you ever read the libertarien statement
of principals? Here are a few choice quotes:
(emphasis added by me)
"We hold that all individuals have the right to
exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and
have the right to live in whatever manner they
choose, so long as they DO NOT FORCIBLY
INTERFERE with the EQUAL RIGHTS of others to
live in whatever manner they choose"
"...--accordingly we opose all government
interference with private property, such as
confiscation, nationalization, and eminant domain,
and support the PROHIBITION OF ROBBERY, TRESPASS,
FRAUD, and MISREPRESENTATION."
Libertarianism is about freedom.
The movie companies are doing what they do not because of fear of warping childrens minds (which
is an absurd idea in the first place) but because
congress has expressed interest in the insane
notion that watching movies and playing video games can be harmfull to children if they see
"Bad Things".
In attempting to regulate entertainment industries
(which they tried to do a few years ago) the
government is overstepping its bounds. It is not
the job of the government to play moral gardian.
Why is "breaking the law" the important metric?
What about Civil Disobediance?
This is about protesting the attitude of these
corperations in an effort to make them change.
If breaking the law in a non-violent manner
is what it takes...then I say do it. Be willing
to face any consequences if they should arrise
(like lawsuits and jail time) but do it.
Ok... your right we shouldn't restrict prayer in
school. We should teach kids right.
You tell all the children to bring their prayer
rugs and I will go to the schools and make sure
to figure out which way is the proper direction
to face Mecca so that they can face the proper
way as they pray 5 tim...oh...that wasn't what you
had in mind?
Ok...then I will recruit some Rabbi's to lead
prayer every day...oops no? How about a Catholic
preist? or maybe a Baptist? Too bad David Koresh
is gone..im sure he would have been happy to do the job.
How baout this..lets keep it secular! AFAIK there
is no law anywhere saying that kids CAN'T pray in
school, just that the faculty can't organize them
and make them do it. I am fine with that! If a
student wwished to pray during the day and
isn't allowed to or is stopped from it...then
I say we have a problem.
Also who are you to judge the mother or Mr Katz?
Are you saying she is a horrible mother because
she trusts her children? Perhaps because she feels
that they are mature enough to watch this movie
or that she does NOT believe that movies are
harmfull to children?
That would make her a horrible mother wouldn't it.
Sure Mr Katz lied and cheated. Was that the best
way to do what he did? no perhaps not. However
it worked. In the end all he did was uphold
the mothers Wishes.