His disciples were eating with unwashed hands; Jesus clearly said that nothing that is eaten can make one unclean.
He did? Unless you were there, I doubt you can say with any certainty what he "clearly said". Not to be pedantic, but for someone arguing about a parable vs. teaching this is an important point when discussing details written many decades after the events supposedly transpired, then copied countless times in various versions over the years, and translated numerous times. If, for purposes of this conversation, we constrain ourselves to the words found in the text of a common translation, he still doesn't clearly say anything about what is eaten. You can infer that from the conversation, but given his apparently clear words in Matthew 5:17-19, it would seem a tenuous base upon which to build an argument for tossing out a good bit of established religious law.
Paul also reinforced that concept when he talked about eating "unclean" meat, e.g. the meat which was sacrificed to idols and sold in the pagan marketplaces.
That letter also contradicts other teachings of Paul and of other disciples. In fact, this is in direct conflict with the few laws that the early church leaders decided Gentiles must follow.
Paul did indicate, however, that if a certain issue was between a person and God (e.g. not causing other believers to stumble in their faith), it wasn't the responsibility of other believers to enforce it.
My study of Paul's work shows a man determined to grow their new religion at just about any cost. He often contradicts himself and the words of other apostles in his goal of building Gentile churches. A good deal of the differences that came to define this new religion from Judaism can be traced back to him, perhaps most notably the idea of salvation by faith alone (in stark contrast to the writings of James).
Polygamy, while culturally acceptable and not forbidden, was actually discouraged (church leaders were required to be monogamous) and there actually were some laws regarding polygamy where certain cases were forbidden (e.g. to marry two sisters - which Jacob did, with notably bad results).
There are plenty of passages that talk about husband and wife, which might imply that monogamy was normal or expected, but I'm not aware of any overt discouragement anywhere in the Bible. Most prominent OT Israelites had multiple wives (excepting traveling prophets and such) including Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon. 1 Kings says that Solomon had 1,000 wives himself.
Slavery, which also wasn't forbidden, was definitely NOT what people typically think of when you say "slavery" today. Most notably, slaves were to be treated reasonably and were set free after a certain period of service.
So forced slavery and treating other humans as property is okay as long as we don't beat them to death and they can eventually work off their non-existent debt? And, according to Leviticus, your conditions were only for other Israelites. Foreign slaves were not offered these protections.
Because the bill passed, while not a good bill, is STILL better than the present law. Obama, and others, tried to strip the immunity. It didn't work. So given the choice between maintaining the status quo (worse) or accepting that the telecom companies have bought out a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, Obama voted for the bill so AT LEAST executive power is restrained a bit more.
I don't know which is worse - the number of people posting such factually incorrect garbage or the mods that mark them Insightful. Obama and others voted for amendments that had no prayer of passing and they knew that. Every senator who voted for the amendments to strip immunity but voted for the bill itself did nothing but play politics. They can say they tried to remove immunity for telecoms and they can say they voted to stop the terrorists.
No matter how many times the lie is repeated, the new bill is not better than the existing FISA laws. Nothing in the bill can do a single thing to restrain executive power. We are at this crossroads only because the existing administration chose to break the law. They ignored existing laws and lied about it to the American people. Giving them immunity for their friends who helped them only tells everyone that it was okay this time and it will be okay next time.
Who in the world modded this informative? I hope someone with a clue gets this in their meta-mod list soon. The only loopholes that allowed illegal wiretapping was that the White House decided to ignore the law. There was a process in place, a process that had worked fine for decades. A bill that says the President is no longer allowed it ignore the law doesn't matter one tiny bit when the Executive branch believes itself above the law. Nothing in this bill changes that. This wasn't a problem with FISA, it was a problem with this administration and their unquenchable thirst for power. Further, the new law significantly legalized wiretapping opportunities without any judicial oversight and granted immunities to companies who broke the law. There is nothing good and plenty rotten.
It seems to me one of the great problems about elections is that extremely complex issues get boiled down to ten words. This is a perfect example of that.
I think you're correct but not for the reasons you believe. I see this vote as a calculated political move for his campaign because he knows that it would otherwise be reduced to a scrolling headline saying he voted against fighting terrorism. He supported an amendment that he knew wouldn't pass so that people like some of the apologists in this thread can say that he tried. Then he voted exactly opposite of how his campaign promised he would, in an attempt to move his campaign more toward the right. I believe that his campaign underestimated the fallout from the same folks who pushed him past Hillary in the primaries, but the reality is that these same people are not going to jump ship to McCain.
You need to weigh more than just telecom immunity when considering this vote. I'm not saying he made the right vote (it really is a tough call in my opinion), but reducing the bill solely to telecom immunity is to greatly misunderstand things.
The problem with this sentiment is that telecom immunity was a huge issue and one that didn't need to be tied to this bill. With Obama making an unambiguous statement about what we would do in this case, he failed himself and his supporters by doing exactly the opposite.
I assume (but don't really know) that homosexuals are as averse to sex with woman as heterosexuals are averse to sex with men.
Your comments demonstrate a lack of knowledge about sexuality in general. Sexuality is not a binary or digital description - it is an analog scale of diversity. There are heterosexual men and women who sometimes have same-sex experiences, and the same is true for some homosexual individuals. There are people who are nearly asexual. There are people who have a mismatch between their physical sex organs and their gender. There are people who couldn't care less about sex and others who have an insatiable sex drive. Fetishes run the gamut. And, these issues can range from a minor preference to a deeply emotional need.
You would do yourself a big favor to learn about sexuality before forming and sharing opinions.
Christianity really shouldn't even teach from the Old Testament, the only purpose that it serves is to provide all the prophecies that pointed to the coming of Christ. Christianity should be taught from the New Testament, and specifically the Gospels.
Insightful? It would seem to me that Jesus himself was pretty clear in Matthew 5:17-19.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
As for the Old Testament laws, the general sentiment is that if a law lines up with a new Testament teaching, then it still applies. If it doesn't, then it can probably be disregarded (like food laws).
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:17-19
My counter argument is that, as one would logically expect, the Old Testament laws that haven't been superseded by the New Testament retain their authority. For instance, to borrow your example of eating a ham sandwich, one can argue that it's acceptable because Jesus said it isn't things that are eaten that make one unclean but rather the condition of one's heart.
Actually, Jesus was telling a parable specifically about ritual hand washing. You can, as many Christians, extrapolate that his words in Matthew 15:11, 17 can be applied to all food laws, but verse 20 shows that he was speaking specifically about hand washing. Some sects actually argue that the OT food laws were never superseded and true believers must follow them.
There are plenty of other OT laws that were either reinforced or at least not superseded in the NT but are forgotten by mainstream Christianity. Some highlights are to leave part of your harvest in the field for the poor and the foreigners (Lev 19:9), do not breed mules and don't plant a field with two types of seed (Lev 19:19), don't eat the fruit of a tree until its fifth year (Lev 19:23-25), don't trim your beard or the sides of your head (Lev 19:27), and treat foreigners as one of your own (Lev 19:33-34). We've also decided that both polygamy and slavery are sins, but the God of the OT supported both.
It seems to me here by the fact that the parent post being scored as -1 Troll, that anyone who disagrees with Darwin's theory of evolution is automatically assigned the status of troll, regardless of whether or not they have scientific basis for their arguments.
Unfortunately, Slashdot doesn't offer a -1 Grossly Inaccurate mod, so many folks choose Flamebait or Troll instead. Rather than because he disagreed with the theory of evolution, it is more like that the GP's post was modded down simply because it is completely wrong.
Darwin himself gave a very specific list of discoveries that need to be made in order to validate his theory. I think that if Darwin were here today, he would say that those discoveries relating to specific kinds of intermediary species have not been made, and he would reject his own past theory.
The theory of evolution generally accepted today is no longer Darwin's. Portions have been rejected and other ideas have been bolted on. That is the scientific way.
You're transmitting postcards, not sealed envelopes... assuming that by "it" you are referring to privacy, what makes you think that you have any expectation of privacy...
To complete your analogy, I guess it would be okay for the US government to read all postcards sent via the US mail, log the data, and use it for whatever purpose they want? After all, not sending it in a triple-sealed container means that we clearly wanted this information gathered and used. UPS can open and examine packages sent in paper envelopes or cardboard boxes, since if we cared about privacy we would have used a welded box.
You're confusing what could happen with what should happen. Just because someone can read your postcard doesn't mean we should be okay with the USPS doing so as policy. Just because UPS could open packages and reseal them, we shouldn't be okay with them modeling my underwear before they arrive.
Given how wrong you are in everything else you wrote, I'm just going to safely dismiss this point as well.
I find the extensive support offered for your position much more convincing.
I think you're channeling the conflict resolution strategies of past (and current) governments. This has not been the route that business have took, and there's no reason to think that this would be different in any another scenario.
If you had read the GP's post, you would see that his comments were about the theoretical free market, not the highly managed economy that you've seen. The post to which he replied made the point that people like you do not understand what is meant by a truly free market and unbridled capitalism, and you made his point for him by continuing to use the US as your example of a free market.
Granted you have a right to your interpretation of the Constitution, but arguing that the SCOTUS made a "wrong" interpretation is a non-starter.
The SCOTUS can't possibly be wrong in their interpretation because their interpretations are infallible.
Arguing that the constitution says something, but that the SCOTUS got it wrong is essentially an exercise in intellectual masturbation. In practice, the Constitution says whatever the SCOTUS says it says. Absolutely. The SCOTUS has never gotten something wrong before.
To answer your question, I have no problem with the French Resistance. To my knowledge, they never went into Germany and bombed buildings, for example. Unlike all those Iraqi terrorists who keep going to the US and blowing up buildings. Are you serious?
Nor do I have any problems with the occupying Germans executing partisans where they find them; that's how it works...The problem I have with the Iraqi insurgents is mainly that they refuse to acknowledge 'the rules.' The occupying power gets to set the rules and the occupied must submit without argument? Because the invading army is wearing a uniform they may kill civilians at will but a civilian is not permitted to resist a uniformed invader?
Water boarding has been used three times at Guantanamo. Those subjected to waterboarding were al Qaeda suspects Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri...As for the rest, do YOU have a NON BIASED source? You ask for an unbiased source without providing any source for your claims? And, I certainly hope you have more than the claims by CIA Director Michael Hayden. The fact is, we have no idea how many were waterboarded and we never will know.
Here is my source for the one of the detainees that doesn't want to leave Guantanamo. Perhaps you should look a bit deeper in the rabbit hole next time. For some strange reason, that BBC article is the only reference I've found outside of right-wing blog sites who quote it. Note that the story quotes Ayrat's mother, with a letter supposedly from him. However, Ayrat Vakhitov did return to Russia and he has spoken out about the torture at Guantanamo, including regular sleep deprivation, and he has filed a lawsuit against the US government because of it. This doesn't fit at all with what that lone BBC article claimed.
Here are a couple more. Actually, it was two stories about the same guy. And, if you had bothered to read the stories you would find out that he didn't want to stay at Guantanamo - he doesn't want to return to Algeria because he was confident that he would be tortured and eventually killed there. He wanted to return to the UK, where he was living as a resident after fleeing Algeria because he feared for his life.
The source is immaterial if you don't actually read the content or look for more recent events. Any other examples that might actually hold up?
It is likewise immoral for a government backed by force to do the same, with the threatened alternatives of jail or emigration. People have a right to everything that they have freely acquired through trade with other freely-acting individuals. After reading quite a few of your posts in this thread, I think perhaps a lot of your various arguments boil down to the above statement. Whether or not you realize it, your disagreement isn't with the concept of a government requiring the public to fund common expenses, you simply disagree with some public programs. I warrant you would expect the fire department to extinguish your house in case of fire, the police department to arrest the person who set your house ablaze, and the military to make sure the Russians do not invade and occupy your living room. By joining a society and enjoying the benefits thereof, you must also share in some of the costs. If you don't like that, declare your sovereignty and prepare to defend your territory against the military actions of a hostile nation.
Such individuals should require any clarifications to be in writing or recorded on tape if they are not going to have a lawyer examine the text. If they do not care, then they are putting themselves at higher risk. Stop being so pedantic. Deceit is not okay just because the borrower was lower class, young, old, ill-informed, or simply too trusting.
As for those willing to embrace risky endeavors, they will learn from their mistakes and move on. That philosophy rings hollow for the hundreds of thousands who have lost their homes and credit ratings. And again, you seem eager to ignore that many of these people had no idea that it was a risky endeavor. They wanted to own a home, not gamble on the stock market. When their loan officer lied about which option was best for the borrower, they weren't offered a level playing field. When the lender assured them that interest rates would be even lower when it came time to refinance their ARM, they thought they were making a solid choice.
You're using the phrase "federal bureaucracies" to hide the fact that funding would be necessary. For those bureaucracies to be maintained requires continued funding - tax money. You seem to believe that these bureaucracies are empty right now but that an investigation of the mortgage industry would cause them to suddenly be filled. You've yet to suggest that an action by the government couldn't be supported by the current infrastructure.
Saying that tax money is not going towards a specific government service of some kind would mean that that service is not getting funding, so how could it exist? As I pointed out already, quite a bit of the federal government is funded without tax money. For someone being so pedantic, I would think you would want to get this detail correct.
That does not change the fact that property rights are being violated en masse. Really? Your original "property rights" argument was based upon increased taxes due to the stupid people. So how are property rights still being violated (en masse, even) if smart people like you don't have to pay more taxes?
If their lender/agent lies to them, and they have proof of the lies, they can take those individuals to court and get restitution. The blatant misrepresentations aren't in writing - they're told in person while convincing the borrower to sign the paperwork. The banks and mortgage companies were happy to extend loans to anyone regardless of their ability to pay, while telling the borrower that everything would be okay. When I bought a house about eight years ago, the bank's mortgage officer was extremely aggressive in trying to convince me that I would be best served by a five year ARM or a three year balloon, when a 15 year fixed rate was clearly my best option. Unfortunately, the average home buyer - whether a retiring baby boomer or a young couple - often do not have the experience I had and are unprepared to deal with a less-than-honest lender. As the GP said, many simply trust the lender and/or real estate agent to act in the borrower's best interest, when too many lenders and agents were looking out for their own interests at the expense of the customer.
There is no difference between a rights violation through taxation and the rights violation you have just described. Both involve the government telling a private party what to do with property they freely acquired from other freely-acting individuals. The claim is (and it has been documented) that there was widespread abuse and outright fraud from top to bottom in the mortgage markets. The lenders extended loans that they shouldn't have with terms that were inappropriate. The mortgage brokers had inappropriate relationships with the lenders. The investment groups that bundled and sold the mortgages as investments were not honest about the level of risk involved.
And, if you don't think taxation would be involved, from where is the funding coming for the federal investigations and implementations of the regulations being applied to these companies. Now you're just being silly. We already have enormous state and federal bureaucracies that would handle something like this. And, if you wanted to be real honest about it, the funding is more likely from deficit spending financed by the Chinese.
People that hate Bush 43 are going to have to choose: too stupid to tie his own shoes or the mastermind of the Iraq war for his oil buddies. I believe he is neither, but he can't be both. In fact, it seems quite likely that he is amazingly inept yet surrounded by a terribly morally and ethically corrupt administration. Regardless of whether he's the mastermind or a puppet with someone else's hand up his ass, the buck stops with him legally. You can't impeach the State Department, the NSA, Wall Street, Exxon, or Saudi Arabian princes. But, you can impeach Bush for the actions of his advisors and his cabinet.
Well that certainly is convenient. I wonder why the bible has so many specific dates if its not literal. Anyways if you read any book that was filled with non-literal stories why would you believe any of it. Thats the exact same as trusting a known liar. If creation is just a metaphor then so is god, jesus and everything else in the bible. Either believe it all or none of it. I hate pick and choose believers. Too cowardly to abandon an ancient book yet too sensible to believe it. "The Bible" is not a single entity - it is an accumulation of stories gathered over a thousand years or more. Your rant here is no less ignorant than the fundamentalist Evangelicals who think that Baby Jesus gave us the King James Version of the Bible. The creation story very well could be an ancient myth passed down from nomadic tribes 3,500 years ago while a person named Jesus actually lived 2,000 years ago. These are not mutually exclusive.
It's all in the presentation -- and WoW really tends to skimp on it. There's a "main quest" for most of the races, and some of the quest chains like Duskwood have real potential to be interesting, but when it's all told entirely in text popups and a few canned emotes, there's something lacking in the dramatic presentation department. All true, but Blizzard squandered the stories even further by not completing them. The Undead story is quite interesting then quickly peters out. The Night Elves suffer nearly the same fate. Gnomes have no story, other than an instance anyone can run in their 30s. The Trolls have nothing but a tiny village in Durotar. The Tauren get a cool starting area then are dumped into the Barrens with everyone else. Humans and Orcs are the only two races with any semblance of a racial storyline because the others were just not developed sufficiently.
You mention Duskwood, and I agree completely. It had a lot of potential and does come off better than some other areas. The Plaguelands were the same way, although the expansion removed 99.9% of the players from both EPL and WPL. OTOH, Dustwallow Marsh had most quest lines abruptly end, NPCs without any purpose, and huge areas with no reason to exist. The original zone developer had many great ideas, including PvP quests, but left Blizzard right around the original release. Blizzard simply implemented the zone half completed and left it for years.
I tend to agree with another poster regarding the inherent trade off - much story usually means extremely linear game play. The large world offered by WoW means that I have lots of flexibility in how, when, and where I level a toon, but it is difficult to tell me a story. I get a detailed story from many of the WWII shooters but have no options to deviate from the predetermined path. KOTOR was perhaps the best mix that I've played in years.
Oversubscription is a very, very normal thing in service provider networks...The problem isn't oversubscription, it's that the capacity management policies of some providers haven't caught up with the usage patterns of the customers. During peak periods, something's got to give. Any oversubscription of services can work if you size the pool appropriately based upon the needs of the clients. Something doesn't have to give during peak times if you've sized appropriately. DSL and cable operators are seeing their ratio getting out of whack and, rather than increasing the size of the pool, they are attempting to artificially limit usage.
What if, instead of bandwidth, we were talking about IP addresses? DHCP allows the provider to oversubscribe IP addresses on a broadband network as long as there is a subset of customers who don't need addresses at the same time as another subset. More people are moving away from a single PC connected directly to the modem and instead are connecting a SOHO router/firewall to the modem. This in itself significantly increases the number of IP addresses needed because many of these home routers are configured out of the box to always keep the connection active. In the past, the IP address was freed as soon as the user shut off their computer, but now users are keeping the same address for months at a time. What if the provider opted against putting more IP addresses in the pool (or reducing the number of subscribers per pool) and instead started throttling connections by limiting customers to eight hours a day of connectivity? Would this be okay?
Frame-Relay oversubscription is generally 15:1, ATM oversubscription was about 5:1, IP oversubscription is about 3:1. My Frame Relay network has guaranteed minimum bandwidths spelled out plainly in the contract. Our ability to burst above our billed rate is based upon network availability at the time, but that in no way impacts our expected quality of service. The day AT&T tries throttling business customers below their guaranteed throughputs is the day they lose their customers and lawsuits.
If you want truly non-oversubscribed bandwidth, prepare to pay a LOT more for it. You are correct that more money gets better service, but wrong that it is "truly non-oversubscribed". All networks are oversubscribed - the difference is how much effort the provider puts into keeping that ratio in check (and the legal ramifications of their failure to do so). DSL and cable providers generally advertise unlimited bandwidth in some quantity but disclaim all guarantees in the fine print.
Given that there are no providers selling truly non-oversubscribed bandwidth today, would you rather that the providers change their advertisements to say that, or raise their prices to sell dedicated bandwidth? As you pointed out, business-class networks are oversubscribed yet they do manage to provide their guaranteed service levels. Home broadband providers need to advertise what they really provide - whether than means raising prices and really providing 3M or simply selling a guaranteed minimum bandwidth.
Take one common cause of genetic problems - inbreeding.
Either you use force (making incest illegal) or you use force (tax money) to look after the resulting crop of web-footed 'tards.
Inbreeding does not cause genetic problems - it simply increases the odds of inheriting a deleterious recessive allele. Studies have shown inbreeding increases infant mortality rates but had no impact on school performance, indicating that most genetic problems associated with inbreeding are selected out quickly.
On the other hand, drinking alcohol during pregnancy has been shown to cause a host of birth defects and genetic problems in the offspring, yet no one suggests banning mothers-to-be from drinking.
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His disciples were eating with unwashed hands; Jesus clearly said that nothing that is eaten can make one unclean.
He did? Unless you were there, I doubt you can say with any certainty what he "clearly said". Not to be pedantic, but for someone arguing about a parable vs. teaching this is an important point when discussing details written many decades after the events supposedly transpired, then copied countless times in various versions over the years, and translated numerous times. If, for purposes of this conversation, we constrain ourselves to the words found in the text of a common translation, he still doesn't clearly say anything about what is eaten. You can infer that from the conversation, but given his apparently clear words in Matthew 5:17-19, it would seem a tenuous base upon which to build an argument for tossing out a good bit of established religious law.
Paul also reinforced that concept when he talked about eating "unclean" meat, e.g. the meat which was sacrificed to idols and sold in the pagan marketplaces.
That letter also contradicts other teachings of Paul and of other disciples. In fact, this is in direct conflict with the few laws that the early church leaders decided Gentiles must follow.
Paul did indicate, however, that if a certain issue was between a person and God (e.g. not causing other believers to stumble in their faith), it wasn't the responsibility of other believers to enforce it.
My study of Paul's work shows a man determined to grow their new religion at just about any cost. He often contradicts himself and the words of other apostles in his goal of building Gentile churches. A good deal of the differences that came to define this new religion from Judaism can be traced back to him, perhaps most notably the idea of salvation by faith alone (in stark contrast to the writings of James).
Polygamy, while culturally acceptable and not forbidden, was actually discouraged (church leaders were required to be monogamous) and there actually were some laws regarding polygamy where certain cases were forbidden (e.g. to marry two sisters - which Jacob did, with notably bad results).
There are plenty of passages that talk about husband and wife, which might imply that monogamy was normal or expected, but I'm not aware of any overt discouragement anywhere in the Bible. Most prominent OT Israelites had multiple wives (excepting traveling prophets and such) including Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon. 1 Kings says that Solomon had 1,000 wives himself.
Slavery, which also wasn't forbidden, was definitely NOT what people typically think of when you say "slavery" today. Most notably, slaves were to be treated reasonably and were set free after a certain period of service.
So forced slavery and treating other humans as property is okay as long as we don't beat them to death and they can eventually work off their non-existent debt? And, according to Leviticus, your conditions were only for other Israelites. Foreign slaves were not offered these protections.
Because the bill passed, while not a good bill, is STILL better than the present law. Obama, and others, tried to strip the immunity. It didn't work. So given the choice between maintaining the status quo (worse) or accepting that the telecom companies have bought out a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, Obama voted for the bill so AT LEAST executive power is restrained a bit more.
I don't know which is worse - the number of people posting such factually incorrect garbage or the mods that mark them Insightful. Obama and others voted for amendments that had no prayer of passing and they knew that. Every senator who voted for the amendments to strip immunity but voted for the bill itself did nothing but play politics. They can say they tried to remove immunity for telecoms and they can say they voted to stop the terrorists.
No matter how many times the lie is repeated, the new bill is not better than the existing FISA laws. Nothing in the bill can do a single thing to restrain executive power. We are at this crossroads only because the existing administration chose to break the law. They ignored existing laws and lied about it to the American people. Giving them immunity for their friends who helped them only tells everyone that it was okay this time and it will be okay next time.
Who in the world modded this informative? I hope someone with a clue gets this in their meta-mod list soon. The only loopholes that allowed illegal wiretapping was that the White House decided to ignore the law. There was a process in place, a process that had worked fine for decades. A bill that says the President is no longer allowed it ignore the law doesn't matter one tiny bit when the Executive branch believes itself above the law. Nothing in this bill changes that. This wasn't a problem with FISA, it was a problem with this administration and their unquenchable thirst for power. Further, the new law significantly legalized wiretapping opportunities without any judicial oversight and granted immunities to companies who broke the law. There is nothing good and plenty rotten.
It seems to me one of the great problems about elections is that extremely complex issues get boiled down to ten words. This is a perfect example of that.
I think you're correct but not for the reasons you believe. I see this vote as a calculated political move for his campaign because he knows that it would otherwise be reduced to a scrolling headline saying he voted against fighting terrorism. He supported an amendment that he knew wouldn't pass so that people like some of the apologists in this thread can say that he tried. Then he voted exactly opposite of how his campaign promised he would, in an attempt to move his campaign more toward the right. I believe that his campaign underestimated the fallout from the same folks who pushed him past Hillary in the primaries, but the reality is that these same people are not going to jump ship to McCain.
You need to weigh more than just telecom immunity when considering this vote. I'm not saying he made the right vote (it really is a tough call in my opinion), but reducing the bill solely to telecom immunity is to greatly misunderstand things.
The problem with this sentiment is that telecom immunity was a huge issue and one that didn't need to be tied to this bill. With Obama making an unambiguous statement about what we would do in this case, he failed himself and his supporters by doing exactly the opposite.
I assume (but don't really know) that homosexuals are as averse to sex with woman as heterosexuals are averse to sex with men.
Your comments demonstrate a lack of knowledge about sexuality in general. Sexuality is not a binary or digital description - it is an analog scale of diversity. There are heterosexual men and women who sometimes have same-sex experiences, and the same is true for some homosexual individuals. There are people who are nearly asexual. There are people who have a mismatch between their physical sex organs and their gender. There are people who couldn't care less about sex and others who have an insatiable sex drive. Fetishes run the gamut. And, these issues can range from a minor preference to a deeply emotional need.
You would do yourself a big favor to learn about sexuality before forming and sharing opinions.
Christianity really shouldn't even teach from the Old Testament, the only purpose that it serves is to provide all the prophecies that pointed to the coming of Christ. Christianity should be taught from the New Testament, and specifically the Gospels.
Insightful? It would seem to me that Jesus himself was pretty clear in Matthew 5:17-19.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
As for the Old Testament laws, the general sentiment is that if a law lines up with a new Testament teaching, then it still applies. If it doesn't, then it can probably be disregarded (like food laws).
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:17-19
My counter argument is that, as one would logically expect, the Old Testament laws that haven't been superseded by the New Testament retain their authority. For instance, to borrow your example of eating a ham sandwich, one can argue that it's acceptable because Jesus said it isn't things that are eaten that make one unclean but rather the condition of one's heart.
Actually, Jesus was telling a parable specifically about ritual hand washing. You can, as many Christians, extrapolate that his words in Matthew 15:11, 17 can be applied to all food laws, but verse 20 shows that he was speaking specifically about hand washing. Some sects actually argue that the OT food laws were never superseded and true believers must follow them.
There are plenty of other OT laws that were either reinforced or at least not superseded in the NT but are forgotten by mainstream Christianity. Some highlights are to leave part of your harvest in the field for the poor and the foreigners (Lev 19:9), do not breed mules and don't plant a field with two types of seed (Lev 19:19), don't eat the fruit of a tree until its fifth year (Lev 19:23-25), don't trim your beard or the sides of your head (Lev 19:27), and treat foreigners as one of your own (Lev 19:33-34). We've also decided that both polygamy and slavery are sins, but the God of the OT supported both.
It seems to me here by the fact that the parent post being scored as -1 Troll, that anyone who disagrees with Darwin's theory of evolution is automatically assigned the status of troll, regardless of whether or not they have scientific basis for their arguments.
Unfortunately, Slashdot doesn't offer a -1 Grossly Inaccurate mod, so many folks choose Flamebait or Troll instead. Rather than because he disagreed with the theory of evolution, it is more like that the GP's post was modded down simply because it is completely wrong.
Darwin himself gave a very specific list of discoveries that need to be made in order to validate his theory. I think that if Darwin were here today, he would say that those discoveries relating to specific kinds of intermediary species have not been made, and he would reject his own past theory.
The theory of evolution generally accepted today is no longer Darwin's. Portions have been rejected and other ideas have been bolted on. That is the scientific way.
You're transmitting postcards, not sealed envelopes... assuming that by "it" you are referring to privacy, what makes you think that you have any expectation of privacy...
To complete your analogy, I guess it would be okay for the US government to read all postcards sent via the US mail, log the data, and use it for whatever purpose they want? After all, not sending it in a triple-sealed container means that we clearly wanted this information gathered and used. UPS can open and examine packages sent in paper envelopes or cardboard boxes, since if we cared about privacy we would have used a welded box.
You're confusing what could happen with what should happen. Just because someone can read your postcard doesn't mean we should be okay with the USPS doing so as policy. Just because UPS could open packages and reseal them, we shouldn't be okay with them modeling my underwear before they arrive.
Given how wrong you are in everything else you wrote, I'm just going to safely dismiss this point as well.
I find the extensive support offered for your position much more convincing.
I think you're channeling the conflict resolution strategies of past (and current) governments. This has not been the route that business have took, and there's no reason to think that this would be different in any another scenario.
If you had read the GP's post, you would see that his comments were about the theoretical free market, not the highly managed economy that you've seen. The post to which he replied made the point that people like you do not understand what is meant by a truly free market and unbridled capitalism, and you made his point for him by continuing to use the US as your example of a free market.
To summarize: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
I would even go so far as to say that he's a natural.
I think your joke fell flat.
The source is immaterial if you don't actually read the content or look for more recent events. Any other examples that might actually hold up?
You mention Duskwood, and I agree completely. It had a lot of potential and does come off better than some other areas. The Plaguelands were the same way, although the expansion removed 99.9% of the players from both EPL and WPL. OTOH, Dustwallow Marsh had most quest lines abruptly end, NPCs without any purpose, and huge areas with no reason to exist. The original zone developer had many great ideas, including PvP quests, but left Blizzard right around the original release. Blizzard simply implemented the zone half completed and left it for years.
I tend to agree with another poster regarding the inherent trade off - much story usually means extremely linear game play. The large world offered by WoW means that I have lots of flexibility in how, when, and where I level a toon, but it is difficult to tell me a story. I get a detailed story from many of the WWII shooters but have no options to deviate from the predetermined path. KOTOR was perhaps the best mix that I've played in years.
What if, instead of bandwidth, we were talking about IP addresses? DHCP allows the provider to oversubscribe IP addresses on a broadband network as long as there is a subset of customers who don't need addresses at the same time as another subset. More people are moving away from a single PC connected directly to the modem and instead are connecting a SOHO router/firewall to the modem. This in itself significantly increases the number of IP addresses needed because many of these home routers are configured out of the box to always keep the connection active. In the past, the IP address was freed as soon as the user shut off their computer, but now users are keeping the same address for months at a time. What if the provider opted against putting more IP addresses in the pool (or reducing the number of subscribers per pool) and instead started throttling connections by limiting customers to eight hours a day of connectivity? Would this be okay?
Frame-Relay oversubscription is generally 15:1, ATM oversubscription was about 5:1, IP oversubscription is about 3:1. My Frame Relay network has guaranteed minimum bandwidths spelled out plainly in the contract. Our ability to burst above our billed rate is based upon network availability at the time, but that in no way impacts our expected quality of service. The day AT&T tries throttling business customers below their guaranteed throughputs is the day they lose their customers and lawsuits. If you want truly non-oversubscribed bandwidth, prepare to pay a LOT more for it. You are correct that more money gets better service, but wrong that it is "truly non-oversubscribed". All networks are oversubscribed - the difference is how much effort the provider puts into keeping that ratio in check (and the legal ramifications of their failure to do so). DSL and cable providers generally advertise unlimited bandwidth in some quantity but disclaim all guarantees in the fine print. Given that there are no providers selling truly non-oversubscribed bandwidth today, would you rather that the providers change their advertisements to say that, or raise their prices to sell dedicated bandwidth? As you pointed out, business-class networks are oversubscribed yet they do manage to provide their guaranteed service levels. Home broadband providers need to advertise what they really provide - whether than means raising prices and really providing 3M or simply selling a guaranteed minimum bandwidth.Either you use force (making incest illegal) or you use force (tax money) to look after the resulting crop of web-footed 'tards.
Inbreeding does not cause genetic problems - it simply increases the odds of inheriting a deleterious recessive allele. Studies have shown inbreeding increases infant mortality rates but had no impact on school performance, indicating that most genetic problems associated with inbreeding are selected out quickly.On the other hand, drinking alcohol during pregnancy has been shown to cause a host of birth defects and genetic problems in the offspring, yet no one suggests banning mothers-to-be from drinking.