He'd be the best spin doctor in the industry if he could say "Linux doesn't exist" and then make people believe it; if he just fails at it, however, he's actually closer to the worst spin doctor in the industry (after all, what good is a spin doctor whose claims are so outlandish that nobody takes them serious)? Anyone who's heard of Linux at all will know that it isn't true. Heck, everyone (every CEO, manager, venture capitalist etc.) who opens an IT newspaper will see headlines like "Microsoft claims Linux infringes on 2108964 of its patents", "Microsoft struck a deal with Novell, makers of SuSE Linux" and so on. To think that anyone will believe that Linux doesn't exist is absurd, and every manager who reads this will take everything this guy says with a big grain of salt after that first claim is already not only obviously untrue but so ridiculous that you can't help but shake your head and wonder what crack he's been smoking.
It means that the author is an ape shit-crazy moonbat who lives in a crack-induced bizarro world where free software is only free when/while/because it's developed by pinko communist fascist hippies that do not have jobs and never eat, sleep, or earn or spend money but rather sit in their basements 48 hours a day listening to Jefferson Airplane and producing code for the global Conspiracy to Overthrow America.
As soon as corporations, jobs, employment and soap come into play, a paradox is created, which results in Free Software vanishing in a puff of logic, along with all the sunshine, lollipops and rainbows in the sky, and suddenly everything is assimilated into the dull and gloomy real world again, and the products that were, well, produced (like Linux) magically disappear, too. Corporations still sell them, but that's probably just caused by fluctuations in the quantum foam that makes up the world.
em>Face it, no company can stand up to Microsoft [...]
Let's see. Microsoft: 71,172 employees; IBM: 355,766 employees (499.87%). Microsoft: 44.3b USD revenue (2006); IBM: 91.4b USD revenue (2005/2006) (206.32%). Microsoft: has been around for 32 years (since 1975); IBM: has been around for 118 years (since 1889).
IBM's employees have also won at least the following: three Nobel Prizes, four Turing Awards, five National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science. Microsoft has won... well, I don't know, actually, but I'm not aware of them having won any comparable high-profile, high-prestige prices. (Microsoft does have an "awards" page, but the only awards it lists are things like "2006 Hispanic Corporate 100--Hispanic Magazine"; nice, I suppose, but utterly unimpressive). Furthermore, IBM holds more patents than any other technology company in the USA - including Microsoft.
Oh yeah, and IBM's lawyers have a reputation that has earned them the nickname "the Nazgûl" - probably for a reason. Do you still think nobody can stand up to Microsoft? I'm not saying that it'd be a guaranteed win for IBM, but the idea that Microsoft can sue anyone out of business and that noone can stand up to them is not grounded in reality.
I'm not so sure about that. Yes, people are lazy, but switching to a different ISP is more of a hassle than running a virus/malware scanner; even if you're really computer-unsavvy, you'll probably have a child, sibling, cousin or friend who knows a bit more about computers and can do it for you.
And I still haven't seen any mail protocol proposals that would both cut down on spam in an effective fashion as well as not interfere with legitimate mail and not violating non-technical requirements like privacy etc.
Seriously, spam is a semantic problem, in a way; something that is spam for one person or in one situation need not be spam for someone else or in another situation. I'm signed up for a handful of company newsletters informing me about special offers etc., for example, and those aren't spam (since I signed up for them), but if I received them without having signed up, I'd definitely consider them spam. How is a mail delivery protocol supposed to be able to distinguish between these situations?
Two things: a) leave your email address on the web somewhere (spam spiders WILL pick it up eventually), and b) give it time (the more your email address is traded around, the more spam you will get). Also, if you change email addresses, c) have your old address forward to the new one in case someone still uses the old one. Oh yeah, and d) register one or more domain names and set up a catch-all address for them that collects email sent to non-existant accounts.
I get about 3000 spam mails per day, of which about ~10 or so make it to my inbox on average. I could get rid of - I'm guessing - 90% of that by disabling my old email addresses' forwarding, but I don't want to close that door just yet; nobody's used those addresses in years, but they still MIGHT float around somewhere, and even though my new one can easily be figured out if google my name (no, not "asninn", so you don't have to try that), I want to make sure that I can still be reached. It may sound strange, but I take a certain pride in the first email address I ever got still working and (valid) email sent to that still reaching my current inbox.
Wait. Did you just seriously imply that to disagree with the notion that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is unscientific? The polar opposite is actually true; absence of evidence *is* evidence (although not proof) of absence, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Denying THAT is unscientific.
That's interesting, because when I use emoticons, I generally tend to use the eye-emphasising forms - ^_^, ^.^ or even ^^. In fact, I'm using the first of these considerably less often than the latter two, where the eyes are even more prominent and all other facial features are reduced to just a single dot (representing the nose, in my interpretation) or removed entirely.
It also depends on the context, though; the less personal the context is, the more I tend away from these emoticons. In very formal contexts, I wouldn't use any at all, of course, but in the area between "all emoticons are frowned upon" and "100% personal" (Slashdot would be a good example), I tend more towards things like:) and so on.
Interestingly enough, for me at least, there's also been a definite change over time; back in my BBS/FidoNet days, I used dashed forms like:-) pretty much exclusively and despised the dashless versions, but over time, I first shifted to the dashless versions, and then away from those as well and to the caret emoticons.
And I'm not even Japanese. (I'm not a US-American, either, of course, but I think that in terms of fundamental cultural issues like this, US-Americans in general are still close enough to us Europeans for the study to apply to us as well.)
I'd tend to agree that goatse is not porn simply because for all we know, it's not meant to arouse per se, but it's not designed to shock, either, even though it's been used that way. From what I know (not very much, admittedly), there is a bunch of people in the world (I'm not sure whether you should call them a "subculture" or not; that term seems to imply more than just a common interest, but I can't think of anything better) who are interested in anal dilation, and the goatse picture is simply one from a series by one guy who was showing off how far he had come.
So no, I wouldn't call goatse "horror" or describe it as designed to "shock and offend". (And certainly, I wouldn't call it "eye violence" or "eye rape", either. Come on, if goatse is the worst thing you've ever seen, you must've been living a VERY sheltered life indeed!)
Sci-fi shows have also "grasped" the fact that it would be nice if we had FTL travel, beaming, phasers and so on. However, it takes more than an idea to actually make things work - real science is more complicated than "hey, it would be cool if we had X". You can't just will things into existence; you need to design and build them, and in order to do that, you need to both create the theoretical foundations *and* overcome a lot of practical obstacles.
In sci-fi shows, none of that is necessary, so of course it's easy for them to "grasp" the fact that it would be nice to have all sorts of stuff. All *they* need is a writer with a bit of fantasy.
Regarding the Group Theory article, I've got to say that
a) The first paragraph ("Group theory is that branch of mathematics concerned with the study of groups (as defined below). It has several applications in physics and chemistry.") is not information-free, not even "virtually" so.
b) If you don't understand the second paragraph ("Groups are used throughout mathematics, often to capture the internal symmetry of other structures, in the form of automorphism groups. An internal symmetry of a structure is usually associated with an invariant property; the set of transformations that preserve this invariant property, together with the operation of composition of transformations, form a group called a symmetry group.") and think that the technical terms used are too technical and obscure, then either your math degree isn't worth the paper it's written on, or you've never heard anything about groups *at all*, and in that case, *any* lingo will be unfamiliar for you. (Also, one might argue that if you've never heard anything about group theory at all, your math degree *also* isn't worth the paper it's written on, but that's another matter.)
The idea that there should be different article is a good one, though, although I'd say the main article should be the one that contains all the details (for an existing example, see Introduction to M-theory and M-theory).
Conservative talking points * Global warming is not happening. It's a liberal myth. * It's a normal cycle, not caused by man. * It's pointless for us to try to slow global warming because India and China are putting much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than the United States is, and they won't stop. * What's the big deal? It's only a few degrees change, and will make life better on Earth. Don't you like nicer weather? * It's too late to stop the major effects of global warming. Better for the the government to encourage and subsidize business to adapt to and profit from the major changes that will inevitably occur.
That's quite an interesting progression. Basically, the above can further be summed up like this:
Global warming is not happening.
Global warming is happening, but it's natural.
Global warming is happening, and it's not natural, but we-the-USA are not responsible.
Global warming is happening, and it's not natural, and we-the-USA are responsible, but it won't be a bad thing.
Global warming is happening, and it's not natural, and we-the-USA are responsible, and it will be a bad thing, but we can't change it, anyway, so we'll just have to accept it.
I really wonder why someone who's able and willing to make that progression wouldn't be able and/or willing to take the last step and conclude that
Global warming is happening, and it's not natural, and we-the-USA are responsible, and it will be a bad thing, but we can still roll up our sleeves and do something about it.
The administration consists of more than Dubya, though. Dubya personally is a moron, but there's others in the administration that are quite intelligent. Of course, they're still not above failure, and Dubya probably insists on interfering with things behind the scenes, too, so there's still blunders (both big and small).
Kid: Hey, who left all this garbage on the steps of Congress? Amendment: I'm not garbage.
(starts singing)
I'm an amendment-to-be, yes an amendment-to-be, And I'm hoping that they'll ratify me.
There's a lot of flag-burners, Who have got too much freedom, I want to make it legal For policemen to beat'em.
'Cause there's limits to our liberties, At least I hope and pray that there are, 'Cause those liberal freaks go too far.
(spoken) Kid: But why can't we just make a law against flag-burning? Amendment: Because that law would be unconstitutional. But if we changed the Constitution... Kid: Then we could make all sorts of crazy laws! Amendment: Now you're catching on! Kid: What if people say you're not good enough to be in the Constitution?
(sings)
Amendment: Then I'll crush all opposition to me, And I'll make Ted Kennedy pay. If he fights back, I'll say that he's gay.
(spoken) Congressman: Good news, Amendment! They ratified ya! You're in the US Constitution! Amendment: Oh yeah!
I think the real question is not "will he sign it", but rather "will he abide by it after signing it (and issuing a signing statement saying it doesn't apply to him)". Even if he doesn't issue a signing statement, he's already proven that he's absolutely willing to ignore laws whenever they don't suit him, that he considers it his prerogative to do so, and that he will not stop doing so just because someone points out it's illegal, too.
Why would a new law be any different? Consider a serial murderer as an analogy. Murder is already illegal, but he still murders a few people. Now, the government (on some level) decides that they really want to stop him (which makes sense), so they pass a law reaffirming that, yes, murder is indeed illegal. Would anyone believe that this will actually have any effect on the serial killer in question? No - if he killed people before despite the fact that it was illegal, he'll continue to do so now, too.
There's a bit more to it in this case since it's more about a power struggle between different branches of government than it is about legal authority, but the basic point still stands: if someone does something despite the fact that it's illegal, making it illegal AGAIN will not stop him.
In fact, if this even has a visible effect at all, I'd expect that the administration will merely *claim* to have stopped, and that in reality, things will continue anyway, just even more hidden. So it'd probably be a Pyrrhic victory; the real solution to the problem would be to not only get rid of the current administration, but also take steps to ensure that the power actually resides with the people and that the US constitution is more than an old piece of paper again.
Seriously, though, that comment from Vixie was entirely stupid. Estonia's being put under pressure by Russia, the FSB (one of Russia's intelligence agencies and successor of the KGB) is stirring the flames, the Estonian embassy in Moscow is being attacked (literally), the Estonian ambassador is threatened with violence and there's a huge ddos attack against a number of Estonian websites, all because a statue is being moved to a different location (it's not even as if it's being taken down or anything), and Vixie rags on the Estonians?
He's an idiot for bringing politics into this at all, but if he absolutely has to, he should've talked about Russian teenagers, not Estonian ones. Not that it'd be fair to judge Russia, Russians *or* Russian teenagers by the actions of a few idiots, but blaming the victims is even more unfair.
Without wanting to comment on your post and the issues discussed in this thread as such, I'd like to point out that it seems to make little sense to - on one hand - say that the actions of people doing bad things in the name of religion do not actually have anything to with that religion, and then - on the other hand - point out that people who did *good* things (like Dr. King) were religious people.
Yes, religion does influence what people do; but either the religion *as such* (no matter whether it's islam, christianity or whatever) is responsible for the actions of its members, in which case you can't say that suicide bombers acting in the name of islam have nothing to do with it, for example, or it's not - and in that case, the fact that Dr. King, for example, was a christian is wholly irrelevant, too, at least insofar as that christianity cannot take credit for what he did. It may have inspired him, but then, suicide bombers' actions are inspired by islam (assuming they're muslims, although most suicide bombers seem to be), too.
"On the Internet", or "in geek(ish) circles"? The (vast?) majority of Internet users these days aren't geeks that read Slashdot every day, stay up to date on sites like xenu.net and so on anymore - they're just regular people.
Over here, "ordinary" people who don't know what scientology (the church/company/crime syndicate/terrorist organisation) is really like will generally view them as fraudsters at best, but not necessarily as criminals who will do anything that's necessary to achieve their goals, with no concern for laws; those few in the USA I've talked to about this who weren't geeks generally saw them even less critical, thinking of them as weird but ultimately still being "just another religion".
I can only talk about my own experiences, of course, but I don't think that society in general is really aware of what scientology is and works like, neither in Europe nor in North America.
Well said. I own none of the current consoles, but if I wanted to get one, it'd definitely be the Wii - improved graphics are nice, but if I have to choose between improved graphics and novel, interesting, unusual and unique gameplay, I'll always choose the latter.
Also, there's the issue of price - a PS3 costs more than 700 EUR, and an Xbox360 still costs 450 EUR (premium), but a Wii only costs 250. For me, that definitely would be a factor; I simply don't see why I should spend an extra 500 EUR on a console when I can have a better (read: more appealing!) one for one third of the price.
Now don't get me wrong, I love my PS2, but about the only thing I play on it are Bemani - I'm into games where you do a bit more than just sit on your couch and move your fingers, so the Wii would be a natural choice for me in just about every regard if I wanted to get a new console.
Oh, not at all, actually - I'm often a bit thick when it comes to jokes, but in many of those cases, I do find them funny after they're being explained.
Thinking about it, there probably is a difference between not getting a joke and not getting that there *is* (supposed to be) a joke; in the latter case, I'd agree, yes, but the statement pretty much becomes a tautology then. If I read something and don't get that it is supposed to be a joke, that implies that I don't consider it funny in any way, so naturally I will consider it weak if I'm told it is supposed to be a joke after all.
I think you've got it wrong, at least in part. Rights are, first and foremost, an ethical concept - something that we recognise to be inherent in every person.
You're right (no pun intended) when you say that rights are meaningless insofar as that without any way of protecting them, they are irrelevant; if somebody's violating your rights, then you can tell them "you're violating my rights!" as often as you want, but unless you have a way to stop them, they'll just say "yes, so what?" and continue.
However, that does not make rights *inherently* meaningless; I think you're conflating two similar but subtly different things here, although it's probably an easy mistake to make. Put another way, if rights are inherently meaningless, then why is it important to protect them - or why is there anything you can protect at all?
Your inherent rights are basically ethical entitlements, and the recognition of these rights by - e.g. - the US constitution turns those ethical entitlements into legal entitlements (and the state - that is, the government - then makes sure that these legal entitlements, in turn, are worth more than the paper they're written on). However, if no ethical entitlements existed, there'd be nothing to base the legal entitlements on, and the only solution for that inconsistency would be to adapt the opinion that your (legal) rights are *granted* by the state rather than recognised (since there wouldn't *be* anything to recognise). And down that road lies madness, of course.
I'm sure you're actually aware of that, but I think it goes to show that inherent rights are not actually a meaningless, bullshit concept. You need a foundation to build a house in which you can live, and the foundation is important even though you couldn't live in the foundation if no house had been built upon it.
What's wrong with hate crime laws, though? Motives have been considered for the purpose of determining the severity of a crime pretty much forever - if you steal 50 bucks worth of food to feed your hungry children, that's not going to get you the same sentence as stealing a 50 bucks DVD player for your own amusement, for example. Or, as an example that may be more relevant, if you catch your best friend cheating on you with your wife, pull out your gun in rage and shoot him, you're (probably) going to get less than you would if you decided to kill him in cold blood so his wife and you can collect his life insurance. Right?
That's what it's all about - motives. Or, in other words, *hate* is still not outlawed; it's the *crime* part that matters. "Hate crime" does not mean that hate is a crime, it means that existing crimes are worse when they're committed solely out of hatred for any particular group, such as blacks, jews, homosexuals, or whatever.
Slashdot Mirror
He'd be the best spin doctor in the industry if he could say "Linux doesn't exist" and then make people believe it; if he just fails at it, however, he's actually closer to the worst spin doctor in the industry (after all, what good is a spin doctor whose claims are so outlandish that nobody takes them serious)? Anyone who's heard of Linux at all will know that it isn't true. Heck, everyone (every CEO, manager, venture capitalist etc.) who opens an IT newspaper will see headlines like "Microsoft claims Linux infringes on 2108964 of its patents", "Microsoft struck a deal with Novell, makers of SuSE Linux" and so on. To think that anyone will believe that Linux doesn't exist is absurd, and every manager who reads this will take everything this guy says with a big grain of salt after that first claim is already not only obviously untrue but so ridiculous that you can't help but shake your head and wonder what crack he's been smoking.
It means that the author is an ape shit-crazy moonbat who lives in a crack-induced bizarro world where free software is only free when/while/because it's developed by pinko communist fascist hippies that do not have jobs and never eat, sleep, or earn or spend money but rather sit in their basements 48 hours a day listening to Jefferson Airplane and producing code for the global Conspiracy to Overthrow America.
As soon as corporations, jobs, employment and soap come into play, a paradox is created, which results in Free Software vanishing in a puff of logic, along with all the sunshine, lollipops and rainbows in the sky, and suddenly everything is assimilated into the dull and gloomy real world again, and the products that were, well, produced (like Linux) magically disappear, too. Corporations still sell them, but that's probably just caused by fluctuations in the quantum foam that makes up the world.
Let's see. Microsoft: 71,172 employees; IBM: 355,766 employees (499.87%). Microsoft: 44.3b USD revenue (2006); IBM: 91.4b USD revenue (2005/2006) (206.32%). Microsoft: has been around for 32 years (since 1975); IBM: has been around for 118 years (since 1889).
IBM's employees have also won at least the following: three Nobel Prizes, four Turing Awards, five National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science. Microsoft has won... well, I don't know, actually, but I'm not aware of them having won any comparable high-profile, high-prestige prices. (Microsoft does have an "awards" page, but the only awards it lists are things like "2006 Hispanic Corporate 100--Hispanic Magazine"; nice, I suppose, but utterly unimpressive). Furthermore, IBM holds more patents than any other technology company in the USA - including Microsoft.
Oh yeah, and IBM's lawyers have a reputation that has earned them the nickname "the Nazgûl" - probably for a reason. Do you still think nobody can stand up to Microsoft? I'm not saying that it'd be a guaranteed win for IBM, but the idea that Microsoft can sue anyone out of business and that noone can stand up to them is not grounded in reality.
Indeed - mod parent up! Prior art is sufficient to invalidate a patent, but it's in no way necessary.
I'm not so sure about that. Yes, people are lazy, but switching to a different ISP is more of a hassle than running a virus/malware scanner; even if you're really computer-unsavvy, you'll probably have a child, sibling, cousin or friend who knows a bit more about computers and can do it for you.
And I still haven't seen any mail protocol proposals that would both cut down on spam in an effective fashion as well as not interfere with legitimate mail and not violating non-technical requirements like privacy etc.
Seriously, spam is a semantic problem, in a way; something that is spam for one person or in one situation need not be spam for someone else or in another situation. I'm signed up for a handful of company newsletters informing me about special offers etc., for example, and those aren't spam (since I signed up for them), but if I received them without having signed up, I'd definitely consider them spam. How is a mail delivery protocol supposed to be able to distinguish between these situations?
Two things: a) leave your email address on the web somewhere (spam spiders WILL pick it up eventually), and b) give it time (the more your email address is traded around, the more spam you will get). Also, if you change email addresses, c) have your old address forward to the new one in case someone still uses the old one. Oh yeah, and d) register one or more domain names and set up a catch-all address for them that collects email sent to non-existant accounts.
I get about 3000 spam mails per day, of which about ~10 or so make it to my inbox on average. I could get rid of - I'm guessing - 90% of that by disabling my old email addresses' forwarding, but I don't want to close that door just yet; nobody's used those addresses in years, but they still MIGHT float around somewhere, and even though my new one can easily be figured out if google my name (no, not "asninn", so you don't have to try that), I want to make sure that I can still be reached. It may sound strange, but I take a certain pride in the first email address I ever got still working and (valid) email sent to that still reaching my current inbox.
Wait. Did you just seriously imply that to disagree with the notion that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is unscientific? The polar opposite is actually true; absence of evidence *is* evidence (although not proof) of absence, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Denying THAT is unscientific.
Basically, it boils down to Howdershelt's four boxes again - soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Google for the exact quote.
That's interesting, because when I use emoticons, I generally tend to use the eye-emphasising forms - ^_^, ^.^ or even ^^. In fact, I'm using the first of these considerably less often than the latter two, where the eyes are even more prominent and all other facial features are reduced to just a single dot (representing the nose, in my interpretation) or removed entirely.
:) and so on.
:-) pretty much exclusively and despised the dashless versions, but over time, I first shifted to the dashless versions, and then away from those as well and to the caret emoticons.
It also depends on the context, though; the less personal the context is, the more I tend away from these emoticons. In very formal contexts, I wouldn't use any at all, of course, but in the area between "all emoticons are frowned upon" and "100% personal" (Slashdot would be a good example), I tend more towards things like
Interestingly enough, for me at least, there's also been a definite change over time; back in my BBS/FidoNet days, I used dashed forms like
And I'm not even Japanese. (I'm not a US-American, either, of course, but I think that in terms of fundamental cultural issues like this, US-Americans in general are still close enough to us Europeans for the study to apply to us as well.)
I'd tend to agree that goatse is not porn simply because for all we know, it's not meant to arouse per se, but it's not designed to shock, either, even though it's been used that way. From what I know (not very much, admittedly), there is a bunch of people in the world (I'm not sure whether you should call them a "subculture" or not; that term seems to imply more than just a common interest, but I can't think of anything better) who are interested in anal dilation, and the goatse picture is simply one from a series by one guy who was showing off how far he had come.
So no, I wouldn't call goatse "horror" or describe it as designed to "shock and offend". (And certainly, I wouldn't call it "eye violence" or "eye rape", either. Come on, if goatse is the worst thing you've ever seen, you must've been living a VERY sheltered life indeed!)
Sci-fi shows have also "grasped" the fact that it would be nice if we had FTL travel, beaming, phasers and so on. However, it takes more than an idea to actually make things work - real science is more complicated than "hey, it would be cool if we had X". You can't just will things into existence; you need to design and build them, and in order to do that, you need to both create the theoretical foundations *and* overcome a lot of practical obstacles.
In sci-fi shows, none of that is necessary, so of course it's easy for them to "grasp" the fact that it would be nice to have all sorts of stuff. All *they* need is a writer with a bit of fantasy.
Regarding the Group Theory article, I've got to say that
a) The first paragraph ("Group theory is that branch of mathematics concerned with the study of groups (as defined below). It has several applications in physics and chemistry.") is not information-free, not even "virtually" so.
b) If you don't understand the second paragraph ("Groups are used throughout mathematics, often to capture the internal symmetry of other structures, in the form of automorphism groups. An internal symmetry of a structure is usually associated with an invariant property; the set of transformations that preserve this invariant property, together with the operation of composition of transformations, form a group called a symmetry group.") and think that the technical terms used are too technical and obscure, then either your math degree isn't worth the paper it's written on, or you've never heard anything about groups *at all*, and in that case, *any* lingo will be unfamiliar for you. (Also, one might argue that if you've never heard anything about group theory at all, your math degree *also* isn't worth the paper it's written on, but that's another matter.)
The idea that there should be different article is a good one, though, although I'd say the main article should be the one that contains all the details (for an existing example, see Introduction to M-theory and M-theory).
That's quite an interesting progression. Basically, the above can further be summed up like this:
I really wonder why someone who's able and willing to make that progression wouldn't be able and/or willing to take the last step and conclude that
The administration consists of more than Dubya, though. Dubya personally is a moron, but there's others in the administration that are quite intelligent. Of course, they're still not above failure, and Dubya probably insists on interfering with things behind the scenes, too, so there's still blunders (both big and small).
Kid: Hey, who left all this garbage on the steps of Congress?
Amendment: I'm not garbage.
(starts singing)
I'm an amendment-to-be, yes an amendment-to-be,
And I'm hoping that they'll ratify me.
There's a lot of flag-burners,
Who have got too much freedom,
I want to make it legal
For policemen to beat'em.
'Cause there's limits to our liberties,
At least I hope and pray that there are,
'Cause those liberal freaks go too far.
(spoken)
Kid: But why can't we just make a law against flag-burning?
Amendment: Because that law would be unconstitutional.
But if we changed the Constitution...
Kid: Then we could make all sorts of crazy laws!
Amendment: Now you're catching on!
Kid: What if people say you're not good enough to be in the
Constitution?
(sings)
Amendment: Then I'll crush all opposition to me,
And I'll make Ted Kennedy pay.
If he fights back, I'll say that he's gay.
(spoken)
Congressman: Good news, Amendment! They ratified ya!
You're in the US Constitution!
Amendment: Oh yeah!
I think the real question is not "will he sign it", but rather "will he abide by it after signing it (and issuing a signing statement saying it doesn't apply to him)". Even if he doesn't issue a signing statement, he's already proven that he's absolutely willing to ignore laws whenever they don't suit him, that he considers it his prerogative to do so, and that he will not stop doing so just because someone points out it's illegal, too.
Why would a new law be any different? Consider a serial murderer as an analogy. Murder is already illegal, but he still murders a few people. Now, the government (on some level) decides that they really want to stop him (which makes sense), so they pass a law reaffirming that, yes, murder is indeed illegal. Would anyone believe that this will actually have any effect on the serial killer in question? No - if he killed people before despite the fact that it was illegal, he'll continue to do so now, too.
There's a bit more to it in this case since it's more about a power struggle between different branches of government than it is about legal authority, but the basic point still stands: if someone does something despite the fact that it's illegal, making it illegal AGAIN will not stop him.
In fact, if this even has a visible effect at all, I'd expect that the administration will merely *claim* to have stopped, and that in reality, things will continue anyway, just even more hidden. So it'd probably be a Pyrrhic victory; the real solution to the problem would be to not only get rid of the current administration, but also take steps to ensure that the power actually resides with the people and that the US constitution is more than an old piece of paper again.
I'll raise my hand.
Seriously, though, that comment from Vixie was entirely stupid. Estonia's being put under pressure by Russia, the FSB (one of Russia's intelligence agencies and successor of the KGB) is stirring the flames, the Estonian embassy in Moscow is being attacked (literally), the Estonian ambassador is threatened with violence and there's a huge ddos attack against a number of Estonian websites, all because a statue is being moved to a different location (it's not even as if it's being taken down or anything), and Vixie rags on the Estonians?
He's an idiot for bringing politics into this at all, but if he absolutely has to, he should've talked about Russian teenagers, not Estonian ones. Not that it'd be fair to judge Russia, Russians *or* Russian teenagers by the actions of a few idiots, but blaming the victims is even more unfair.
Without wanting to comment on your post and the issues discussed in this thread as such, I'd like to point out that it seems to make little sense to - on one hand - say that the actions of people doing bad things in the name of religion do not actually have anything to with that religion, and then - on the other hand - point out that people who did *good* things (like Dr. King) were religious people.
Yes, religion does influence what people do; but either the religion *as such* (no matter whether it's islam, christianity or whatever) is responsible for the actions of its members, in which case you can't say that suicide bombers acting in the name of islam have nothing to do with it, for example, or it's not - and in that case, the fact that Dr. King, for example, was a christian is wholly irrelevant, too, at least insofar as that christianity cannot take credit for what he did. It may have inspired him, but then, suicide bombers' actions are inspired by islam (assuming they're muslims, although most suicide bombers seem to be), too.
You can't have it both ways.
"On the Internet", or "in geek(ish) circles"? The (vast?) majority of Internet users these days aren't geeks that read Slashdot every day, stay up to date on sites like xenu.net and so on anymore - they're just regular people.
Over here, "ordinary" people who don't know what scientology (the church/company/crime syndicate/terrorist organisation) is really like will generally view them as fraudsters at best, but not necessarily as criminals who will do anything that's necessary to achieve their goals, with no concern for laws; those few in the USA I've talked to about this who weren't geeks generally saw them even less critical, thinking of them as weird but ultimately still being "just another religion".
I can only talk about my own experiences, of course, but I don't think that society in general is really aware of what scientology is and works like, neither in Europe nor in North America.
Well said. I own none of the current consoles, but if I wanted to get one, it'd definitely be the Wii - improved graphics are nice, but if I have to choose between improved graphics and novel, interesting, unusual and unique gameplay, I'll always choose the latter.
Also, there's the issue of price - a PS3 costs more than 700 EUR, and an Xbox360 still costs 450 EUR (premium), but a Wii only costs 250. For me, that definitely would be a factor; I simply don't see why I should spend an extra 500 EUR on a console when I can have a better (read: more appealing!) one for one third of the price.
Now don't get me wrong, I love my PS2, but about the only thing I play on it are Bemani - I'm into games where you do a bit more than just sit on your couch and move your fingers, so the Wii would be a natural choice for me in just about every regard if I wanted to get a new console.
Oh, not at all, actually - I'm often a bit thick when it comes to jokes, but in many of those cases, I do find them funny after they're being explained.
Thinking about it, there probably is a difference between not getting a joke and not getting that there *is* (supposed to be) a joke; in the latter case, I'd agree, yes, but the statement pretty much becomes a tautology then. If I read something and don't get that it is supposed to be a joke, that implies that I don't consider it funny in any way, so naturally I will consider it weak if I'm told it is supposed to be a joke after all.
Anyone who uses autocommit in a production environment DESERVES stuff like this.
I think you've got it wrong, at least in part. Rights are, first and foremost, an ethical concept - something that we recognise to be inherent in every person.
You're right (no pun intended) when you say that rights are meaningless insofar as that without any way of protecting them, they are irrelevant; if somebody's violating your rights, then you can tell them "you're violating my rights!" as often as you want, but unless you have a way to stop them, they'll just say "yes, so what?" and continue.
However, that does not make rights *inherently* meaningless; I think you're conflating two similar but subtly different things here, although it's probably an easy mistake to make. Put another way, if rights are inherently meaningless, then why is it important to protect them - or why is there anything you can protect at all?
Your inherent rights are basically ethical entitlements, and the recognition of these rights by - e.g. - the US constitution turns those ethical entitlements into legal entitlements (and the state - that is, the government - then makes sure that these legal entitlements, in turn, are worth more than the paper they're written on). However, if no ethical entitlements existed, there'd be nothing to base the legal entitlements on, and the only solution for that inconsistency would be to adapt the opinion that your (legal) rights are *granted* by the state rather than recognised (since there wouldn't *be* anything to recognise). And down that road lies madness, of course.
I'm sure you're actually aware of that, but I think it goes to show that inherent rights are not actually a meaningless, bullshit concept. You need a foundation to build a house in which you can live, and the foundation is important even though you couldn't live in the foundation if no house had been built upon it.
What's wrong with hate crime laws, though? Motives have been considered for the purpose of determining the severity of a crime pretty much forever - if you steal 50 bucks worth of food to feed your hungry children, that's not going to get you the same sentence as stealing a 50 bucks DVD player for your own amusement, for example. Or, as an example that may be more relevant, if you catch your best friend cheating on you with your wife, pull out your gun in rage and shoot him, you're (probably) going to get less than you would if you decided to kill him in cold blood so his wife and you can collect his life insurance. Right?
That's what it's all about - motives. Or, in other words, *hate* is still not outlawed; it's the *crime* part that matters. "Hate crime" does not mean that hate is a crime, it means that existing crimes are worse when they're committed solely out of hatred for any particular group, such as blacks, jews, homosexuals, or whatever.
So what? Just rollback the transaction.