I'd say it's a mix, and you shouldn't discount machismo as a motivation. Almost all the Republican leadership projects this extreme wimpiness and desperate need to prove how tough they are, and they do it whether or not there's a clear financial motivation.
I'm still confused why the people that are supposed to be for a smaller government would be nay saying evidence that big government is doing horrible things behind our backs.
Because with very few exceptions*, Republicans and other self-proclaimed conservatives who claim to be in favor of smaller government are lying through their teeth, of course. They want to get rid of the parts of government that liberals like, but reducing the size of government as a whole, not so much. Specifically, they want to expand the parts of the government that involve imprisoning and/or killing people, because it makes them (wimps that they almost always are) feel tough and powerful. So hysterical calls for Assange's head are absolutely what you should expect from them.
*I'll grant you Ron Paul, although his kid seems to be a standard-issue Republican riding on the family name.
Well, see, you can live in your little Randroid free-market fantasyland all you want. But when you start poisoning the land, air, and water we all have to share, the rest of us will organize to stop you. We will call this organization "the government." We will give this organization the power to fine you, imprison you, or even kill you if you refuse to mend your ways, and you can't stop us. There are more of us than there are of you, we're smarter, and we're better than you in every conceivable way.
Don't like it? Move to Somalia. There are a bunch of people there who have taken your ideology to its logical extreme. Let's see how long you last.
Most of your questions are answered in TFA, and those that aren't, are thoroughly covered in the linked PDF (except for the political ones.) The short version is that the stuff propagates very easily through the environment and is toxic to bees even in very low doses.
I believe the problem may have something to do with persistent cookies. I'm not sure why I have this impression... it's just some idea that came to me out of nowhere... oh, wait, I know where that idea came from! I read the first goddamn sentence of the summary.
I'd love to know what a psychiatrist would think of your post.
Planning on shooting anybody?
Based on his.sig, I'm guessing he's the typical right-wing chickenhawk who loves to imagine himself a tough guy who know what it's like to face down death because he's seen all the movies based on Tom Clancy novels and spent a lot of time playing Call of Duty.
If I believed that there was a good chance that after I died I would be thrown into a lake of fire and otherwise punished for the rest of eternity, you can bet your sorry ass that I would be scared shitless of dying. Yes yes if you're good you get to go to heaven, but what if you accidentally committed a mortal sin without realizing it or something? After all, if you read the Bible, God is nothing if not capricious; how can you know that when He said "No mixed fabrics!", He didn't really mean it? What if you really are supposed to believe in the Miracle of Transubstantiation, reality be damned? It's just so uncertain.
For those who believe in it, it's not uncertain at all. I've never met anyone who believed in the literal existence of Hell who wasn't absolutely 100% sure he wasn't going there. It's all those icky... other... people who are going to burn in eternal torment, while the good and virtuous spend a blissful afterlife with the Lord.
And yet, strangely, most of these folks try just as hard to avoid death as the rest of us do.
Also, is "fear of death is most common among women than men" grammatically correct? Most/Than? Shouldn't it be "more than"? (I'm guessing that they have editors and this is technically correct, I'm just unfamiliar with it)
No it's not, yes it should, and you're unfamiliar with it because it's wrong.;)
Note the tag line at the bottom of the article: "Provided by University of Granada." I suspect they had the article translated into English by a Spanish-speaker who learned English very well in school, but doesn't have a native speaker's grasp of idiom. My mother, an American who speaks German fluently enough to be mistaken for a native speaker and lived in Germany for several years, works as a translator in partnership with a German who speaks very good English; my mother handles all the German-to-English translations while her partner handles all the English-to-German. For professional translations, the rule is "always translate into your native language." Unfortunately a lot of people don't get this -- or just don't want to pay for the services of a professional translator -- so minor but irritating mistakes like "most than" tend to slip through.
I'd much rather experts spend their energy trying to get Bush and Cheney behind bars for willful torture, and other possible war crimes, than worry about pretend beings.
So do you think about doing your job, and nothing but doing your job, all the time? If not, why not?
The blog is written by comic book nerds who happen to be lawyers. It's natural for them to think about how their professions might apply to fictional worlds they enjoy. It's entertaining for them, and for the rest of us reading it. No further justification is needed, and there's no reason to think it detracts from their ability to do serious business.
I'm a full-time scientist and occasional science fiction writer. The latter does the former no harm; if anything, they're complementary.
Any argument founded on "b-b-but the root meaning of the word X is Y!" is pretty much doomed to failure. Remarkably, words can change meanings over time. (It's their mutant power, or something.) Deal with it.
The short version is that easily-created corporations did not exist until the mid-1800s, so it would only be a solution for immortals that aren't actually very old yet.
Of course, the mid-to-late 1800s was also about the time that it started becoming more difficult for people to establish an identity simply by saying who they were. An immortal older than that could have existed very easily up to that point just by moving around a lot, and then -- seeing which way the winds were blowing, with corporations becoming effectively immortal people in the eyes of the law -- started building a corporate identity.
My point is that hierarchical representation does nothing to prevent the rigging, as GPP apparently believes it does. Any system can be rigged; my gut feeling is that the more hierarchical a system is, the easier it is to rig, but that's neither here nor there. The idea that repealing the 17th Amendment would usher in a new golden age of liberty seems to be a popular meme, but there's no evidence for it in US history nor in the history of any other country.
A wise man once said... well I can't remember the exact words, but it was something along the lines of "Wisdom starts with humility". If you can't laugh at yourself than thats something you should work on.
Men making misogynistic jokes aren't laughing at themselves. They're laughing at other people. That's pretty much the opposite of humility.
That's good to know as I sit freezing in my apartment, the entire country covered in as much snow as we had in 1965.
Are you really dumb enough to think that's a relevant argument, or am I giving you too much credit for thinking about the relevance of your arguments at all?
There's no connection between direct election of Senators and the growth of the modern security state. State governments have shown themselves just as eager to participate in the post-9/11 feeding frenzy as the federal government is; if they, instead of the voters, chose Senators, the Senate would have even less reason to pay attention to the outrage of the American people than it does now.
Incidentally, there's a fine Russian word for a hierarchical system of representation, in which smaller governmental bodies choose representatives to the national government: "Soviet." Yeah, that sure helped protect the liberties of the people and the long-term interests of the republic, didn't it?
Slashdot Mirror
I'd say it's a mix, and you shouldn't discount machismo as a motivation. Almost all the Republican leadership projects this extreme wimpiness and desperate need to prove how tough they are, and they do it whether or not there's a clear financial motivation.
I'm still confused why the people that are supposed to be for a smaller government would be nay saying evidence that big government is doing horrible things behind our backs.
Because with very few exceptions*, Republicans and other self-proclaimed conservatives who claim to be in favor of smaller government are lying through their teeth, of course. They want to get rid of the parts of government that liberals like, but reducing the size of government as a whole, not so much. Specifically, they want to expand the parts of the government that involve imprisoning and/or killing people, because it makes them (wimps that they almost always are) feel tough and powerful. So hysterical calls for Assange's head are absolutely what you should expect from them.
*I'll grant you Ron Paul, although his kid seems to be a standard-issue Republican riding on the family name.
The villains fall for that trick every time.
Well, see, you can live in your little Randroid free-market fantasyland all you want. But when you start poisoning the land, air, and water we all have to share, the rest of us will organize to stop you. We will call this organization "the government." We will give this organization the power to fine you, imprison you, or even kill you if you refuse to mend your ways, and you can't stop us. There are more of us than there are of you, we're smarter, and we're better than you in every conceivable way.
Don't like it? Move to Somalia. There are a bunch of people there who have taken your ideology to its logical extreme. Let's see how long you last.
Most of your questions are answered in TFA, and those that aren't, are thoroughly covered in the linked PDF (except for the political ones.) The short version is that the stuff propagates very easily through the environment and is toxic to bees even in very low doses.
You can't buy health insurance across state lines because the Federal government specifically prevents it.
Please cite the section of the US Code that prohibits buying health insurance across state lines.
loss of brightness due to osculation
It is true that once the serious making out begins, higher mental function tends to shut down, but I don't think that was quite what you meant.
I believe the problem may have something to do with persistent cookies. I'm not sure why I have this impression ... it's just some idea that came to me out of nowhere ... oh, wait, I know where that idea came from! I read the first goddamn sentence of the summary.
I'd love to know what a psychiatrist would think of your post.
Planning on shooting anybody?
Based on his .sig, I'm guessing he's the typical right-wing chickenhawk who loves to imagine himself a tough guy who know what it's like to face down death because he's seen all the movies based on Tom Clancy novels and spent a lot of time playing Call of Duty.
If I believed that there was a good chance that after I died I would be thrown into a lake of fire and otherwise punished for the rest of eternity, you can bet your sorry ass that I would be scared shitless of dying. Yes yes if you're good you get to go to heaven, but what if you accidentally committed a mortal sin without realizing it or something? After all, if you read the Bible, God is nothing if not capricious; how can you know that when He said "No mixed fabrics!", He didn't really mean it? What if you really are supposed to believe in the Miracle of Transubstantiation, reality be damned? It's just so uncertain.
For those who believe in it, it's not uncertain at all. I've never met anyone who believed in the literal existence of Hell who wasn't absolutely 100% sure he wasn't going there. It's all those icky ... other ... people who are going to burn in eternal torment, while the good and virtuous spend a blissful afterlife with the Lord.
And yet, strangely, most of these folks try just as hard to avoid death as the rest of us do.
the University of Grenada...I mean, c'mon!?
Granada, not Grenada. Only one letter, but it makes a rather large difference.
Also, is "fear of death is most common among women than men" grammatically correct? Most/Than? Shouldn't it be "more than"? (I'm guessing that they have editors and this is technically correct, I'm just unfamiliar with it)
No it's not, yes it should, and you're unfamiliar with it because it's wrong. ;)
Note the tag line at the bottom of the article: "Provided by University of Granada." I suspect they had the article translated into English by a Spanish-speaker who learned English very well in school, but doesn't have a native speaker's grasp of idiom. My mother, an American who speaks German fluently enough to be mistaken for a native speaker and lived in Germany for several years, works as a translator in partnership with a German who speaks very good English; my mother handles all the German-to-English translations while her partner handles all the English-to-German. For professional translations, the rule is "always translate into your native language." Unfortunately a lot of people don't get this -- or just don't want to pay for the services of a professional translator -- so minor but irritating mistakes like "most than" tend to slip through.
I suppose you could always hand-carry a copy of your return to your local IRS office.
... and judging from your subject line, the makers of Norton Utilities would like a word with Beijing about this very issue.
I'd much rather experts spend their energy trying to get Bush and Cheney behind bars for willful torture, and other possible war crimes, than worry about pretend beings.
So do you think about doing your job, and nothing but doing your job, all the time? If not, why not?
The blog is written by comic book nerds who happen to be lawyers. It's natural for them to think about how their professions might apply to fictional worlds they enjoy. It's entertaining for them, and for the rest of us reading it. No further justification is needed, and there's no reason to think it detracts from their ability to do serious business.
I'm a full-time scientist and occasional science fiction writer. The latter does the former no harm; if anything, they're complementary.
Looks interesting -- I'll have to check it out.
Any argument founded on "b-b-but the root meaning of the word X is Y!" is pretty much doomed to failure. Remarkably, words can change meanings over time. (It's their mutant power, or something.) Deal with it.
The short version is that easily-created corporations did not exist until the mid-1800s, so it would only be a solution for immortals that aren't actually very old yet.
Of course, the mid-to-late 1800s was also about the time that it started becoming more difficult for people to establish an identity simply by saying who they were. An immortal older than that could have existed very easily up to that point just by moving around a lot, and then -- seeing which way the winds were blowing, with corporations becoming effectively immortal people in the eyes of the law -- started building a corporate identity.
My point is that hierarchical representation does nothing to prevent the rigging, as GPP apparently believes it does. Any system can be rigged; my gut feeling is that the more hierarchical a system is, the easier it is to rig, but that's neither here nor there. The idea that repealing the 17th Amendment would usher in a new golden age of liberty seems to be a popular meme, but there's no evidence for it in US history nor in the history of any other country.
Ah, I see my latter guess was correct. Thanks for confirming.
A wise man once said... well I can't remember the exact words, but it was something along the lines of "Wisdom starts with humility". If you can't laugh at yourself than thats something you should work on.
Men making misogynistic jokes aren't laughing at themselves. They're laughing at other people. That's pretty much the opposite of humility.
That's good to know as I sit freezing in my apartment, the entire country covered in as much snow as we had in 1965.
Are you really dumb enough to think that's a relevant argument, or am I giving you too much credit for thinking about the relevance of your arguments at all?
There's no connection between direct election of Senators and the growth of the modern security state. State governments have shown themselves just as eager to participate in the post-9/11 feeding frenzy as the federal government is; if they, instead of the voters, chose Senators, the Senate would have even less reason to pay attention to the outrage of the American people than it does now.
Incidentally, there's a fine Russian word for a hierarchical system of representation, in which smaller governmental bodies choose representatives to the national government: "Soviet." Yeah, that sure helped protect the liberties of the people and the long-term interests of the republic, didn't it?
I'm guessing not.
I would expect a Microsoft format from our illustrious leaders.
Bingo. Anyone who doesn't see Microsoft's hand in this is hopelessly naive.