Set your password for things only when you are incredibly frustrated or bitter. Then after your computer ruins your mood because it won't let you log on, at least you'll be able to finally get in. It might make you hate everything though.
The one obvious good about corps is their ability to concentrate large amounts of capital. So in the case of research for the next evolution in chip architecture or a new automobile, the private inventor is way over his head. So a group of wealthy people would have to get together to fund it, and they would share the patent... and you see where I'm going? It would wind up that the corporation was removed in name only. I think the solution is to change the amount of time a patent is good for depending on the speed in which the field it has been issued for moves. Maybe electronics move slower than drugs, and need 7 years instead of 4 or so.
And to those that say "but a new drug costs 800 million to develop and they need 20 years to recoup that loss" I say you're mistaking a problem with the drug development process with an intellectual property problem. IF the price of drug development needs to come down, it needs to come down. If that means more dangerous medicines and the need to educate consumers on new risks, so be it. But since more likely it means less price gouging I think there's great room for improvement.
Historically, this doesn't work, and you should know better than to suggest such a head in the sand approach (no offense). It would be nice if we legalized a bunch of drugs and people just made the right choices about them and everything was wonderful. Unfortunately, that's not how things work, and we have very good evidence for this. Go look at Opium use 200 years ago in China, and the ensuing Opium Wars. If heroin was legal here, and advertised for, trust me, it would destroy the country. Where you are mistaken is in the belief that the evils that go along with our drug policy, all the violence etc, outweighs the bad that would happen when the average person's drug use skyrocketed. That may be true for many drugs, a few of the hallucinogenics I think you could make a good case for, but they don't really have violent distribution methods anyway.
For those that do, namely heroin and cocaine (and to some extent meth), trust me, we're better off with that stuff illegal. Look at how many people smoke tobacco. Clearly people can't make intelligent decisions about pleasure vs a tradeoff with their health. And heroin and meth addicts are useless, and in the latter case, dangerous. We don't need to all of a sudden have 30 million of them.
I know people still use those drugs, but obviously it is vastly less than the number that would if there were not massive legal disincentives and moreover a huge marketing force pushing them. Push to legalize pot, but most of the others are where they belong.
I was already thinking about that example and was hoping someone would post it. For those that don't know, he's the guy that Apocalypse Now was supposedly based on.
It (generally) depends on your state's definition of what constitutes a "secured premises." If you enter unallowed a place that meets the definition, you've already committed trespassing, and no one needs to have seen you or said boo. Generally speaking, an area will be considered "secured" if it has a fence, or a lock, or signs saying no trespass. Basically, if it looks like you obviously aren't supposed to be there.
Having said all that, I think you are probably incorrect on your assessment here. I suspect that a jury would come down on the side of it being obvious that you aren't supposed to stroll into the houses of others. Maybe if the door was open and you heard talking inside, you could claim you thought it might be an open party or something. But it'd be a dumb idea anyway because even if you won the criminal case, you'd probably lose the civil one that followed it. The "they have to tell you to leave" line I think is a little over used. It might apply to someone's unfenced lawn, but certainly not their actual house, and probably also not their electronic equipment.
I'm not pro or anti gun, but is your argument really that if we took away the attackers gun he would hijack a plane with boxcutters and fly it into the campus?
Guns are obviously not the only source of violence, and maybe you are replying to someone who didn't realize that. But even so, this doesn't have fuck to do with 9/11 and I have no idea why anyone would think it does. A gun was the weapon, so it's not unreasonable that people might take a look at guns when something like this happens. Same way people took a look at boxcutters, planes, and moreover cockpits when 9/11 happened.
Some good points, particularly about the relevance of gun control even when it's not flawless, but you should be aware that that point isn't relevant to this shooting. Someone who can kill >30 people with a semi automatic weapon is not likely to be just a rampaging idiot. Particularly because we've seen rampaging idiots before, and they get one or two and wound 8. This guy killed 30, and it's very probably that he had a lot of experience with guns and moreover already owned several. So whether he can go out and get another one isn't really an issue.
And btw, the type of person that gets a CCW isn't the type of person that would hide until it was over. But even you, I suspect, faced with screaming, crying, and dying people (some of them would be female, mind you) would be hard pressed not to act if you knew you had the ability to end it all.
Mod you up because I've already commented multiple times on this story, but I appreciate the good post. There ARE arguments against not arming campuses, but these stupid fantasy scenarios where the gun somehow contributes to the attackers arsenal or the trained CCW carrier kills more people than he saves in some hollywood shootout are ridiculous. So thanks.
You don't have half a second. You aren't Rambo, you aren't Arnold in Commando, and unless the gunman is pointing the gun at YOU (in which case you know the answer), you personally have plenty of time. So unless you definitively 100% know who's the bad guy, you don't pull the trigger. You wait and watch.
I know the idea of people around you carrying guns can be unsettling, but peoples that get CCWs know the law, and they know how to use guns. They aren't going to guess, and if they don't know the answer, they won't shoot. Period. And then they're obviously no worse than an unarmed citizen, and no big deal.
Don't distort arguments with stupid emotional appeals. If more people would die due to low profile incidents on a highly armed campus that people that die in these high profile incidents with unarmed campuses, then arming students is a bad idea, period. I don't think that situation is unreasonable to suspect considering 10's of thousands of gun related deaths a year and less than a fifty or a hundred coming from school shootings. And guess what, those people would have families too.
I am a believer in arming well trained law abiding citizens to deter crime, but the revelation that people that die have families isn't very awe inspiring. Either a policy saves more lives or it doesn't. Don't bullshit around with emotional appeals to crying parents.
Going offshore is not feasible for the casual radio station. And to the extent that that is the majority of internet radio (which is part of the appeal - it has been corporatized to death yet), any way you slice it we lose a huge number of american radio stations this way. And you're right to point out that that isn't everybody, or even most everybody, but I'd be stunned if this wasn't death for 10-20% of western internet radio. Again, that's obviosuly not all of it, but, for instance, black people constitute less that amount of America demographically, and we'd certainly notice if there weren't any black people any more. America does have _some_ culture to offer, and this is still a Very Bad Thing.
And please hear me out before you think you know my view guns.
The argument about scared armed students accidently killing bystanders holds no water. The type of person who gets issued a CCW generally has a deep understanding of when to pull the trigger, and takes the responsibility of the power they hold quite seriously. They don't just open fire when they hear gunshots, and as has been mentioned previously, statistically they are better and safer shots than actual police.
This has nothing to do with whether or not a more heavily armed populace would kill more people over time due to random arguments/rages/etc than it would save in high profile incidents such as this, but the scenario where a bunch of CCWs simply open up when there is a gunman about and wind of killing more people than they save does not exist in reality (or at least not at even close to a statistically relevant level).
Savor those first hours with Oblivion, because it's the best game you've ever played for the first 10-15 hours. I remember when I first blew a goblin across a cave with a lightning staff, and how good that felt.
But once all the wonderment at the eye candy has worn off, you'll come to some sad realizations (which I won't name because I sincerely hope you enjoy it as long as you can). But by the end, at least if you're like me, you'll spend the last 10 hour's of the game invisible because you're so tired of it.
And btw on game balance issues, if you're invisible, NOTHING will see you. So you can literally run carefree through most of the "important" parts of the game- i.e. the gates (to no penalty as I might remind you level scaling ensures you don't need anything from them except maybe one good 25 frost damamge on hit stone). That earns Bethesda a big WTF.
I wouldn't push the Afghanistan thing, it's not a very good point. Russia clearly lost there, and yes I am aware of the overarching US strategy involved.
Anyhow, the point about governments vs peoples goes back to the orginal question about whether winning wars is detrimental to a nation. My point was that the original post listed a number of _governments_ that died even after winning wars, but then a bunch of _peoples_ that survived after losing them. Peoples very rarely are exterminated, and I noted the obvious recent exception of the Native Americans (who lost an important set of wars). Governments fail all the time, and in fact not many governments nowadays are more than a few hundred years old. So finding governments that won wars and died and peoples that lost wars and survived is easy. Moreover though, it is misleading if you use it to claim that winning in war is detrimental. Hell, the first +5 on this page is noting that the idea of robo rules is stupid because in war it's too important to win to bullshit around with some Asimov style rules.
If you can prove me wrong so be it, but I think it's fair to say that while neither winning or losing a war will generally destroy a people, losing is the only one that carries that danger, and while governments that win wars will still ultimately fail (because most governments, for whatever reason do), governments that lose in war will tend to fail immediately. Therefore, it's better to win then lose. Except of course in the rare cases that the suffering makes a nation stronger, more so than it would have been without the destruction wreaked upon it by the loser. Had the Nazi's won WWII, you could probably make that argument about WWI.
Oh, and about history being written by the winners, all it means is that the winners tend to be the ones with the infrastructure and control to write about history, and they tend to favor their side, i.e. freedom fighters vs terrorists. It doesn't mean that some force prevents someone who lost from picking up a pen, just that you're much less likely to get his book because he's less likely to have any big factories etc etc.
That is actually fairly interesting. I guess the Scottish history is a little more... cohesive might be the right word... than I thought. But anyhow, any losses obviously didn't help them (though I know you are not aguing that).
This is total nonsense. First off, the Afghans _did_ beat the russians, as the Russians pulled out and stopped attacking. They didn't beat them in a strategic sense with tanks ans planes and whatnot, but they still clearly won. Secondly, your anecdotes don't makes sense. If the Celts that are around today are the same ones that were around to get the crap beaten out of them a thousand years ago, then guess what, the Romans are fine we just call them Italians now. Winning isn't bad, witness the USSR, the third reich, the Persian empire, on and on, for whom losing didn't work out well.
You're confusing governments with peoples. Yes the Irish are still around. So are the Italians, so, in fact, are the Germans, Japanese, and Brits. Winning or losing wars rarely affects that, with notable exceptions like the Native Americans, for whom I think it's pretty obvious losing was a bad thing. What aren't still around are governments. And while winning might not make one last forever, I think Hitler and Hirohito would tell you losing is much worse.
Seriously, the only way winning would not be a virtue, is if it led to complacency, arrogance, and ultimately weakness. But even then, you would have to _lose_ a war for it to matter. And really, with the exception of the Native American's most peoples have survived, and there's really no one to outlast. You are thinking of governments, and trust me, just because you can't think of the names of the governments that disappeared (fair because winners write history) they did.
But if everyone didn't lose their minds over it, so you had to hear about it every day, would you really give two shits? There are a lot of random assholes in the world. Maybe Imus is one of them, and maybe he was just being an asshole. But why the hell would you care? Just call him an asshole and move on. We don't need a huge media campaign and fucking Al and Jesse to come out just because someone called someone else a ho.
More importantly, and what I'm surprised no one has really brought up, is whether all this is good for ending/removing racism and discrimination. Wouldn't it be better to give mildly racist language less, rather than more power? Go call a white guy a honky, and he'll just look at you funny. I think we'll be winning when black people do the same thing to the n word, not when we pass a constitutional amendment banning its usage.
He lied under oath. You can talk about the complaint over the BJ being bullshit, and frankly I don't care either way, but seriously, the president is not allowed, ever, under any circumstances, to commit perjury. Like I said, I know Bush's deeds makes perjury about sexual impropriety seem like parks and rainbows, but it's still not ok. And JFK never said he didn't fuck Marilyn Monroe, or at least not to a court.
their baseball cards. Seriously, with the amount of restrictions on those shares, I don't understand why people started buying them in the first place. Never pay dividends, and are a second class set of shares that do not give any control over the company. What are you buying?
Well, besides a new home if you got in when they were at 85. Damn inane stock market.
Come on, we've gone through some bad shit with Bush, and I know it's got us begging for a return to the Clinton years, but there is (or there was) a certain amount of sanctity to the office of president. The president is not, and should not, be allowed to lie or otherwise be dishonest with the American citizenry.
Let's not lower the bar just because Bush is/was such a clusterfuck.
The difference was the Democratic controlled congress, particularly Democrats sitting as chairmen of committees (like the Judicial Committee) that can issue subpoenas. And the funny thing is, had it been 10 months ago, the bald face lying would have worked, because the republic congress had already shown time and time again that they would take the Bush Administration's word at face value, and not look further.
Gonzales would have said that the firings had nothing to do with politics or a peversion of the Judicial branch, Bush would have said Gonzales is a good man and I trust him, Democrats and many American would scream murder, but no subpoenas would be issued, and the truth would never be found. The news would stop reporting on it after a week, and that would be the end of it.
Watch how much the shape of American politics changes when we have actual checks and balances.
Thats from Bash and it doesn't even make sense to copy it here. If someone took control of your computer to have you say that you love cocks, why would they say "disregard that"? The answer is they wouldn't but you kept it there because you aren't even creative enough to rip something off well.
Owning rifles is frequently legal for minors. I don't know the exact number of states that this is the case for, but I know it's a fair number. Anyhow, it's owning handguns and _purchasing_ guns of any sort that is generally flat out. But if your dad wants to buy a hunting rifle and give it to you, that's in very many places OK.
I remember reading a very good article in Scientific American about decision making. Long story short, the point was that the best types of decisions are "optimal" i.e. ones that may turn out to be best, but "robust" ones that will do well under a wide range of ensuing circumstances. I think that needs to be the meme here. Cutting down on emissions and building more efficient machines works out well for everybody regardless of the extent or causes of the warming. The same can't be said for ignoring it or returning to a stone age lifestyle.
Some people in power need to remember what it actually means to be conservative, and start operating that way.
I don't think overrated necessarily means that you've been modded too highly, but simply that your current score is too high. So not overrated in the "other's opinion of you is too high i.e. you've already been modded up" but overrated in the sense that your current score is just too high, irrespective of whether it got there through modding, or started that way.
I'm not going to bother to read the comment you're referring to, because obviously it's irrelevant to my argument, but some comments don't deserve to be even 1s or 2s, and a somewhat broad but I think reasonable definition of "overrated" seems to qualify it to remedy those situations, even when the comment isn't trollish or flamebait. Being inane (unless it's a joke etc) or just plain wrong is a sin too.
Slashdot Mirror
Set your password for things only when you are incredibly frustrated or bitter. Then after your computer ruins your mood because it won't let you log on, at least you'll be able to finally get in. It might make you hate everything though.
The one obvious good about corps is their ability to concentrate large amounts of capital. So in the case of research for the next evolution in chip architecture or a new automobile, the private inventor is way over his head. So a group of wealthy people would have to get together to fund it, and they would share the patent... and you see where I'm going? It would wind up that the corporation was removed in name only. I think the solution is to change the amount of time a patent is good for depending on the speed in which the field it has been issued for moves. Maybe electronics move slower than drugs, and need 7 years instead of 4 or so.
And to those that say "but a new drug costs 800 million to develop and they need 20 years to recoup that loss" I say you're mistaking a problem with the drug development process with an intellectual property problem. IF the price of drug development needs to come down, it needs to come down. If that means more dangerous medicines and the need to educate consumers on new risks, so be it. But since more likely it means less price gouging I think there's great room for improvement.
Historically, this doesn't work, and you should know better than to suggest such a head in the sand approach (no offense). It would be nice if we legalized a bunch of drugs and people just made the right choices about them and everything was wonderful. Unfortunately, that's not how things work, and we have very good evidence for this. Go look at Opium use 200 years ago in China, and the ensuing Opium Wars. If heroin was legal here, and advertised for, trust me, it would destroy the country. Where you are mistaken is in the belief that the evils that go along with our drug policy, all the violence etc, outweighs the bad that would happen when the average person's drug use skyrocketed. That may be true for many drugs, a few of the hallucinogenics I think you could make a good case for, but they don't really have violent distribution methods anyway.
For those that do, namely heroin and cocaine (and to some extent meth), trust me, we're better off with that stuff illegal. Look at how many people smoke tobacco. Clearly people can't make intelligent decisions about pleasure vs a tradeoff with their health. And heroin and meth addicts are useless, and in the latter case, dangerous. We don't need to all of a sudden have 30 million of them.
I know people still use those drugs, but obviously it is vastly less than the number that would if there were not massive legal disincentives and moreover a huge marketing force pushing them. Push to legalize pot, but most of the others are where they belong.
I was already thinking about that example and was hoping someone would post it. For those that don't know, he's the guy that Apocalypse Now was supposedly based on.
It (generally) depends on your state's definition of what constitutes a "secured premises." If you enter unallowed a place that meets the definition, you've already committed trespassing, and no one needs to have seen you or said boo. Generally speaking, an area will be considered "secured" if it has a fence, or a lock, or signs saying no trespass. Basically, if it looks like you obviously aren't supposed to be there.
Having said all that, I think you are probably incorrect on your assessment here. I suspect that a jury would come down on the side of it being obvious that you aren't supposed to stroll into the houses of others. Maybe if the door was open and you heard talking inside, you could claim you thought it might be an open party or something. But it'd be a dumb idea anyway because even if you won the criminal case, you'd probably lose the civil one that followed it. The "they have to tell you to leave" line I think is a little over used. It might apply to someone's unfenced lawn, but certainly not their actual house, and probably also not their electronic equipment.
I'm not pro or anti gun, but is your argument really that if we took away the attackers gun he would hijack a plane with boxcutters and fly it into the campus?
Guns are obviously not the only source of violence, and maybe you are replying to someone who didn't realize that. But even so, this doesn't have fuck to do with 9/11 and I have no idea why anyone would think it does. A gun was the weapon, so it's not unreasonable that people might take a look at guns when something like this happens. Same way people took a look at boxcutters, planes, and moreover cockpits when 9/11 happened.
Some good points, particularly about the relevance of gun control even when it's not flawless, but you should be aware that that point isn't relevant to this shooting. Someone who can kill >30 people with a semi automatic weapon is not likely to be just a rampaging idiot. Particularly because we've seen rampaging idiots before, and they get one or two and wound 8. This guy killed 30, and it's very probably that he had a lot of experience with guns and moreover already owned several. So whether he can go out and get another one isn't really an issue.
And btw, the type of person that gets a CCW isn't the type of person that would hide until it was over. But even you, I suspect, faced with screaming, crying, and dying people (some of them would be female, mind you) would be hard pressed not to act if you knew you had the ability to end it all.
Mod you up because I've already commented multiple times on this story, but I appreciate the good post. There ARE arguments against not arming campuses, but these stupid fantasy scenarios where the gun somehow contributes to the attackers arsenal or the trained CCW carrier kills more people than he saves in some hollywood shootout are ridiculous. So thanks.
You don't have half a second. You aren't Rambo, you aren't Arnold in Commando, and unless the gunman is pointing the gun at YOU (in which case you know the answer), you personally have plenty of time. So unless you definitively 100% know who's the bad guy, you don't pull the trigger. You wait and watch.
I know the idea of people around you carrying guns can be unsettling, but peoples that get CCWs know the law, and they know how to use guns. They aren't going to guess, and if they don't know the answer, they won't shoot. Period. And then they're obviously no worse than an unarmed citizen, and no big deal.
Don't distort arguments with stupid emotional appeals. If more people would die due to low profile incidents on a highly armed campus that people that die in these high profile incidents with unarmed campuses, then arming students is a bad idea, period. I don't think that situation is unreasonable to suspect considering 10's of thousands of gun related deaths a year and less than a fifty or a hundred coming from school shootings. And guess what, those people would have families too.
I am a believer in arming well trained law abiding citizens to deter crime, but the revelation that people that die have families isn't very awe inspiring. Either a policy saves more lives or it doesn't. Don't bullshit around with emotional appeals to crying parents.
Going offshore is not feasible for the casual radio station. And to the extent that that is the majority of internet radio (which is part of the appeal - it has been corporatized to death yet), any way you slice it we lose a huge number of american radio stations this way. And you're right to point out that that isn't everybody, or even most everybody, but I'd be stunned if this wasn't death for 10-20% of western internet radio. Again, that's obviosuly not all of it, but, for instance, black people constitute less that amount of America demographically, and we'd certainly notice if there weren't any black people any more. America does have _some_ culture to offer, and this is still a Very Bad Thing.
And please hear me out before you think you know my view guns.
The argument about scared armed students accidently killing bystanders holds no water. The type of person who gets issued a CCW generally has a deep understanding of when to pull the trigger, and takes the responsibility of the power they hold quite seriously. They don't just open fire when they hear gunshots, and as has been mentioned previously, statistically they are better and safer shots than actual police.
This has nothing to do with whether or not a more heavily armed populace would kill more people over time due to random arguments/rages/etc than it would save in high profile incidents such as this, but the scenario where a bunch of CCWs simply open up when there is a gunman about and wind of killing more people than they save does not exist in reality (or at least not at even close to a statistically relevant level).
Savor those first hours with Oblivion, because it's the best game you've ever played for the first 10-15 hours. I remember when I first blew a goblin across a cave with a lightning staff, and how good that felt.
But once all the wonderment at the eye candy has worn off, you'll come to some sad realizations (which I won't name because I sincerely hope you enjoy it as long as you can). But by the end, at least if you're like me, you'll spend the last 10 hour's of the game invisible because you're so tired of it.
And btw on game balance issues, if you're invisible, NOTHING will see you. So you can literally run carefree through most of the "important" parts of the game- i.e. the gates (to no penalty as I might remind you level scaling ensures you don't need anything from them except maybe one good 25 frost damamge on hit stone). That earns Bethesda a big WTF.
Anyhow, cheers.
I wouldn't push the Afghanistan thing, it's not a very good point. Russia clearly lost there, and yes I am aware of the overarching US strategy involved.
Anyhow, the point about governments vs peoples goes back to the orginal question about whether winning wars is detrimental to a nation. My point was that the original post listed a number of _governments_ that died even after winning wars, but then a bunch of _peoples_ that survived after losing them. Peoples very rarely are exterminated, and I noted the obvious recent exception of the Native Americans (who lost an important set of wars). Governments fail all the time, and in fact not many governments nowadays are more than a few hundred years old. So finding governments that won wars and died and peoples that lost wars and survived is easy. Moreover though, it is misleading if you use it to claim that winning in war is detrimental. Hell, the first +5 on this page is noting that the idea of robo rules is stupid because in war it's too important to win to bullshit around with some Asimov style rules.
If you can prove me wrong so be it, but I think it's fair to say that while neither winning or losing a war will generally destroy a people, losing is the only one that carries that danger, and while governments that win wars will still ultimately fail (because most governments, for whatever reason do), governments that lose in war will tend to fail immediately. Therefore, it's better to win then lose. Except of course in the rare cases that the suffering makes a nation stronger, more so than it would have been without the destruction wreaked upon it by the loser. Had the Nazi's won WWII, you could probably make that argument about WWI.
Oh, and about history being written by the winners, all it means is that the winners tend to be the ones with the infrastructure and control to write about history, and they tend to favor their side, i.e. freedom fighters vs terrorists. It doesn't mean that some force prevents someone who lost from picking up a pen, just that you're much less likely to get his book because he's less likely to have any big factories etc etc.
That is actually fairly interesting. I guess the Scottish history is a little more... cohesive might be the right word... than I thought. But anyhow, any losses obviously didn't help them (though I know you are not aguing that).
This is total nonsense. First off, the Afghans _did_ beat the russians, as the Russians pulled out and stopped attacking. They didn't beat them in a strategic sense with tanks ans planes and whatnot, but they still clearly won. Secondly, your anecdotes don't makes sense. If the Celts that are around today are the same ones that were around to get the crap beaten out of them a thousand years ago, then guess what, the Romans are fine we just call them Italians now. Winning isn't bad, witness the USSR, the third reich, the Persian empire, on and on, for whom losing didn't work out well.
You're confusing governments with peoples. Yes the Irish are still around. So are the Italians, so, in fact, are the Germans, Japanese, and Brits. Winning or losing wars rarely affects that, with notable exceptions like the Native Americans, for whom I think it's pretty obvious losing was a bad thing. What aren't still around are governments. And while winning might not make one last forever, I think Hitler and Hirohito would tell you losing is much worse.
Seriously, the only way winning would not be a virtue, is if it led to complacency, arrogance, and ultimately weakness. But even then, you would have to _lose_ a war for it to matter. And really, with the exception of the Native American's most peoples have survived, and there's really no one to outlast. You are thinking of governments, and trust me, just because you can't think of the names of the governments that disappeared (fair because winners write history) they did.
But if everyone didn't lose their minds over it, so you had to hear about it every day, would you really give two shits? There are a lot of random assholes in the world. Maybe Imus is one of them, and maybe he was just being an asshole. But why the hell would you care? Just call him an asshole and move on. We don't need a huge media campaign and fucking Al and Jesse to come out just because someone called someone else a ho. More importantly, and what I'm surprised no one has really brought up, is whether all this is good for ending/removing racism and discrimination. Wouldn't it be better to give mildly racist language less, rather than more power? Go call a white guy a honky, and he'll just look at you funny. I think we'll be winning when black people do the same thing to the n word, not when we pass a constitutional amendment banning its usage.
He lied under oath. You can talk about the complaint over the BJ being bullshit, and frankly I don't care either way, but seriously, the president is not allowed, ever, under any circumstances, to commit perjury. Like I said, I know Bush's deeds makes perjury about sexual impropriety seem like parks and rainbows, but it's still not ok. And JFK never said he didn't fuck Marilyn Monroe, or at least not to a court.
their baseball cards. Seriously, with the amount of restrictions on those shares, I don't understand why people started buying them in the first place. Never pay dividends, and are a second class set of shares that do not give any control over the company. What are you buying?
Well, besides a new home if you got in when they were at 85. Damn inane stock market.
Come on, we've gone through some bad shit with Bush, and I know it's got us begging for a return to the Clinton years, but there is (or there was) a certain amount of sanctity to the office of president. The president is not, and should not, be allowed to lie or otherwise be dishonest with the American citizenry.
Let's not lower the bar just because Bush is/was such a clusterfuck.
The difference was the Democratic controlled congress, particularly Democrats sitting as chairmen of committees (like the Judicial Committee) that can issue subpoenas. And the funny thing is, had it been 10 months ago, the bald face lying would have worked, because the republic congress had already shown time and time again that they would take the Bush Administration's word at face value, and not look further. Gonzales would have said that the firings had nothing to do with politics or a peversion of the Judicial branch, Bush would have said Gonzales is a good man and I trust him, Democrats and many American would scream murder, but no subpoenas would be issued, and the truth would never be found. The news would stop reporting on it after a week, and that would be the end of it. Watch how much the shape of American politics changes when we have actual checks and balances.
Thats from Bash and it doesn't even make sense to copy it here. If someone took control of your computer to have you say that you love cocks, why would they say "disregard that"? The answer is they wouldn't but you kept it there because you aren't even creative enough to rip something off well.
I won't mod you down though.
Owning rifles is frequently legal for minors. I don't know the exact number of states that this is the case for, but I know it's a fair number. Anyhow, it's owning handguns and _purchasing_ guns of any sort that is generally flat out. But if your dad wants to buy a hunting rifle and give it to you, that's in very many places OK.
I remember reading a very good article in Scientific American about decision making. Long story short, the point was that the best types of decisions are "optimal" i.e. ones that may turn out to be best, but "robust" ones that will do well under a wide range of ensuing circumstances. I think that needs to be the meme here. Cutting down on emissions and building more efficient machines works out well for everybody regardless of the extent or causes of the warming. The same can't be said for ignoring it or returning to a stone age lifestyle.
Some people in power need to remember what it actually means to be conservative, and start operating that way.
I don't think overrated necessarily means that you've been modded too highly, but simply that your current score is too high. So not overrated in the "other's opinion of you is too high i.e. you've already been modded up" but overrated in the sense that your current score is just too high, irrespective of whether it got there through modding, or started that way.
I'm not going to bother to read the comment you're referring to, because obviously it's irrelevant to my argument, but some comments don't deserve to be even 1s or 2s, and a somewhat broad but I think reasonable definition of "overrated" seems to qualify it to remedy those situations, even when the comment isn't trollish or flamebait. Being inane (unless it's a joke etc) or just plain wrong is a sin too.
Cheers though.