I'm sure that your unsourced assertion that slavery probably would have ended by itself 20 years after the Civil War would have been of great comfort to the people that were then currently held in slavery.
GEB was mentioned above, and I just had to post about it.. It's one of the best books I've ever read. If you've never read it and you're a geek, and at all interested in how the mind works, you'll absolutely love it. I've read it three times, and the last time I even almost understood the whole thing..:)
It's an absolute classic, I can't recommend it highly enough.
If your client is a terrorist with fanatical followers who are willing to die to kill his enemies, and you violate a judge's gag order to say that your client wouldn't mind if some of his friends blew some people up?
Do you think mob bosses pass along concrete orders to their hitmen? No, they say "You know, I wouldn't be too upset if Jimmy the Squealer took a bullet to the head." To say that Lynne Stewart shouldn't have realized that people could possibly be killed because of what she said is ludicrous.
The problem is peaceful people are usually peaceful because they're more intelligent. And we've yet to begin intellectual discrimination. But fact of the matter is if people with no brains weren't allowed to vote, we wouldn't be run by tyrants who believe in enforcing policy through the use of an iron fist. Fuck Bush and all reptiles who believe in him. Yeah yeah, mod me down for believing that intelligent people solve problems without the use of force.
Intelligent? I'd say otherwise. Pacifism is the most simplistic -ism there is. Please enlighten me as to how slavery would have been ended without violence. Orwell once said "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist" and he was 100% right. Every single freedom you and I have was gained by violence, don't you realize that?
By the way, how do you expect to prevent those you refer to as 'stupid' from voting without the use of force? I'd like to see you try.
Stewart was accused of two specific kinds of acts.
One was telling the sheikh's followers -- in a public announcement on the courthouse steps -- that he was withdrawing his support for a moratorium on acts of terror by the group against the Egyptian government.
The other involved her behavior in visits to the sheikh in prison. She was accused of making noise to conceal the fact that he was exchanging information with an interpreter.
Don't pretend she got charged solely for speaking to the media. She got charged for passing on a terrorist's instructions to his followers despite a gag order to the contrary. People could have died because of the information she helped pass on.
At least if the lobbyists have to spend their time and money on getting the current ways they fuck us over renewed, they'd have less time and money to get new laws to fuck us over passed.
Our system's fucked, but at least forcing them to renew their bullshit regularly would slow the bastards down a little.:)
Murder is illegal under state law, not federal. Most of the "common sense" type laws aren't federal.
Besides, laws against murder are important enough that you can almost guarantee their easy renewal. There wouldn't be any controversy over that, it's the controversial ones that need a review, to ensure that they're serving their intended purpose.
It all depends on if you consider most laws that Congress makes to be good. I think they're mostly lousy, and I'd like to see them expire. Yeah there are good ones like the FOIA, but most of them suck.
Do you think pot would be illegal still if Congress had to manually renew the ban every few years? I don't.
Basically, making all laws have a mandatory sunset would make our legislators much more accountable, and that's definitely a good thing. The way things are now, if a bad law gets on the books, it's almost impossible to get rid of.
Every law should have an expiration date. This would keep the important laws on the books (since they'd be easily renewed) and let the stupid or unpopular ones lapse. Also, it would take up a lot of Congress' time renewing old laws and they'd have less time to shove their stupid new laws down our gullets..
In this week's I, Cringely column there's some talk about an unused Ogg iTunes icon embedded in Tiger. Official Ogg support could be on the horizon..
Looking at the unused iTunes icons that shipped with your new version of 10.4, you'll notice icons for currently-not-supported ogg vorbis and Windows Media Audio (wma), as well as several others including a variety of video formats, too.
Where in the above post did I ever say I was pro-capital-punishment? I'm not. Actually it's not the principle of capital punishment I disagree with, but the implementation.
Besides, no one gets executed on the government's say so alone. There's a jury to convince, at least.
You log the DB query to the database, but do you log the insert of the log data? Then do you log the insert of the insert of the log data?
What about the insert of the insert of the insert of the log data?
And then you should probably be logging the insert of the insert of the insert of the insert of the log data.. and don't forget the insert of the insert of the insert of the insert^#(I*$&%*&
It totally sucks that you've been bullied for being gay and that acquaintances have been beaten by homophobic thugs for the same reason. That's fucking bullshit, and there's no excuse for it.
However, under the *real* Taliban you would have to keep your sexuality completely under wraps, since their punishment would have been your death via public stoning in the soccer stadium.
All I'm trying to say in this thread is that the comparison of Taliban to christian fundamentalists in the USA is completely unhelpful, and frankly it trivializes the crimes against human rights committed by the Taliban.
Are we really heading towards a theocracy? I doubt it. Those fundamentalists may be loud, but they don't have very broad support, even within the Republican party. Most Republicans would abandon their party in a flash if it showed signs of truly leaning towards Taliban like behavior, not just this alarmist "Things could be heading that way.." nonsense. IMHO, of course.
You don't see a difference between people who don't want their children exposed to naked breasts on network TV on a Sunday night at 6:30pm and people who demand that all women be shrouded in black cloth from their head to their feet at all times or they'll beat them to death in the street?
Applauding the murder of abortion doctors is hardly mainstream american christian conventional wisdom. Have you ever talked to a christian?
Many of the attitudes I read on this subject from the supposedly tolerant non-religious people tend to be just as filled with ignorant hypocrisy as those of many religious people are.
I believe the Bible says something about casting the first stone? Not that I'm religious, but there's some wisdom to be found in that.
You ask this question innocently but only because you are not a religious fundamentalists. To the taliban (afghan or american) it's heresy to even ask the question. You must accept the words in the bible/koran literally.
You know, I'm as atheistic and completely non-religious as the next slashdotter, but it's attitudes like this that help destroy any hope of rational discourse between the two sides of this argument.
Comparing religious Americans to the Afghan Taliban just doesn't fly. Get back to me when mainstream American christians applaud murder in their god's name.
Yeah, I know there have been American christian terrorists like Eric Rudolph, but they're hardly accepted by mainstream christians. When Ashcroft was AG he wanted Rudolph put to death for killing gays and abortionists, hardly the attitude he'd have if he believed Rudolph was doing god's work.
Seriously, if you're going to compare religious people to the Taliban, you might as well go all the way and compare them to Nazis so we can invoke Godwin's law on your ass..;)
Slashdot Mirror
Not to be outdone, Microsoft today announced they have purchased a controlling interest in Duck Duck Goose.
I'm sure that your unsourced assertion that slavery probably would have ended by itself 20 years after the Civil War would have been of great comfort to the people that were then currently held in slavery.
GEB was mentioned above, and I just had to post about it.. It's one of the best books I've ever read. If you've never read it and you're a geek, and at all interested in how the mind works, you'll absolutely love it. I've read it three times, and the last time I even almost understood the whole thing.. :)
It's an absolute classic, I can't recommend it highly enough.
If your client is a terrorist with fanatical followers who are willing to die to kill his enemies, and you violate a judge's gag order to say that your client wouldn't mind if some of his friends blew some people up?
Do you think mob bosses pass along concrete orders to their hitmen? No, they say "You know, I wouldn't be too upset if Jimmy the Squealer took a bullet to the head." To say that Lynne Stewart shouldn't have realized that people could possibly be killed because of what she said is ludicrous.
The problem is peaceful people are usually peaceful because they're more intelligent. And we've yet to begin intellectual discrimination. But fact of the matter is if people with no brains weren't allowed to vote, we wouldn't be run by tyrants who believe in enforcing policy through the use of an iron fist. Fuck Bush and all reptiles who believe in him. Yeah yeah, mod me down for believing that intelligent people solve problems without the use of force.
Intelligent? I'd say otherwise. Pacifism is the most simplistic -ism there is. Please enlighten me as to how slavery would have been ended without violence. Orwell once said "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist" and he was 100% right. Every single freedom you and I have was gained by violence, don't you realize that?
By the way, how do you expect to prevent those you refer to as 'stupid' from voting without the use of force? I'd like to see you try.
At least if the lobbyists have to spend their time and money on getting the current ways they fuck us over renewed, they'd have less time and money to get new laws to fuck us over passed.
:)
Our system's fucked, but at least forcing them to renew their bullshit regularly would slow the bastards down a little.
Heh.. dude, I ask myself that every day.. :P
Murder is illegal under state law, not federal. Most of the "common sense" type laws aren't federal.
Besides, laws against murder are important enough that you can almost guarantee their easy renewal. There wouldn't be any controversy over that, it's the controversial ones that need a review, to ensure that they're serving their intended purpose.
It all depends on if you consider most laws that Congress makes to be good. I think they're mostly lousy, and I'd like to see them expire. Yeah there are good ones like the FOIA, but most of them suck.
Do you think pot would be illegal still if Congress had to manually renew the ban every few years? I don't.
Basically, making all laws have a mandatory sunset would make our legislators much more accountable, and that's definitely a good thing. The way things are now, if a bad law gets on the books, it's almost impossible to get rid of.
Every law should have an expiration date. This would keep the important laws on the books (since they'd be easily renewed) and let the stupid or unpopular ones lapse. Also, it would take up a lot of Congress' time renewing old laws and they'd have less time to shove their stupid new laws down our gullets..
Making Slashdot by having Hilary Rosen post some of her particular brand of ill-informed nonsense is like shooting fish in a barrel though.
Heh, I didn't know that, Cringely made it sound new. Maybe it's a really BIG horizon.. :)
Where in the above post did I ever say I was pro-capital-punishment? I'm not. Actually it's not the principle of capital punishment I disagree with, but the implementation.
Besides, no one gets executed on the government's say so alone. There's a jury to convince, at least.
Public bathrooms. Public swimming pools. Public schools.
Think about the above three things, and then tell me you want public healthcare.
Vwls wst bndwdth.
Bruce Schneier's weblog has some thoughts on RealID and why it's a terrible idea and won't increase security. Highly recommended.
You log the DB query to the database, but do you log the insert of the log data? Then do you log the insert of the insert of the log data?
What about the insert of the insert of the insert of the log data?
And then you should probably be logging the insert of the insert of the insert of the insert of the log data.. and don't forget the insert of the insert of the insert of the insert^#(I*$&%*&
Error: maximum recursion depth exceeded.
I must have missed the news stories where Janet Jackson was stoned to death for her wardrobe malfunction.
From the perspective of the women killed in Afghanistan for not wearing a burka, the difference is pretty large.
"Government officials demanding capital punishment according to Federal law for a convicted murderer" != "murder in their God's name."
But thanks for playing.
It totally sucks that you've been bullied for being gay and that acquaintances have been beaten by homophobic thugs for the same reason. That's fucking bullshit, and there's no excuse for it.
However, under the *real* Taliban you would have to keep your sexuality completely under wraps, since their punishment would have been your death via public stoning in the soccer stadium.
All I'm trying to say in this thread is that the comparison of Taliban to christian fundamentalists in the USA is completely unhelpful, and frankly it trivializes the crimes against human rights committed by the Taliban.
Are we really heading towards a theocracy? I doubt it. Those fundamentalists may be loud, but they don't have very broad support, even within the Republican party. Most Republicans would abandon their party in a flash if it showed signs of truly leaning towards Taliban like behavior, not just this alarmist "Things could be heading that way.." nonsense. IMHO, of course.
You don't see a difference between people who don't want their children exposed to naked breasts on network TV on a Sunday night at 6:30pm and people who demand that all women be shrouded in black cloth from their head to their feet at all times or they'll beat them to death in the street?
Are you fucking kidding?
Applauding the murder of abortion doctors is hardly mainstream american christian conventional wisdom. Have you ever talked to a christian?
Many of the attitudes I read on this subject from the supposedly tolerant non-religious people tend to be just as filled with ignorant hypocrisy as those of many religious people are.
I believe the Bible says something about casting the first stone? Not that I'm religious, but there's some wisdom to be found in that.
You ask this question innocently but only because you are not a religious fundamentalists. To the taliban (afghan or american) it's heresy to even ask the question. You must accept the words in the bible/koran literally.
;)
You know, I'm as atheistic and completely non-religious as the next slashdotter, but it's attitudes like this that help destroy any hope of rational discourse between the two sides of this argument.
Comparing religious Americans to the Afghan Taliban just doesn't fly. Get back to me when mainstream American christians applaud murder in their god's name.
Yeah, I know there have been American christian terrorists like Eric Rudolph, but they're hardly accepted by mainstream christians. When Ashcroft was AG he wanted Rudolph put to death for killing gays and abortionists, hardly the attitude he'd have if he believed Rudolph was doing god's work.
Seriously, if you're going to compare religious people to the Taliban, you might as well go all the way and compare them to Nazis so we can invoke Godwin's law on your ass..