Both sides do their share of trying to rig elections. Generally house pets and the dead vote democrat in certain areas, whereas single day massive road construction that makes reaching the polling place an ordeal to the point that it isn't worth it also mostly afflicts democrats. "Miscalibrated" electronic voting machines go both ways however. And let's not forget that the same people who want elected design the voting districts...
Sounds like almost exactly what we do, excepting that a poll worker feeds it into the machine in front of you, and our ballots go in cardboard "privacy sleeves" (which are inserted into the machine, and the machine sucks the ballot out of it) so that the poll worker cannot see how you voted during the process
And then your employer (who I can almost guarantee has your full name and a photocopy of your license -- I know mine does of every last employee, as well as your social and date of birth, etc) can see who you voted for, and if you are an at-will employee terminate you "for no reason at all" for voting the "wrong way" so long as no reference is made about your vote in any recorded form (read: it's discussed orally between the guys at the top but not written down).
The only way you could get an "anonymous" paper trail would be if the hash code wasn't attached to your personal data in any way and every individual had access to another unique code saying he voted for the other guy, so that you could present as voting for whoever you needed to to anyone attempting vote buying/coersion.
My ballot had 5 candidates for president listed. Dem and Rep, as well as Lib and Mountain, and an Independant. There were several offices that had a Mountain party candidate listed, but then the Mountain Party is essentially our branch of the Greens, they just take an extra firm stand against chopping the tops off of mountains and pushing for timber regulation. 795 registered members in the state, and usually several times that vote for any given one of their candidates. I think 20kish has been their best so far. Noone actually elected to a state office, but they're big enough to stay on the ballot.
Sorry, I have people at -1 filtered out, so I literally didn't see the post you were responding to, and only the "John McCain should have won the election." part was quoted, so I missed th joke.
I figured the reason Obama's campaign hadn't used it was because Obama's campaign was, on the whole, relatively light on character assassination attempts. McCain's campaign seeming to be composed entirely of "look what preacher he goes to, and he's sat on a committee with a guy that did *bad* things when Obama was eight years old! How can someone like that be President? Besides he lacks experience (although this one died out when he chose the one person with less national-level political experience than Obama to be his running mate)! I'm a Maverick! Maverick! MAVERICK!"
So, "police should be able to search anything, anytime, anyways, due cause or not, and if they happen to find something then it sticks and they just say that they are sorry for violating the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure?" then? Or was this fine so high that it was *never* worth it to violate the highest law in the land in order to secure a conviction (or simply torment someone, or any of a hundred other ways that unrestrained search and seizure can be abused)?
If we're talking economics, much of economic policy takes time to have an appreciable effect. Often measured in years. In seriousness, if Obama tries to make economic changes first and foremost, and his ideas get through and into law, then you'll want to look at what direction the economy is moving sometime around 2010, if not later (depending on the kinds of changes we're talking about). The current state of the economy can be blamed at least partly on Bush, however, since he's had plenty of opportunity to correct problems, and most types of policy he could have enacted early on should have some appreciable effect by now.
Not voting Obama does not necessarily indicate racism. Where I work, I could have told you at least 5 of my coworkers were going to vote Republican before the primaries started, regardless if "the black guy", "the white guy", or "the manly chick" had won the Democrats primary.
I *did* however vote Obama (but my views are a lot more left-leaning than about half the people I wokr with [the Democratic party's tendency to push gun control makes them not well received by this group]).
Do you consider any black person who didn't vote for McCain to be racist, or any man that didn't vote for McCain to be sexist (due to Palin)?
I'm not afraid of Palin becoming president due to inexperience, I'm afraid of Palin becoming president due to her seeming to have trouble with laws pertaining to ethics and public accountability, her views disturb me at a minimum, and quite frankly I think McCain only chose her because she's a woman without a significant national political record, making it hard to make an "issues" attack on her, trying to use the media frenzy to try to cover her as much as the others have been to try to play the "victim" card, and trying to sway some Democrats who would vote for Hillary by giving them a woman alternative to the black guy.
Personally, I hope that if Palin becomes president, that we keep going down the line of succession till we hit someone less insane. Heck if someone would just perform 4 or so assassinations, a senator from my home state would be president (one who has the *most* experience, holding a national record for both length of senate term and age to be a senator).
So you are saying that requiring police to submit cause to engage in a search before performing the search was devised by a bunch of traitors in the 60's? Or is it that police should be able to search anything, anytime, anyways, due cause or not, and if they happen to find something then it sticks and they just say that they are sorry for violating the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure?
Unfortunately, that process always works for a large number of the population. Look at politics, the only difference being that instead of selling a "[random tech here] business kit" they sell themselves.
Hmm, I suppose having ScummVM and MPlayer on my Wii makes me a filthy pirate then? =)
If I could scrounge up the rest of my old carts to match ROMs against, I'd install FCEU and SNES9x as well.
Mind you, the Wii ports of console emulators are simply better than the PC releases, because nothing you can do on a PC without buying additional hardware feels quite like a NES or SNES controller, while the Wiimote/Classic Controller can fill that niche nicely.
Personally, I think emulators are why they really try to stop homebrew on the Wii. Basically, if you can emulate a console, you won't buy VC games at $5-15+ a pop (depending on the game). They aren't nearly as worried about piracy, I think.
I'm saying you can find plenty of timeframes in which worse was done in the name of Christianity. Using "the last 10 years or so" basically amounts to saying "don't look at Christianity's bloody period when you compare us".
There are, fortunately a good number of moderate Muslims who don't actually condone that sort of thing, much like you have with Christianity. You also have plenty of Christian literalists and extremists, and the holy text (which is also purportedly the Word of God) is filled with more than it's share of unpleasantness, and is also generally inflexible, violent and authoritarian.
Basically, I don't see why we should compare violent fundamentalist Muslims against moderate Christians, but rather that we should be either comparing moderates to moderates, or violent fundamentalists to violent fundamentalists.
I thought it was closer to "organizations doing embryonic stem cell research cannot receive federal funding at all" as opposed to receiving federal funding for that project. I'm not certain on that, but if that was the case, it is effectively a ban, as no academic or research institution is going to give up all access to grant money over one line of research, and ditto for most private ventures, exacerbated by private venture disliking research that doesn't have a clear and obvious product that is likely to be approved and unlikely to cause them much grief involved.
It could be worse, I live in a valley in Appalachia (OK, so everyone lives in a valley if they're in Appalachia -- it's the only flat land) where the weather seems to be chaotic neutral. Some years the winter won't go below 50F at all, but today was 31F when I got into work. It's been 80 in the dead of winter and snowed in March, both within my lifetime (not the same year). The main upside seems to be that the weather is too busy confusing us by doing the unexpected that the only real natural disaster is flooding, and in my particular section of valley that's mostly averted by the locks.
You had said that "All religions are not created equal, and Islam is a violent, authoritarian creed." and "The New Testament overrules the Old Testament." Presumably you were intending to suggest that Christianity was not a violent and authoritarian creed, and to state that one could not use the Old Testament to demonstrate such. So I provided a list of various examples of cruelty and violence from the New testament, as those are necessarily still in effect.
You may be an exception, but I have never heard someone claim that no part of the old law applies at all, but rather that parts of the old law no longer apply, those parts chosen being based on those that that individual still feels are wrong. Given that very, very little is proclaimed to be wrong by Jesus himself, it becomes more and more difficult to explain the "Christian" outrage against various things (such as gay marriage, which always seems to involve quoting Leviticus, for some reason).
Actually, Leviticus is a good example. People will quote it being "Abomination" for man to lay with mankind as he would with womankind, but claim it doesn't count when the very same word is used to describe the act of eating that which dwells in the waters but hath not fins nor scales (IOW, shellfish).
Could be worse, my whole family (on my mother's side) has night terrors (think a nightmare, but without a recognizable "dream" to connect the sensations with, and you have trouble waking from it) coupled with somnambulism (sleep walking/talking) to varying degrees. Thankfully we generally get better as we get older (I've only woken up in the wrong room once in the past year). One of my cousins was the worst of us. You have no idea what someone walking around, eyes closed and unresponsive whilst having an apparent panic attack he can't be woken from is like.
Islam orders it's members to commit pedophilia? Is that meant in reference to one of Mohammed's wives? The one who was betroved(sp?) to him at age 6, and consummated when by custom in that part of the world at that time was proper (read: after menarche)? Who is, as I recall, also about as revered as a woman gets in Islam, and is also referred to as the "most beloved" of his wives?
Wait, you are saying that early->Medieval->up to the 20th century Christendom caused less killings than Islam? Or should we go far enough as to say that about Christians in general, and not merely the institutions or Christianity and Christian governments (and you are not allowed to invoke the No True Scotsman situation, where anyone who does bad stop counting as being a "real Christian" unless we allow the Muslims to do the same).
Forgot to mention, in my other semi less friendly post, that you might want to look at this convenient list http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/nt_list.html . It lists references to Crualty and Violence within the scope only of the New testament. =)
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Both sides do their share of trying to rig elections. Generally house pets and the dead vote democrat in certain areas, whereas single day massive road construction that makes reaching the polling place an ordeal to the point that it isn't worth it also mostly afflicts democrats. "Miscalibrated" electronic voting machines go both ways however. And let's not forget that the same people who want elected design the voting districts...
Sounds like almost exactly what we do, excepting that a poll worker feeds it into the machine in front of you, and our ballots go in cardboard "privacy sleeves" (which are inserted into the machine, and the machine sucks the ballot out of it) so that the poll worker cannot see how you voted during the process
And then your employer (who I can almost guarantee has your full name and a photocopy of your license -- I know mine does of every last employee, as well as your social and date of birth, etc) can see who you voted for, and if you are an at-will employee terminate you "for no reason at all" for voting the "wrong way" so long as no reference is made about your vote in any recorded form (read: it's discussed orally between the guys at the top but not written down).
The only way you could get an "anonymous" paper trail would be if the hash code wasn't attached to your personal data in any way and every individual had access to another unique code saying he voted for the other guy, so that you could present as voting for whoever you needed to to anyone attempting vote buying/coersion.
2 congressional houses 1 cup?
My ballot had 5 candidates for president listed. Dem and Rep, as well as Lib and Mountain, and an Independant. There were several offices that had a Mountain party candidate listed, but then the Mountain Party is essentially our branch of the Greens, they just take an extra firm stand against chopping the tops off of mountains and pushing for timber regulation. 795 registered members in the state, and usually several times that vote for any given one of their candidates. I think 20kish has been their best so far. Noone actually elected to a state office, but they're big enough to stay on the ballot.
Virtumundo?
Sorry, I have people at -1 filtered out, so I literally didn't see the post you were responding to, and only the "John McCain should have won the election." part was quoted, so I missed th joke.
I figured the reason Obama's campaign hadn't used it was because Obama's campaign was, on the whole, relatively light on character assassination attempts. McCain's campaign seeming to be composed entirely of "look what preacher he goes to, and he's sat on a committee with a guy that did *bad* things when Obama was eight years old! How can someone like that be President? Besides he lacks experience (although this one died out when he chose the one person with less national-level political experience than Obama to be his running mate)! I'm a Maverick! Maverick! MAVERICK!"
So, "police should be able to search anything, anytime, anyways, due cause or not, and if they happen to find something then it sticks and they just say that they are sorry for violating the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure?" then? Or was this fine so high that it was *never* worth it to violate the highest law in the land in order to secure a conviction (or simply torment someone, or any of a hundred other ways that unrestrained search and seizure can be abused)?
If we're talking economics, much of economic policy takes time to have an appreciable effect. Often measured in years. In seriousness, if Obama tries to make economic changes first and foremost, and his ideas get through and into law, then you'll want to look at what direction the economy is moving sometime around 2010, if not later (depending on the kinds of changes we're talking about). The current state of the economy can be blamed at least partly on Bush, however, since he's had plenty of opportunity to correct problems, and most types of policy he could have enacted early on should have some appreciable effect by now.
Not voting Obama does not necessarily indicate racism. Where I work, I could have told you at least 5 of my coworkers were going to vote Republican before the primaries started, regardless if "the black guy", "the white guy", or "the manly chick" had won the Democrats primary.
I *did* however vote Obama (but my views are a lot more left-leaning than about half the people I wokr with [the Democratic party's tendency to push gun control makes them not well received by this group]).
Do you consider any black person who didn't vote for McCain to be racist, or any man that didn't vote for McCain to be sexist (due to Palin)?
They also bleeped the words "children" and "ratings" from the song "The Nobodies" by Marilyn Manson.
I'm not afraid of Palin becoming president due to inexperience, I'm afraid of Palin becoming president due to her seeming to have trouble with laws pertaining to ethics and public accountability, her views disturb me at a minimum, and quite frankly I think McCain only chose her because she's a woman without a significant national political record, making it hard to make an "issues" attack on her, trying to use the media frenzy to try to cover her as much as the others have been to try to play the "victim" card, and trying to sway some Democrats who would vote for Hillary by giving them a woman alternative to the black guy.
Personally, I hope that if Palin becomes president, that we keep going down the line of succession till we hit someone less insane. Heck if someone would just perform 4 or so assassinations, a senator from my home state would be president (one who has the *most* experience, holding a national record for both length of senate term and age to be a senator).
So you are saying that requiring police to submit cause to engage in a search before performing the search was devised by a bunch of traitors in the 60's? Or is it that police should be able to search anything, anytime, anyways, due cause or not, and if they happen to find something then it sticks and they just say that they are sorry for violating the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure?
Unfortunately, that process always works for a large number of the population. Look at politics, the only difference being that instead of selling a "[random tech here] business kit" they sell themselves.
Hmm, I suppose having ScummVM and MPlayer on my Wii makes me a filthy pirate then? =)
If I could scrounge up the rest of my old carts to match ROMs against, I'd install FCEU and SNES9x as well.
Mind you, the Wii ports of console emulators are simply better than the PC releases, because nothing you can do on a PC without buying additional hardware feels quite like a NES or SNES controller, while the Wiimote/Classic Controller can fill that niche nicely.
Personally, I think emulators are why they really try to stop homebrew on the Wii. Basically, if you can emulate a console, you won't buy VC games at $5-15+ a pop (depending on the game). They aren't nearly as worried about piracy, I think.
I'm saying you can find plenty of timeframes in which worse was done in the name of Christianity. Using "the last 10 years or so" basically amounts to saying "don't look at Christianity's bloody period when you compare us".
There are, fortunately a good number of moderate Muslims who don't actually condone that sort of thing, much like you have with Christianity. You also have plenty of Christian literalists and extremists, and the holy text (which is also purportedly the Word of God) is filled with more than it's share of unpleasantness, and is also generally inflexible, violent and authoritarian.
Basically, I don't see why we should compare violent fundamentalist Muslims against moderate Christians, but rather that we should be either comparing moderates to moderates, or violent fundamentalists to violent fundamentalists.
I thought it was closer to "organizations doing embryonic stem cell research cannot receive federal funding at all" as opposed to receiving federal funding for that project. I'm not certain on that, but if that was the case, it is effectively a ban, as no academic or research institution is going to give up all access to grant money over one line of research, and ditto for most private ventures, exacerbated by private venture disliking research that doesn't have a clear and obvious product that is likely to be approved and unlikely to cause them much grief involved.
It could be worse, I live in a valley in Appalachia (OK, so everyone lives in a valley if they're in Appalachia -- it's the only flat land) where the weather seems to be chaotic neutral. Some years the winter won't go below 50F at all, but today was 31F when I got into work. It's been 80 in the dead of winter and snowed in March, both within my lifetime (not the same year). The main upside seems to be that the weather is too busy confusing us by doing the unexpected that the only real natural disaster is flooding, and in my particular section of valley that's mostly averted by the locks.
You had said that "All religions are not created equal, and Islam is a violent, authoritarian creed." and "The New Testament overrules the Old Testament." Presumably you were intending to suggest that Christianity was not a violent and authoritarian creed, and to state that one could not use the Old Testament to demonstrate such. So I provided a list of various examples of cruelty and violence from the New testament, as those are necessarily still in effect.
You may be an exception, but I have never heard someone claim that no part of the old law applies at all, but rather that parts of the old law no longer apply, those parts chosen being based on those that that individual still feels are wrong. Given that very, very little is proclaimed to be wrong by Jesus himself, it becomes more and more difficult to explain the "Christian" outrage against various things (such as gay marriage, which always seems to involve quoting Leviticus, for some reason).
Actually, Leviticus is a good example. People will quote it being "Abomination" for man to lay with mankind as he would with womankind, but claim it doesn't count when the very same word is used to describe the act of eating that which dwells in the waters but hath not fins nor scales (IOW, shellfish).
Could be worse, my whole family (on my mother's side) has night terrors (think a nightmare, but without a recognizable "dream" to connect the sensations with, and you have trouble waking from it) coupled with somnambulism (sleep walking/talking) to varying degrees. Thankfully we generally get better as we get older (I've only woken up in the wrong room once in the past year). One of my cousins was the worst of us. You have no idea what someone walking around, eyes closed and unresponsive whilst having an apparent panic attack he can't be woken from is like.
Islam orders it's members to commit pedophilia? Is that meant in reference to one of Mohammed's wives? The one who was betroved(sp?) to him at age 6, and consummated when by custom in that part of the world at that time was proper (read: after menarche)? Who is, as I recall, also about as revered as a woman gets in Islam, and is also referred to as the "most beloved" of his wives?
Wait, you are saying that early->Medieval->up to the 20th century Christendom caused less killings than Islam? Or should we go far enough as to say that about Christians in general, and not merely the institutions or Christianity and Christian governments (and you are not allowed to invoke the No True Scotsman situation, where anyone who does bad stop counting as being a "real Christian" unless we allow the Muslims to do the same).
Forgot to mention, in my other semi less friendly post, that you might want to look at this convenient list http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/nt_list.html . It lists references to Crualty and Violence within the scope only of the New testament. =)