Besides, it would take a Supreme Court Nerd to remind you that she's up for the position of Associate Justice, not Chief Justice as grandparent says. That position was filled by Bush's appointee John Roberts. The Chief Justice serves as the chief administrator and spokesperson for the Judicial branch, presides over the impeachment of presidents, gets automatic seniority over his or her colleagues, and has a few additional administrative responsibilities. Associate Justices just vote on cases and write opinions.
It's a little more complicated than that. Yes, people are allowed in the US to have any belief they so choose, and follow any religious practice that doesn't break a law that wasn't specifically targeted at religion (you can't break a law in the name of religion, but by the same token the law has to treat all faiths neutrally to be considered constitutional by a court). That's the domain of the First Amendment, and I don't think anyone is opposed to that principle. But that isn't the issue here. It's the Scientology having tax-exempt status that people are opposed to. In the US, organizations that are tax-exempt such as religions have to follow a very specific set of guidelines. For example, a tax-exempt church is not permitted to endorse a political candidate. I don't know the details off the top of my head, but people that are opposed to Scientology allege that they've broken some of these requirements, and the only reason that they maintain their status is that their Lawyers are very adept at knowing the limits of bending the law. People are frustrated because there hasn't been a governmental investigation into Scientology's practices despite all the independent evidence and and allegations that they are up to shenanigans.
Except that MMO is not an 'addiction' . . . it is a 'habit.'
You are aware that saying videogames can be addicting is not the same as saying videogames are inherently bad, right? No one's going all Jack Thompson here. There's no need to get defensive of your pastime. Anything that gives you pleasure can be addicting. Heroin, Marijuana, sex, food, emotions, videogames, you name it. A habit is an addiction if you can't break it.
His friend will go through no withdrawal if his account expired tomorrow.
Ever hear of the Tetris effect? People who play video games for a long period of time and then stop find themselves involuntarily thinking about or mentally picturing the game, to their detriment. Yeah it's not delirium tremens, but it sounds like withdrawal to me.
This brings to mind the case of Gloria Ramirez, who was admitted to the hospital and whose blood, when taken in a syringe caused those who smelled it to become physically ill. Several of the hospital workers who were near Gloria had to be hospitalized themselves, and the hospital declared an internal emergency (Gloria herself died shortly thereafter). While there are some theories about how the hell this happened, nobody really knows. Bit of a tangent, but TFA made me think of it.
In other words, to really give a satisfying answer to that mystery from a materialist perspective, you would have to flawlessly explain what consciousness is, precisely why particular arrangements of protons and electrons and neutrons bring it about, and why other arrangements of matter are not conscious (or for an interesting twist, why consciousness is an inherent property of all matter and highly ordered organisms are just a particularly refined expression of it).
This is pretty much the same logical fallacy that the creationists use to undermine evolution. I can't think of the name of the fallacy off the top of my head, but it goes something like this:
"So you believe in evolution, but can you calculate every single evolutionary step of how an amoeba evolved into a human?"
"No, science hasn't gotten that far yet. Evolution is just a model to describe-"
"AHAHA! You admit that you don't understand how it works! Evolution is a lie!" I'd say it's wrong to dismiss an idea completely just because the intricate details aren't fully worked out. And as for your point that not everyone is willing to make the assumptions needed to support materialism, many would argue that your worldview in fact requires more assumptions. Kindly step off of your high horse please.
There exists in this world a spider the size of a dinner plate, a foot wide if you include the legs. It's called the Goliath Bird-Eating spider, or the "Goliath Fucking Bird-Eating Spider" by those who have actually seen one.
It doesn't eat only birds - it mostly eats rats and insects - but they still call it the "Bird-Eating Spider" because the fact that it can eat a bird is probably the most important thing to know about it. If you run across one of these things, like in your closet or crawling out of your bowl of soup, the first thing somebody will say is, "Watch it, man, that thing can eat a fucking bird."
I don't know how they catch the birds. I know the Goliath Fucking Bird-Eating Spider can't fly because if it could, it would have a different name entirely. We would call it "Sir" because it would be the dominant species on the planet. None of us would leave the house unless a Goliath Fucking Flying Bird-Eating Spider said it was okay.
There's some strange defect in American culture that equates stupidity with honesty. Hence people electing their leaders based on who they want to have a beer with. I have no idea how we've survived as long as we have.
The fact is that Americans aren't capable of picking some other party. The problem isn't in the will of the American people, it's just in the way our elections are set up. Our winner-takes-all system for congressional elections insures that there will be only two parties. Sweden has a proportional representation system, meaning that it's at least possible for a third party to emerge. The only way to solve the problem in America would be to drastically rewrite our election laws.
The current majority on the Supreme Court has a tendency to disregard civil liberties, particularly those of students. Just look at Morse v. Frederick, the Wikipedia article of which is linked in the summary. Clarence Thomas, the nutjob who unfortunately doesn't seem out of place at all among his ideological brethren on the court, wrote this in his concurring opinion for that case:
in the earliest public schools, teachers taught, and students listened. Teachers commanded, and students obeyed.
Keep in mind that the "originalist" viewpoint espoused by the conservative wing of the court is basically that the way rights were looked at in 1790 is almost always the way we should be looking at them now. We're talking about a mentality that students have no rights whatsoever and that school officials should essentially be given permission to do whatever they want.
It isn't so much the one-man-one-vote system that's the problem, it's the one-district-one-representative system. In a system where only one office is being filled per election (say, a single representative of a congressional district), any number of parties will eventually coalesce into two, since this will consolidate resources and votes. Countries that have districts that elect multiple representatives at a time are far more likely to have more than two parties. This is referred to in political science as the N+1 theorem, where N is the number of offices that are filled in a particular election, and N+1 is the maximum number of major parties that will exist in that district. So basically, the only solution to the two-party system in this country would be to change the Constitution so that congressional districts elect more than one representative at a time. (While each state does have two senators, the problem still exists since both senators from a single state generally don't run in the same election.)
Nobody has a right to demand I help buy them a car. Or pay their mortgage.
So we have absolutely no problem giving 700 BILLION dollars to the banks whose greed caused this mess in the first place, but if we give a cent to those who were screwed over by deceptive lending practices and corporate greed, it's suddenly a human rights violation? Yes, I recognize the bank bailout was necessary. But it sure as hell wasn't fair. Yes, some homeowners did act irresponsibly, but not nearly as irresponsibly as the financial institutions whose JOB is to know better. If you're willing to let home values continue to plummet due to unnecessary foreclosures just because you're still caught up over what's fair, then you're intentionally blinding yourself to a little thing I like to call REALITY.
This sort of thing is going on everywhere. That's why it's a recession. I think it's a little unfair to say that right now it's all Microsoft's fault that they have to cut wages because consumers can't afford their products (not that I'd shill out $150 for Office even in a good economy). It's not like companies can just say, "Wait a minute... if we don't lay people off and/or cut wages... this recession will end!" If that were possible we wouldn't have recessions at all.
It isn't "not the same thing at all." Both are First Amendment cases where the freedom of speech was tossed out the window for the same tired old "think of the children" argument. And current precedent set by Tinker states that just because you're in a school doesn't mean that the First Amendment doesn't apply.
Since the current Supreme Court has held in Morse v. Frederick. that the phrase "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," when displayed in a school setting, is so incredibly dangerous that the First Amendment must be thrown out the window, I think the odds that they'll hold up the First Amendment in this case are less than favorable.
This is absolutely a free speech issue, and while the government has the power to regulate speech, this generally applies to the time, place and manner of the speech rather than its content.
The Supreme Court has long held that if the government wants to regulate speech based on its content, the regulation must serve a compelling government interest, be narrowly tailored to fit that interest, and be the least restrictive means possible. This test is referred to as "strict scrutiny." (
Source)
In this case, COPA is simply way out of line. While the status of protecting minors from the horrors of breasts as a compelling government interest is debatable (I would argue that it is none of the government's beeswax), COPA is definitely not the least restrictive means possible to protect the children. Responsible parents can and should control the content that their children access through the means available to them, and thus any government regulation beyond this is by definition not the least restrictive means possible. So any government regulation to this end is unconstitutional as long as free speech is involved and parents have at the very least the opportunity to parent responsibly.
The guilty deserve nothing but the punishment the law requires. Only the innocent deserve a vigorous and thorough defense.
Very wrong. Under our system, evidence obtained by illegal means is inadmissible in court, even if said evidence could otherwise be used to convict. This rule is referred to as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine. The idea of this metaphor is that no bad tree can bear good fruit, so if a system is unable to give equal protection to every defendant (even if guilt is a foregone conclusion from the beginning), then no conviction under that system can be valid.
The bottom line is that our system is not just about determining guilt and innocence - it is also about demonstrating and preserving the legitimacy of the system itself. This means giving everyone the equal chance to defend him/herself, both in practice and in theory.
it will be a continuation of the Knights of the Old Republic franchise.
That's about 300 years after the events of KotOR
Uh, you're going to make a continuation of the KotOR franchise... 300 years after the events of that franchise?? LucasArts forced Obsidian to rush out KotOR II before Christmas and so they didn't have time to give the game the ending it deserved - no conflicts were resolved in a satisfactory manner, leaving it up to a future sequel. And now they're just going to jump 300 years into the future, a time when most of the characters from the last two games are dead, and expect it to make sense?
Yeah, good luck with that.
(Or more likely, they're going to start a new storyline entirely and they just slapped on the KotOR label for name recognition.)
where does the article say that *ALL* conservatives are would vote for this and *all* NDP, Bloc, Green and Liberals would vote against ?
Under most parliamentary systems, MP's are far, far more likely to strictly tow their party line than in, say, the United States. This is because under such a system legislation is proposed by party leaders (when they are in power) rather than through any kind of committee system. Therefore, MP's rely on their party leaders to grant earmarks to their constituents, and thus vote more or less exactly as they are told so they will be looked upon more favorably when the time comes to distribute the pork.
If we hadn't have mechanical phenomena, there would be no room for free will whatsoever, and we'd be all living a predetermined life.
Even quantum mechanics don't logically lead to free will, as randomness/probability/whatever on the part of subatomic particles don't imply that we choose our actions any more than subatomic determinism does. As far as I can tell, free will is as scientific a concept as Santa Claus.
I'd really like to see a way that the concept of "soul" could be included in the discussion of free will in a physical world, I just don't know of any scientifically minded philosopher who had done it.
The "soul," IMO, is a phenomenon similar to God: scientifically unjustifiable, only preserved through the mantra of "non-overlapping magisteria" by proponents - basically, the claim goes, science was not meant to deal with areas of spirituality/philosophy/etc, so no attempt should be made to look at these beliefs through the lens of science. While any reasonable person will admit that science has so far failed to deliver all the answers (and possibly never will due to Godel's incompleteness theorem), I would contend that assuming the soul/free will/whatever you like exists simply because it cannot be disproved is very bad reasoning. Unfortunately, this is a a flawed tool that is often used all-too successfully: placing an impossible burden of proof on an idea's detractors rather than the idea itself.
The fact that the Supreme Court has made more favorable decisions lately should not be that surprising, given the Democrats' recent takeover of Congress. The makeup of Congress probably affects the decisions of the court, as a result of the whole checks-and-balances thing. Since Congress has the power to alter the jurisdiction (and budget) of the courts, it is able to exercise some influence over the judiciary branch.
An example of this is that the Court's decisions became markedly more conservative on average after the Republican Revolution, despite the fact that Breyer and Ginsberg, two of the most liberal justices, were appointed early in Bill Clinton's term. And while the use of congressional power to punish the court has never been demonstrated, if it exists this effect would never have to be used, as the mere threat of it would be enough (Tom DeLay, during his tenure, often threatened the Supreme Court when they did not go quite as conservative as he liked).
While it is somewhat upsetting that the notion of an independent judiciary may be a myth, we can at least take some happiness from the fact that Congress will likely be Democratic for some time, limiting the influence of the Neocons on the Supreme Court.
The argument is only valid if you view 'the government' as a single faceless monolithic entity.
Applying the reasoning that Bush himself uses, the Executive branch of government should, in fact, be viewed as a single monolithic entity. The unitary executive theory, used by Bush to justify his ridiculous signing statements and other expansions of executive power, states that only the president has the power to interpret and enforce the law. To quote, ironically, Wikipedia:
The theory relies on the Vesting Clause of Article II which states "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." Proponents of the unitary executive theory... argue that the Constitution creates a "hierarchical, unified executive department under the direct control of the President."
One consequence of this is that Bush's own reasoning, since he essentially personifies the executive branch under this theory, is that we should be able to hold him responsible for any and all infractions by the executive branch under his watch, including stupid shit like this. Not that that will ever happen - Bush has been lucky enough to have a complacent and ineffectual Congress and a Supreme Court that turns a blind eye to everything he does, so now he can have his constitution and eat it too.
Slashdot Mirror
Besides, it would take a Supreme Court Nerd to remind you that she's up for the position of Associate Justice, not Chief Justice as grandparent says. That position was filled by Bush's appointee John Roberts. The Chief Justice serves as the chief administrator and spokesperson for the Judicial branch, presides over the impeachment of presidents, gets automatic seniority over his or her colleagues, and has a few additional administrative responsibilities. Associate Justices just vote on cases and write opinions.
It's a little more complicated than that. Yes, people are allowed in the US to have any belief they so choose, and follow any religious practice that doesn't break a law that wasn't specifically targeted at religion (you can't break a law in the name of religion, but by the same token the law has to treat all faiths neutrally to be considered constitutional by a court). That's the domain of the First Amendment, and I don't think anyone is opposed to that principle. But that isn't the issue here. It's the Scientology having tax-exempt status that people are opposed to. In the US, organizations that are tax-exempt such as religions have to follow a very specific set of guidelines. For example, a tax-exempt church is not permitted to endorse a political candidate. I don't know the details off the top of my head, but people that are opposed to Scientology allege that they've broken some of these requirements, and the only reason that they maintain their status is that their Lawyers are very adept at knowing the limits of bending the law. People are frustrated because there hasn't been a governmental investigation into Scientology's practices despite all the independent evidence and and allegations that they are up to shenanigans.
You are aware that saying videogames can be addicting is not the same as saying videogames are inherently bad, right? No one's going all Jack Thompson here. There's no need to get defensive of your pastime. Anything that gives you pleasure can be addicting. Heroin, Marijuana, sex, food, emotions, videogames, you name it. A habit is an addiction if you can't break it.
Ever hear of the Tetris effect? People who play video games for a long period of time and then stop find themselves involuntarily thinking about or mentally picturing the game, to their detriment. Yeah it's not delirium tremens, but it sounds like withdrawal to me.
This brings to mind the case of Gloria Ramirez, who was admitted to the hospital and whose blood, when taken in a syringe caused those who smelled it to become physically ill. Several of the hospital workers who were near Gloria had to be hospitalized themselves, and the hospital declared an internal emergency (Gloria herself died shortly thereafter). While there are some theories about how the hell this happened, nobody really knows. Bit of a tangent, but TFA made me think of it.
Known in the scientific community as a "Dwarf Woman."
This is pretty much the same logical fallacy that the creationists use to undermine evolution. I can't think of the name of the fallacy off the top of my head, but it goes something like this:
"So you believe in evolution, but can you calculate every single evolutionary step of how an amoeba evolved into a human?"
"No, science hasn't gotten that far yet. Evolution is just a model to describe-"
"AHAHA! You admit that you don't understand how it works! Evolution is a lie!"
I'd say it's wrong to dismiss an idea completely just because the intricate details aren't fully worked out. And as for your point that not everyone is willing to make the assumptions needed to support materialism, many would argue that your worldview in fact requires more assumptions. Kindly step off of your high horse please.
There's some strange defect in American culture that equates stupidity with honesty. Hence people electing their leaders based on who they want to have a beer with. I have no idea how we've survived as long as we have.
...your ability to get laid if you get this as you inform your partner that you have the Pig Disease.
The fact is that Americans aren't capable of picking some other party. The problem isn't in the will of the American people, it's just in the way our elections are set up. Our winner-takes-all system for congressional elections insures that there will be only two parties. Sweden has a proportional representation system, meaning that it's at least possible for a third party to emerge. The only way to solve the problem in America would be to drastically rewrite our election laws.
Keep in mind that the "originalist" viewpoint espoused by the conservative wing of the court is basically that the way rights were looked at in 1790 is almost always the way we should be looking at them now. We're talking about a mentality that students have no rights whatsoever and that school officials should essentially be given permission to do whatever they want.
It isn't so much the one-man-one-vote system that's the problem, it's the one-district-one-representative system. In a system where only one office is being filled per election (say, a single representative of a congressional district), any number of parties will eventually coalesce into two, since this will consolidate resources and votes. Countries that have districts that elect multiple representatives at a time are far more likely to have more than two parties. This is referred to in political science as the N+1 theorem, where N is the number of offices that are filled in a particular election, and N+1 is the maximum number of major parties that will exist in that district. So basically, the only solution to the two-party system in this country would be to change the Constitution so that congressional districts elect more than one representative at a time. (While each state does have two senators, the problem still exists since both senators from a single state generally don't run in the same election.)
So we have absolutely no problem giving 700 BILLION dollars to the banks whose greed caused this mess in the first place, but if we give a cent to those who were screwed over by deceptive lending practices and corporate greed, it's suddenly a human rights violation? Yes, I recognize the bank bailout was necessary. But it sure as hell wasn't fair. Yes, some homeowners did act irresponsibly, but not nearly as irresponsibly as the financial institutions whose JOB is to know better. If you're willing to let home values continue to plummet due to unnecessary foreclosures just because you're still caught up over what's fair, then you're intentionally blinding yourself to a little thing I like to call REALITY.
This sort of thing is going on everywhere. That's why it's a recession. I think it's a little unfair to say that right now it's all Microsoft's fault that they have to cut wages because consumers can't afford their products (not that I'd shill out $150 for Office even in a good economy). It's not like companies can just say, "Wait a minute... if we don't lay people off and/or cut wages... this recession will end!" If that were possible we wouldn't have recessions at all.
It isn't "not the same thing at all." Both are First Amendment cases where the freedom of speech was tossed out the window for the same tired old "think of the children" argument. And current precedent set by Tinker states that just because you're in a school doesn't mean that the First Amendment doesn't apply.
Since the current Supreme Court has held in Morse v. Frederick. that the phrase "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," when displayed in a school setting, is so incredibly dangerous that the First Amendment must be thrown out the window, I think the odds that they'll hold up the First Amendment in this case are less than favorable.
...as to whether the robots will be programmed to make the "nom nom nom" sound as they are busy ripping off your children's limbs for fuel.
This is absolutely a free speech issue, and while the government has the power to regulate speech, this generally applies to the time, place and manner of the speech rather than its content.
The Supreme Court has long held that if the government wants to regulate speech based on its content, the regulation must serve a compelling government interest, be narrowly tailored to fit that interest, and be the least restrictive means possible. This test is referred to as "strict scrutiny." ( Source)
In this case, COPA is simply way out of line. While the status of protecting minors from the horrors of breasts as a compelling government interest is debatable (I would argue that it is none of the government's beeswax), COPA is definitely not the least restrictive means possible to protect the children. Responsible parents can and should control the content that their children access through the means available to them, and thus any government regulation beyond this is by definition not the least restrictive means possible. So any government regulation to this end is unconstitutional as long as free speech is involved and parents have at the very least the opportunity to parent responsibly.
The guilty deserve nothing but the punishment the law requires. Only the innocent deserve a vigorous and thorough defense.
Very wrong. Under our system, evidence obtained by illegal means is inadmissible in court, even if said evidence could otherwise be used to convict. This rule is referred to as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine. The idea of this metaphor is that no bad tree can bear good fruit, so if a system is unable to give equal protection to every defendant (even if guilt is a foregone conclusion from the beginning), then no conviction under that system can be valid.
The bottom line is that our system is not just about determining guilt and innocence - it is also about demonstrating and preserving the legitimacy of the system itself. This means giving everyone the equal chance to defend him/herself, both in practice and in theory.
it will be a continuation of the Knights of the Old Republic franchise.
That's about 300 years after the events of KotOR
Uh, you're going to make a continuation of the KotOR franchise... 300 years after the events of that franchise?? LucasArts forced Obsidian to rush out KotOR II before Christmas and so they didn't have time to give the game the ending it deserved - no conflicts were resolved in a satisfactory manner, leaving it up to a future sequel. And now they're just going to jump 300 years into the future, a time when most of the characters from the last two games are dead, and expect it to make sense?
Yeah, good luck with that.
(Or more likely, they're going to start a new storyline entirely and they just slapped on the KotOR label for name recognition.)
where does the article say that *ALL* conservatives are would vote for this and *all* NDP, Bloc, Green and Liberals would vote against ?
Under most parliamentary systems, MP's are far, far more likely to strictly tow their party line than in, say, the United States. This is because under such a system legislation is proposed by party leaders (when they are in power) rather than through any kind of committee system. Therefore, MP's rely on their party leaders to grant earmarks to their constituents, and thus vote more or less exactly as they are told so they will be looked upon more favorably when the time comes to distribute the pork.
It means we're winning.
If we hadn't have mechanical phenomena, there would be no room for free will whatsoever, and we'd be all living a predetermined life.
Even quantum mechanics don't logically lead to free will, as randomness/probability/whatever on the part of subatomic particles don't imply that we choose our actions any more than subatomic determinism does. As far as I can tell, free will is as scientific a concept as Santa Claus.
I'd really like to see a way that the concept of "soul" could be included in the discussion of free will in a physical world, I just don't know of any scientifically minded philosopher who had done it.
The "soul," IMO, is a phenomenon similar to God: scientifically unjustifiable, only preserved through the mantra of "non-overlapping magisteria" by proponents - basically, the claim goes, science was not meant to deal with areas of spirituality/philosophy/etc, so no attempt should be made to look at these beliefs through the lens of science. While any reasonable person will admit that science has so far failed to deliver all the answers (and possibly never will due to Godel's incompleteness theorem), I would contend that assuming the soul/free will/whatever you like exists simply because it cannot be disproved is very bad reasoning. Unfortunately, this is a a flawed tool that is often used all-too successfully: placing an impossible burden of proof on an idea's detractors rather than the idea itself.
The fact that the Supreme Court has made more favorable decisions lately should not be that surprising, given the Democrats' recent takeover of Congress. The makeup of Congress probably affects the decisions of the court, as a result of the whole checks-and-balances thing. Since Congress has the power to alter the jurisdiction (and budget) of the courts, it is able to exercise some influence over the judiciary branch.
An example of this is that the Court's decisions became markedly more conservative on average after the Republican Revolution, despite the fact that Breyer and Ginsberg, two of the most liberal justices, were appointed early in Bill Clinton's term. And while the use of congressional power to punish the court has never been demonstrated, if it exists this effect would never have to be used, as the mere threat of it would be enough (Tom DeLay, during his tenure, often threatened the Supreme Court when they did not go quite as conservative as he liked).
While it is somewhat upsetting that the notion of an independent judiciary may be a myth, we can at least take some happiness from the fact that Congress will likely be Democratic for some time, limiting the influence of the Neocons on the Supreme Court.
To quote, ironically, Wikipedia: One consequence of this is that Bush's own reasoning, since he essentially personifies the executive branch under this theory, is that we should be able to hold him responsible for any and all infractions by the executive branch under his watch, including stupid shit like this. Not that that will ever happen - Bush has been lucky enough to have a complacent and ineffectual Congress and a Supreme Court that turns a blind eye to everything he does, so now he can have his constitution and eat it too.