In the real world, there are people who hate you just for who you are, not which country you support in the middle east. Depends on who you are. I was interested to read that Bin Laden is/was quite clear that its not freedom he attacks, its countries that impinge on the freedom (hah!) of muslim nations. You could definitely reduce their incentive to attack by e.g. not having a military prescence in Saudi arabia.
From OBLs rant:
Security is an important pillar of human life. Free people do not relinquish their security. This is contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.
Let him tell us why we did not strike Sweden, for example.
Rather than attacking based on who you are, I think it it would be more accurate to say that people will attack you in order to gain something. 9/11 suicide types are in it for the virgins and the express ticket to heaven, but it could easily be oil, land, safety from communism, water, securing/expanding a religious power-base, or safety from future attacks by someone else who wants any of the above. I agree that taking away people's incentive to fight you is not going to work all the time, or even be desirable as the incentive is built into their often skewed thinking. You could solve most of the problems with a change in beliefs or perspective, but doing that is awkward.
Lets suppose that you wanted to develop a new science of persuasion so that you could start with a fundamentalist terrorist/muslim/communist enemy and end up with a moderate of the same description, or even a peace-loving atheist free-market evangelist. You are setting the precedent that its right and proper for people to seek to alter beliefs in order to make the world work better. I can't see that sitting too well with anyone of any religious or political faction. "Why go to war over oil when we can just persuade people not to need it any more?" No glory or money in that. Irrational beliefs keep a lot of people in pocket and in power so don't be expecting any serious attempts to promote clear-headedness as a solution when good old military foot-stamping works so much better for those who get to choose.
Yes, but only 23kg unshielded and measuring 11"x16". You could hide that anywhere, provided you could deal with radiation burns or use the container e.g. car metalwork/building foundations to absorb some of the radiation.
For a more disturbing account of what we may have to protect ourselves against, read about the apparently 'missing' ones.
The CIA also doesn't have to worry about vandalism- no one is going to blank a page and replace it to the word "penis" But will they take a blank page and fill it with Iraqi WMD?
I think flamebait's a little unfair. The irony of an islamic-republic-sounding name and the contrast between the opening of the declaration (below) and the rights experienced by people, especially women, in said countries is sadly poigniant.
Freedom from discrimination by government or law (Article 2, Article 7).
Freedom of movement within the borders of each state (Article 13.1).
The right to participate in government (Article 21.1).
The right of equal access to public services (Article 21.2).
I keep thinking of a backward country run by the Ayatollah Stallman that represses women (by refusing to talk to them about anything other than code and sci-fi) and persecutes those unbelievers who fail to support the FOSS revolution.
Of course, many groups show one or more of these tendencies Indeed...
Typically follows one or more highly charismatic politicians, whose word is taken to be unquestionable.
Clearly divides the world into "US" and "terrorists".
Believes that the world outside the "US" group is fundamentally bad/evil.
As a result, believes that interaction with liberals/foreigners/muslims is dangerous to members of the "US" group and is to be avoided when possible, or carefully supervised.
As a result, tends to form more or less isolated enclaves to minimize contact with outsiders, or mediate such contact through trusted group members in positions of military authority.
As a result, believes that untrained persons interacting with the outside world are unpatriotic and need to be carefully reassimilated to the group.
Typically holds beliefs radically different from what is considered mainstream or acceptable for the immediately-surrounding global society.
As a result of the above, typically experiences a high degree of political conflict with the outside world, which can create a feedback loop (above tendencies lead to political conflict, which aggravates above tendencies, which leads to military action...).
Interestingly, the pure capitalist solution means that you actually pay more for your own health care. Here in the UK, the spend per person per year is substantially less than in the US because the corporate profits, overhead of running the insurance schemes, and the fragmented nature of the different companies all cost extra. On top of that, because every company wants to insure the low illness, high profit individuals, they try to marginalise the less profitable people who actually do get sick with higher premiums.
considering the country was recently 'liberated' and democracy was 'brought' to it, it is a little weird. Not really. Democracy means giving people the vote, i.e. they can then choose their own laws. The majority of people in Afghanistan are muslims of the hard-line variety, just as they always have been. Their views have been formed over the course of generations and an invasion, particularly one where a lot of civilians were killed by the 'liberators' is not going to change that and may actually entrench their view of themselves as not-westerners even further.
If you think about it, NOT voting for sharia law to be enacted, and subsequently following through would be the weird outcome here.
Where do I sign up for the entirely unethical grow-a-third-arm/penis-extension/bionic-nostril-hair experiments that some dodgy life-science startup are sure to want to fund?
1. Time 0: Universe has time and is normal.
2. Time 1: Universe suddenly flips and now has 0 time, 4 space.
3. Time ??: No time, but now where did the past go?
4. Profit!!
would that be based on the 10 commandments? Its just that having found out a little about a few religions, I have to say that this set of 10 (only 10??) rules like is actually a pretty atrocious effort at a moral code. For example, where is the commandment against slavery? Where is the one against child abuse or genocide? Sure we have 'Thou shalt not kill', but taken together with the numerous examples of genocide by the Jews in the old testament ( href="http://www.irregulartimes.com/secrets1.html">for example), this clearly means 'thou shalt not kill those who are not sworn enemies of God'.
Taken against, say, Buddhism, Christianity looks positively corrupt.
How can you tell the difference between
1. Jesus, who has a rubbish set of commandments and a morally dodgy holy book
and
2. A devil-like deity who decides that the best way to spread evil is to come down to earth to impersonate the real God and deliberately makes a holy book with just enough 'good' in it to be plausible, but which is poisoned with omissions and lies in all the important places, leading to wars, slavery, bigotry and religious persecution of 'unbelievers'?
As a conservative Christian (Lutheran) who believes the Bible is the inspired word of God (I guess that would make me a literalist), I do believe every word in there. I ask out of genuine curiosity - how can you (or anyone) believe that a book so riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions could be the literal word of an omnipotent and presumably infallibel God? See the list of biblical inconsistencies here for example.
In the UK, paper ballots are sequentially numbered and when you vote, you are ticked off on the big list and the number of your ballot paper is written by your name. This is apparently vital to allow accountability in cases where there are claims of electoral fraud and the list is never, AFAIK, made publically available.
Depends on whether you count ruining someone's emotional and social existence as 'violence'. Judging by the number of suicides by bullied schoolkids, I'd say you have to.
Slashdot Mirror
From OBLs rant: Security is an important pillar of human life. Free people do not relinquish their security. This is contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.
Let him tell us why we did not strike Sweden, for example.
Rather than attacking based on who you are, I think it it would be more accurate to say that people will attack you in order to gain something. 9/11 suicide types are in it for the virgins and the express ticket to heaven, but it could easily be oil, land, safety from communism, water, securing/expanding a religious power-base, or safety from future attacks by someone else who wants any of the above. I agree that taking away people's incentive to fight you is not going to work all the time, or even be desirable as the incentive is built into their often skewed thinking. You could solve most of the problems with a change in beliefs or perspective, but doing that is awkward.
Lets suppose that you wanted to develop a new science of persuasion so that you could start with a fundamentalist terrorist/muslim/communist enemy and end up with a moderate of the same description, or even a peace-loving atheist free-market evangelist. You are setting the precedent that its right and proper for people to seek to alter beliefs in order to make the world work better. I can't see that sitting too well with anyone of any religious or political faction. "Why go to war over oil when we can just persuade people not to need it any more?" No glory or money in that. Irrational beliefs keep a lot of people in pocket and in power so don't be expecting any serious attempts to promote clear-headedness as a solution when good old military foot-stamping works so much better for those who get to choose.
Yes, but only 23kg unshielded and measuring 11"x16". You could hide that anywhere, provided you could deal with radiation burns or use the container e.g. car metalwork/building foundations to absorb some of the radiation.
For a more disturbing account of what we may have to protect ourselves against, read about the apparently 'missing' ones.
- snake oil (91)
- waste of money (62)
- ripoff (61)
- unconscionable (54)
- throwing your money away (52)
- stupid (48)
- pure garbage (28)
- cheat (25)
- immoral (20)
- denon (10)
- harry potter (6)
WTF? I can't even think of a stupid reason for tagging this 'Harry Potter', let alone a serious one.I think flamebait's a little unfair. The irony of an islamic-republic-sounding name and the contrast between the opening of the declaration (below) and the rights experienced by people, especially women, in said countries is sadly poigniant.
Digistan??
Inspiring ideas, but the name is unfortunate.
I keep thinking of a backward country run by the Ayatollah Stallman that represses women (by refusing to talk to them about anything other than code and sci-fi) and persecutes those unbelievers who fail to support the FOSS revolution.
Use the NoScript Firefox extension and block the offending ad server. Works perfectly and its more secure.
Interestingly, the pure capitalist solution means that you actually pay more for your own health care. Here in the UK, the spend per person per year is substantially less than in the US because the corporate profits, overhead of running the insurance schemes, and the fragmented nature of the different companies all cost extra. On top of that, because every company wants to insure the low illness, high profit individuals, they try to marginalise the less profitable people who actually do get sick with higher premiums.
More details here
If you think about it, NOT voting for sharia law to be enacted, and subsequently following through would be the weird outcome here.
Could the script be set to repeat with the same domain names every 4.5 days to make sure they have to extend it?
Where do I sign up for the entirely unethical grow-a-third-arm/penis-extension/bionic-nostril-hair experiments that some dodgy life-science startup are sure to want to fund?
Where does step 6 come from?
There. Fixed that for you.
This 'counted against you' thing...
would that be based on the 10 commandments? Its just that having found out a little about a few religions, I have to say that this set of 10 (only 10??) rules like is actually a pretty atrocious effort at a moral code. For example, where is the commandment against slavery? Where is the one against child abuse or genocide? Sure we have 'Thou shalt not kill', but taken together with the numerous examples of genocide by the Jews in the old testament ( href="http://www.irregulartimes.com/secrets1.html">for example), this clearly means 'thou shalt not kill those who are not sworn enemies of God'.
Taken against, say, Buddhism, Christianity looks positively corrupt. How can you tell the difference between
1. Jesus, who has a rubbish set of commandments and a morally dodgy holy book
and
2. A devil-like deity who decides that the best way to spread evil is to come down to earth to impersonate the real God and deliberately makes a holy book with just enough 'good' in it to be plausible, but which is poisoned with omissions and lies in all the important places, leading to wars, slavery, bigotry and religious persecution of 'unbelievers'?
In the UK, paper ballots are sequentially numbered and when you vote, you are ticked off on the big list and the number of your ballot paper is written by your name. This is apparently vital to allow accountability in cases where there are claims of electoral fraud and the list is never, AFAIK, made publically available.
Depends on whether you count ruining someone's emotional and social existence as 'violence'. Judging by the number of suicides by bullied schoolkids, I'd say you have to.