But that's exactly my point. The use of illegal methods to get into or stay in power are, of course, a problem. I'm certainly not going to argue that. But that's not an indictment of the goal of holding a permanent majority, that's an indictment of methodology.
I have no reason to think the Democrats don't want a permanent majority; that's what winning elections is all about. In fact, they'd be doing a disservice to their constituents if they did anything less than try to maintain a majority as much as possible.
The difference (at least, the one being claimed; I have no desire to make a statement of fact when I don't have the facts) is the means by which such a goal is pursued. Or, looked at another way, the prioritization of that goal relative to the goal of not breaking any laws.
I just don't think it's helpful to claim that one party wants to win while the other one doesn't, when what you really mean is one party will do anything to win, while the other exercises restraint.
Absolutely we'd like to know about it. But what do you do? Give your child a list of words never to say? Not let him play with other kids whose families have different policies on games and movies their kids can play and watch?
Frankly, yes, that's exactly what you do. While I'd be - to some extent - offended if some parents down the street stopped letting their son play with mine because they know I take my son shooting, I can't help but respect their commitment to raising their child the way they believe to be right.
Look at it this way: over the course of a normal life, every person is going to have to make decisions about the sorts of people he or she is going to associate with; that's one of the responsibilities of being an adult. When you have a young child, you have to assume those responsibilities for your child until he's old enough to shoulder them himself. No, of course it's neither pleasant nor ideal; neither is the rest of life.
And in the particular instance of swearing, a list of things he's not allowed to say isn't such a bad idea. After all, there's nothing inherently immoral about swearing, it's the use of obscenity in an inappropriate context that's the problem. There's a difference between me saying typing "fuck" on slashdot and me saying "fuck" in a job interview. Regardless of whether your son does swear, as long as he knows you won't tolerate it, and he'll get in trouble if you find out about it, I think you're doing your job well. That's the lesson he needs to learn, after all.
Wait - you had time the night before your wedding for anything other than the rehearsal, dinner, and making sure everything was ready for the wedding?!?
That strikes me as pretty difficult, really. I mean, I've played plenty of bathroom-tile Tetris, I've eyed up objects in the mall as potential anti-zombie weapons, I've had nightmares about the Mad Monks chasing me into a pit, I've tried to take residential corners along the optimum racing line, and I've sized up my office as an Action Half Life level...but I've never actually strafed around a corner. It's a lot of work to pretty much just simulate turning your head.
Well, the American Civil War leaps to mind as a greater threat to the health of this nation.
The War of 1812 also suggests itself as a possibility.
Let's not forget Prohibition, which - it could be argued - led to the rise of organized crime, an immense expansion of federal law enforcement power (which we're seeing the fallout of currently), and even (arguably, but at a bit more of a stretch) the War on Drugs.
And, speaking of the War on Drugs, which predates the Bush administration by quite a bit, I'd think if you're going to point fingers at single causes for loss of liberty in the modern era, this would have to be number one on your list. This is where we get no-knock warrants and asset forfeiture, to name the two most egregious offenses.
Slightly further back, I suspect that the US sitting out all of WWII (as we were apt to do pre-Pearl Harbor) might have led to a world that was much less conducive to the economic strength we've enjoyed since then. Not to mention that Japanese internment camps weren't exactly the peak of American liberty.
Then there's McCarthyism (and may I take this opportunity to say "hooray" for my great state of Wisconsin), which had an entire nation living in fear of being convicted of thought crime.
If we'd like to talk about sheer human damage, all the politicians involved in perpetuating the Vietnam War(from the Kennedy administration through the Nixon) certainly caused more death and suffering than our current administration.
Or further back again, one might question an awful lot of the politics surrounding seizing lands from American Indians, especially policies coming out of the Andrew Jackson administration.
And speaking of the Jackson administration, had the nullification crisis fallen out the other way - that is, had Andrew Jackson sympathized a bit more with the South's tariff concerns than with the notion of a union of states - the country would probably have fallen apart by the end of the 19th century.
Note that I do not say this to excuse anything the Bush administration has done, simply to point out that the GPP is right. There is a tendency, especially among - though certainly not limited to - the yound and idealistic, to fervently believe that the current crisis (whatever it is) is The Worst Thing That's Ever Happened.
Out of curiosity, which elections do you suppose Democrats intentionally lose in the interests of not having a permanent majority? Or, rather, how long would the Democratic party need to have a majority before that started happening?
Because, if the Democratic party always does its best to get Democratic candidates elected (and I hope it does), then its behavior is entirely indistinguishable from the Republican party in terms of whether their goal is permanent majority.
If the complaint, of course, is that the Republican party use illegal methods in pursuit of its goal of permanent majority, that's certainly something worth addressing. But it's a different discussion entirely.
If an incumbent re-election rate of over 90% in the House represents some kind of changing of the guard, I submit that we have problems that go well beyond which party is doing what.
Is this some kind of obscure warning about the impending Apocalypse?
Is it some sort of pseudo-Zen assertion a lá "there is no spoon?"
Has there been late-breaking news from the atomic clock people that we've got an anti-leap day this year?
Are you a true believer in some sort of alternative calendar where days are 25 hours long, and there are only ten months of 35 days each, none of which are named August?
Or do you honestly believe that the version of the Gregorian calendar in common usage around the world doesn't contain a date labeled "August 31st?" 'Cause if it's this last one, it's kind of disappointing.
Uh...I wasn't being pedantic. I've never heard of cricket video game, and was simply trying to say exactly what I said - that I would be in the market for one if such a thing existed.
Obviously, not so in the market for one that I've researched their existence, or I wouldn't have had to say anything.
Now that I'm aware such a thing exists, I may pursue acquiring it, though I'm not generally a fan of sports games on the PC.
Don't confuse "able to recover all data" with "able to recover any data." To have useful storage, you need the former. If you're paranoid, you need to protect against the latter.
It is no shock that a subset of people don't have a clue about the axillary functions of a gaming console.
Hell, I own all three current-gen consoles, and I didn't have a clue about their axillary functions! In fact, if you could help me out, here, I'd appreciate it - what are their axillary functions? Can I use them as deodorant devices? Will they reduce swelling in my axillary lymph node?
In the larger sense, I agree with you. But the problem is, the world isn't going to wait for your children to learn how to think, it's just going to go on being the way it is. Which means, for whatever period your child is incapable of dealing maturely with the world, it's your job to do it for him or her. While it's not fair to the child's development to assume all the responsibility (in which case, they'll never learn to be responsible for their own actions), it's equally unfair to dump the responsibility on them when they're not ready.
Figuring out the balance is the trick to being a good parent. While it's futile to try and pretend your children are innocent indefinitely, that doesn't mean it's not a good idea to try and protect that innocence for a time. Porn is a good example - children lack the contextual information necessary to process the information adequately. As a somewhat exaggerated case, consider BDSM. Without the experiential background that puts sexual desire and gratification in the proper context, it's going to be difficult to understand why it's ok for that guy to order around, slap, and spit on that woman. Trying to explain that it's ok for that guy to do it, but not the child, is going to be a difficult task if you can't also explain the reasons behind it. And you can't explain them adequately to someone who's prepubescent; they lack the emotional and physical context for it to make sense.
While I won't disagree that the national obsession with the simple fact of body parts is ridiculous, at the same time there's plenty of content that I don't want my children experiencing until they've got the background to put in its proper place, and it has nothing to do with nipples (after all, they're one of the first things most infants ever see!!).
Honest question, not intended as flamebait - I really don't know the answer. Has any Linux distro implemented true, system-wide copy/cut & paste? As minor as it is, it's one of the niggling little annoyances that prevented me from switching quite some time ago (last time this was the reason was, I think, when I was trying RedHat 5). Other problems have prevented me since (Inkjet drivers at one point, wireless NIC drivers at another, wireless USB dongle drivers currently), but I've reason to believe they've been resolved.
P.S. I know I put a typo in surfing, but I don't believe in backtracking to fix typos.
I have to wonder if the effort you saved in not backtracking to fix typos was greater or less than the effort to explain why you didn't want to do so.
I'm assuming, of course, that your stance on this issue is related to the overall efficiency of the process, rather than principle, because I can't imagine what sort of principle would lead you to not backtrack to fix typos.
On the other hand, I don't pretend to omniscience, so if there is such a principle at stake, I'd love to know about it. Then I could use it as an excuse for the typos I don't catch.
The problem the RIAA is facing is that college students - as a demographic - have a combination of passionate beliefs, raging idealism, little to lose, and nothing but time. I saw this one coming a mile away.
Gotta strip the carbon off the hydrogen somehow, and the catalysts are not exactly eco-friendly or reuseable.
I don't know jack about the chemistry of the process to strip H2 off CH4, but if the catalysts aren't reusable, doesn't that mean they're not catalysts? I thought the definition of catalyst was a substance that increases the yield or speed of a reaction without itself being consumed or changed by the process.
I have to be honest, that I think it would have been wiser for JnJ to either give the trademark to the Red Cross with an agreement that JnJ can use it on their products, or quietly switch to a new trademark that hasn't already been "lost" in the minds of so many.
They already did that in 1895. The ARC is violating that agreement; suggesting they enter into another agreement with the ARC is fairly pointless.
You may be right that J&J would be better served by ditching the trademark entirely rather than deal with the PR fallout. But then they've ceded the entire home medical supplies industry to the ARC, because it's likely people will just beeline for the products with a red cross on them.
The ARC - I have to believe knowingly - put J&J in a bad position by violating the agreement. They are unlikely to be ignorant of the PR value of being "the Red Cross," and are trying to hide behind that PR to pull a fast one on J&J in the name of revenue. Frankly, it's despicable.
The ARC signed an agreement with J&J in 1895 to not use the red cross logo on medical supplies for commercial use that competed with J&J products.
At that point, it doesn't matter who's older. The agreement is signed and legally binding. They don't get to decide now that there's money in medical supplies for commercial use and just say "we crossed our fingers." They're trying to hide behind exactly your reaction: "but we're charitable! We're the Red Cross! How dare they sue us for breach of contract!"
Despite the fact that the ARC is older than J&J, and for all practical purpose is the originator of the symbol, J&J has not actively pursued any so call trademark violations until 2007.
Because there weren't any. Prior to recently, the ARC was abiding by the agreement they signed to not sell competing products bearing the red cross logo.
It's very simple. Charitable organization or no, the ARC doesn't get to go around violating contracts they've abided by for a century. If the ARC wanted to claim exclusive rights to the trademark, then they shouldn't have agreed with J&J to share usage in non-overlapping areas.
First: we're discussing the American Red Cross, not the other Red Crosses/Crescents in the world.
Second, if the ARC wanted to claim they just didn't care that J&J was using the logo, maybe they shouldn't have signed a contract specifying that the ARC was not allowed to sell products featuring the logo in competition with J&J.
They don't get to come back later and whine about how it was stolen when they AGREED TO IT IN WRITING. J&J was not and is not illegally using the logo, they entered into a binding agreement with the ARC regarding exactly this.
They're trying to get around the problem now by licensing the logo for use, rather than selling their own products directly.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, of course not. Evidently, it used to be the custom that the happy couple departed the reception early for just this reason.
No such luck at ours. We personally said goodbye to every...single...drunkard.
But that's exactly my point. The use of illegal methods to get into or stay in power are, of course, a problem. I'm certainly not going to argue that. But that's not an indictment of the goal of holding a permanent majority, that's an indictment of methodology.
I have no reason to think the Democrats don't want a permanent majority; that's what winning elections is all about. In fact, they'd be doing a disservice to their constituents if they did anything less than try to maintain a majority as much as possible.
The difference (at least, the one being claimed; I have no desire to make a statement of fact when I don't have the facts) is the means by which such a goal is pursued. Or, looked at another way, the prioritization of that goal relative to the goal of not breaking any laws.
I just don't think it's helpful to claim that one party wants to win while the other one doesn't, when what you really mean is one party will do anything to win, while the other exercises restraint.
Frankly, yes, that's exactly what you do. While I'd be - to some extent - offended if some parents down the street stopped letting their son play with mine because they know I take my son shooting, I can't help but respect their commitment to raising their child the way they believe to be right.
Look at it this way: over the course of a normal life, every person is going to have to make decisions about the sorts of people he or she is going to associate with; that's one of the responsibilities of being an adult. When you have a young child, you have to assume those responsibilities for your child until he's old enough to shoulder them himself. No, of course it's neither pleasant nor ideal; neither is the rest of life.
And in the particular instance of swearing, a list of things he's not allowed to say isn't such a bad idea. After all, there's nothing inherently immoral about swearing, it's the use of obscenity in an inappropriate context that's the problem. There's a difference between me saying typing "fuck" on slashdot and me saying "fuck" in a job interview. Regardless of whether your son does swear, as long as he knows you won't tolerate it, and he'll get in trouble if you find out about it, I think you're doing your job well. That's the lesson he needs to learn, after all.
Wait - you had time the night before your wedding for anything other than the rehearsal, dinner, and making sure everything was ready for the wedding?!?
Man, I need to file a complaint.
Seriously? You strafe around corners?
That strikes me as pretty difficult, really. I mean, I've played plenty of bathroom-tile Tetris, I've eyed up objects in the mall as potential anti-zombie weapons, I've had nightmares about the Mad Monks chasing me into a pit, I've tried to take residential corners along the optimum racing line, and I've sized up my office as an Action Half Life level...but I've never actually strafed around a corner. It's a lot of work to pretty much just simulate turning your head.
Well, the American Civil War leaps to mind as a greater threat to the health of this nation.
The War of 1812 also suggests itself as a possibility.
Let's not forget Prohibition, which - it could be argued - led to the rise of organized crime, an immense expansion of federal law enforcement power (which we're seeing the fallout of currently), and even (arguably, but at a bit more of a stretch) the War on Drugs.
And, speaking of the War on Drugs, which predates the Bush administration by quite a bit, I'd think if you're going to point fingers at single causes for loss of liberty in the modern era, this would have to be number one on your list. This is where we get no-knock warrants and asset forfeiture, to name the two most egregious offenses.
Slightly further back, I suspect that the US sitting out all of WWII (as we were apt to do pre-Pearl Harbor) might have led to a world that was much less conducive to the economic strength we've enjoyed since then. Not to mention that Japanese internment camps weren't exactly the peak of American liberty.
Then there's McCarthyism (and may I take this opportunity to say "hooray" for my great state of Wisconsin), which had an entire nation living in fear of being convicted of thought crime.
If we'd like to talk about sheer human damage, all the politicians involved in perpetuating the Vietnam War(from the Kennedy administration through the Nixon) certainly caused more death and suffering than our current administration.
Or further back again, one might question an awful lot of the politics surrounding seizing lands from American Indians, especially policies coming out of the Andrew Jackson administration.
And speaking of the Jackson administration, had the nullification crisis fallen out the other way - that is, had Andrew Jackson sympathized a bit more with the South's tariff concerns than with the notion of a union of states - the country would probably have fallen apart by the end of the 19th century.
Note that I do not say this to excuse anything the Bush administration has done, simply to point out that the GPP is right. There is a tendency, especially among - though certainly not limited to - the yound and idealistic, to fervently believe that the current crisis (whatever it is) is The Worst Thing That's Ever Happened.
Out of curiosity, which elections do you suppose Democrats intentionally lose in the interests of not having a permanent majority? Or, rather, how long would the Democratic party need to have a majority before that started happening?
Because, if the Democratic party always does its best to get Democratic candidates elected (and I hope it does), then its behavior is entirely indistinguishable from the Republican party in terms of whether their goal is permanent majority.
If the complaint, of course, is that the Republican party use illegal methods in pursuit of its goal of permanent majority, that's certainly something worth addressing. But it's a different discussion entirely.
If an incumbent re-election rate of over 90% in the House represents some kind of changing of the guard, I submit that we have problems that go well beyond which party is doing what.
Is this some kind of obscure warning about the impending Apocalypse?
Is it some sort of pseudo-Zen assertion a lá "there is no spoon?"
Has there been late-breaking news from the atomic clock people that we've got an anti-leap day this year?
Are you a true believer in some sort of alternative calendar where days are 25 hours long, and there are only ten months of 35 days each, none of which are named August?
Or do you honestly believe that the version of the Gregorian calendar in common usage around the world doesn't contain a date labeled "August 31st?" 'Cause if it's this last one, it's kind of disappointing.
Only if you're
A) Alanis Morisette, or
B) operating under a definition of "ironic" such that "ironic" equates to "exactly according to plan."
Uh...I wasn't being pedantic. I've never heard of cricket video game, and was simply trying to say exactly what I said - that I would be in the market for one if such a thing existed.
Obviously, not so in the market for one that I've researched their existence, or I wouldn't have had to say anything.
Now that I'm aware such a thing exists, I may pursue acquiring it, though I'm not generally a fan of sports games on the PC.
Don't confuse "able to recover all data" with "able to recover any data." To have useful storage, you need the former. If you're paranoid, you need to protect against the latter.
Hell, I own all three current-gen consoles, and I didn't have a clue about their axillary functions! In fact, if you could help me out, here, I'd appreciate it - what are their axillary functions? Can I use them as deodorant devices? Will they reduce swelling in my axillary lymph node?
Please help, inquiring minds want to know!
In the larger sense, I agree with you. But the problem is, the world isn't going to wait for your children to learn how to think, it's just going to go on being the way it is. Which means, for whatever period your child is incapable of dealing maturely with the world, it's your job to do it for him or her. While it's not fair to the child's development to assume all the responsibility (in which case, they'll never learn to be responsible for their own actions), it's equally unfair to dump the responsibility on them when they're not ready.
Figuring out the balance is the trick to being a good parent. While it's futile to try and pretend your children are innocent indefinitely, that doesn't mean it's not a good idea to try and protect that innocence for a time. Porn is a good example - children lack the contextual information necessary to process the information adequately. As a somewhat exaggerated case, consider BDSM. Without the experiential background that puts sexual desire and gratification in the proper context, it's going to be difficult to understand why it's ok for that guy to order around, slap, and spit on that woman. Trying to explain that it's ok for that guy to do it, but not the child, is going to be a difficult task if you can't also explain the reasons behind it. And you can't explain them adequately to someone who's prepubescent; they lack the emotional and physical context for it to make sense.
While I won't disagree that the national obsession with the simple fact of body parts is ridiculous, at the same time there's plenty of content that I don't want my children experiencing until they've got the background to put in its proper place, and it has nothing to do with nipples (after all, they're one of the first things most infants ever see!!).
Honest question, not intended as flamebait - I really don't know the answer. Has any Linux distro implemented true, system-wide copy/cut & paste? As minor as it is, it's one of the niggling little annoyances that prevented me from switching quite some time ago (last time this was the reason was, I think, when I was trying RedHat 5). Other problems have prevented me since (Inkjet drivers at one point, wireless NIC drivers at another, wireless USB dongle drivers currently), but I've reason to believe they've been resolved.
How apropos - from the Colbert Report last night:
Judd Apatow: "What do you think of profanity?"
Stephen Colbert: "I think it's bullshit."
I have to wonder if the effort you saved in not backtracking to fix typos was greater or less than the effort to explain why you didn't want to do so.
I'm assuming, of course, that your stance on this issue is related to the overall efficiency of the process, rather than principle, because I can't imagine what sort of principle would lead you to not backtrack to fix typos.
On the other hand, I don't pretend to omniscience, so if there is such a principle at stake, I'd love to know about it. Then I could use it as an excuse for the typos I don't catch.
The problem the RIAA is facing is that college students - as a demographic - have a combination of passionate beliefs, raging idealism, little to lose, and nothing but time. I saw this one coming a mile away.
I just want to go on record as saying that I would purchase Cricket 2007 were such a thing available.
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(The above space intentionally left blank: readers may insert their own jokes about PS2 failure rates)
I don't know jack about the chemistry of the process to strip H2 off CH4, but if the catalysts aren't reusable, doesn't that mean they're not catalysts? I thought the definition of catalyst was a substance that increases the yield or speed of a reaction without itself being consumed or changed by the process.
They already did that in 1895. The ARC is violating that agreement; suggesting they enter into another agreement with the ARC is fairly pointless.
You may be right that J&J would be better served by ditching the trademark entirely rather than deal with the PR fallout. But then they've ceded the entire home medical supplies industry to the ARC, because it's likely people will just beeline for the products with a red cross on them.
The ARC - I have to believe knowingly - put J&J in a bad position by violating the agreement. They are unlikely to be ignorant of the PR value of being "the Red Cross," and are trying to hide behind that PR to pull a fast one on J&J in the name of revenue. Frankly, it's despicable.
Read the article.
The ARC signed an agreement with J&J in 1895 to not use the red cross logo on medical supplies for commercial use that competed with J&J products.
At that point, it doesn't matter who's older. The agreement is signed and legally binding. They don't get to decide now that there's money in medical supplies for commercial use and just say "we crossed our fingers." They're trying to hide behind exactly your reaction: "but we're charitable! We're the Red Cross! How dare they sue us for breach of contract!"
Because there weren't any. Prior to recently, the ARC was abiding by the agreement they signed to not sell competing products bearing the red cross logo.
It's very simple. Charitable organization or no, the ARC doesn't get to go around violating contracts they've abided by for a century. If the ARC wanted to claim exclusive rights to the trademark, then they shouldn't have agreed with J&J to share usage in non-overlapping areas.
First: we're discussing the American Red Cross, not the other Red Crosses/Crescents in the world.
Second, if the ARC wanted to claim they just didn't care that J&J was using the logo, maybe they shouldn't have signed a contract specifying that the ARC was not allowed to sell products featuring the logo in competition with J&J.
They don't get to come back later and whine about how it was stolen when they AGREED TO IT IN WRITING. J&J was not and is not illegally using the logo, they entered into a binding agreement with the ARC regarding exactly this.
They're trying to get around the problem now by licensing the logo for use, rather than selling their own products directly.