I don't know your specific circumstances so I don't know if this is applicable to you.
I'm in Australia and I was mutilated as an infant.
By the age of 41 I had lost so much sensitivity I was impotent. Now, several years later now and I've started restoration.
It's a slow process (I expect at least 2 years) and won't give me everything that was taken by the unethical bastard who cut me but I expect to be able to have sex again.
If nothing else I will take back ownership of my body.
When I read that I wondered if thinking of babies as chattels or property helps American parents rationalise their mutilation. Would circumcision would be less prevalent in the USA if parents knew that some of the doctors who cut babies are sadistic fetishists and paedophiles who get their sexual thrills from the act?
I forgot to add that while male genital mutilation is currently irrevocable there is some hope for men who are not happy with what was done to them. The field of regenerative medicine is rapidly advancing and holds the key to regenerating a natural foreskin.
The video on this page isn't about foreskins but it gives a good idea of where this is going and how quickly. (requires flash)
In the past the AAP has been deeply influenced by circumcision fetishists such as Edgar Schoen. He was chairman of the American Academy of Paediatrics task force on circumcision that published a report in 1989 recommending infant circumcision. He was not involved in 1999 when the policy position was reversed. It would appear the fetishists are back in though.
I suggest everyone pay close attention to the bit in the first page about men who were lost from study and bear in mind that their HIV status is unknown. If the RCT's have any value at all we would see benefits in the real world. Just looking at developed Western nations, Europe has the lowest rate of MGM while the USA has the highest. The USA also has the highest rate of HIV infection. http://joseph4gi.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/where-circumcision-doesnt-prevent-hiv.html
Where is the benefit in the real world?
The reality is that the RCT's were not about combating HIV in Africa or anywhere, it is all about creating bogus 'scientific' evidence to bolster the practice of infant circumcision in the USA. Doctors can make a tidy extra income from it: http://www.circumstitions.com/$$$.html
cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies purchase amputated foreskins and use then in the production of various products: http://www.foreskin.org/f4sale.htm
If circumcision is so beneficial, why has it been necessary to make so many false claims about it? The current claims of HIV protection are just a rehash of the claims in 1855 and 1949 that it protects against Syphilis.
You also arrogantly claim there are no complications in later life. I am middle aged, I was mutilated as a baby and I now find that I have so little sensitivity that I can't maintain an erection during intercourse. Most of the time I can't even feel if I am inside a woman. It has nothing to do with health or lifestyle factors. I swim long distance ocean races a
The whole thing didn't just grow up out of nowhere. Christianity is an evolution/bastardisation of pagan sun worship and messiah cults and the Christianity we know today was created by Roman Emperor Constantine.
He's the one who decided which scriptures and gospels were canonical and would be included in the official holy book for Christianity which he declare to be the new state religion.
I've been away from the computer for a few hours and have only just seen your reply. I have also done a bit of reading about this Chris Hedges and have fully re-read Sam's reply to him.
It seems that Chris is the only one who is making a public fuss about what Sam said and then being quoted, mostly blindly. Being the cynic I am I have to doubt if Chris's selective quoting of Sam is for anything but profit. He does of course have a book to sell called "I Don't Believe in Atheists". He is also religious so this probably colours his interpretation of the book a little.
The passage involving a nuclear first strike against an Islamic regime that has nuclear weapons is a hypothetical. It explores the possibility and as Sam says himself the whole situation is "perfectly insane".
I think the most important part of the passage is this:
"I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world's population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the philosopher's stone, and unicorns. That it would be a horrible absurdity for so many of us to die for the sake of myth does not mean, however, that it could not happen. Indeed, given the immunity to all reasonable intrusions that faith enjoys in our discourse, a catastrophe of this sort seems increasingly likely."
Sam goes on to say:
"We must come to terms with the possibility that men who are every bit as zealous to die as the nineteen hijackers may one day get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry. The Muslim world in particular must anticipate this possibility and find some way to prevent it. Given the steady proliferation of technology, it is safe to say that time is not on our side."
The whole point he is making is that if it comes to this absurd situation it will be caused by the fact that a group of supposedly mature adults insist upon holding on to a belief in an imaginary friend. Human civilisation could be brought, close if not fully, to an end because of fantasy and fairytale. Sam puts the responsibility for stopping it right where it belongs. With Muslims.
Sam does not in any way endorse or call for a first strike against Islam and has only done what a group of military planners might do in proposing a possible threat, possible response to it and outlining the possible repercussions of the response. He's done it to prove his point that religious faith is dangerous. At least that is how I read it.
The Islamists who blow themselves up or fly aeroplanes into buildings do so on *faith*. Faith in an afterlife. Faith in the reward for martyrdom. Faith in their one true god. Faith in their absolute certainty that they are right.
Sam is correct when he says that faith is the cause of all the problems with religion because it is by far the most powerful component of the whole religious experience. As revolting and absurd as the idea is, a large part of the world population may one day face the threat of extermination in a fireball courtesy of a bunch of irrational Islamists.
'Apparently' implies you haven't read the book for yourself. If you really have read the book then you have clearly, wilfully and disingenuously misinterpreted what Sam wrote.
DIGITIG: "...in "The End of Faith", Sam Harris insists that his own ethical position is based on assumptions about human nature that are so obvious that it "need not be validated by a controlled study" (p192) -- this in a chapter on "The Science of Good and Evil" (my emphasis), so the "science" on which Harris calls for our extermination -- yours and mine -- is a "science" that needn't bother with study when Harris already "knows" the answer."
Here is the text from the last paragraph of p191 and all of p192.
p191 to 192 "Given this situation, we can see that one could desire to become more loving and compassionate for purely selfish reasons. This is a paradox, of sorts, because these attitudes undermine selfishness, by definition. They also inspire behaviour that tends to contribute to the happiness of other human beings. These states of mind not only feel good; they ramify social relationships that lead one to feel good with others, leading others to feel good with oneself. Hate, envy, spite, disgust, shame. These are not sources of happiness, personally or socially. Love and compassion are. Like so much that we know about ourselves, claims of this sort need not be validated by a controlled study. We can easily imagine evolutionary reasons for why positive social emotions make us feel good, while negative ones do not, but they would be beside the point. The point is that the disposition to take the happiness of others into account to be ethical seems to be a rational way to augment ones own happiness. As we will see in the next chapter, the linkage here becomes increasingly relevant the more rarefied ones happiness becomes. The connection between spirituality, the cultivation of happiness directly through precise refinements of attention and ethics is well attested. Certain attitudes and behaviours seem to be conducive to contemplative insight, while others are not. This is not a proposition to be merely believed. It is, rather, a hypothesis to be tested in the laboratory of ones life.
A Loophole for Torquemada? Casting questions about ethics in terms of happiness and suffering can quickly lead us into unfamiliar territory. Consider the case of judicial torture. It would seem, at first glance, to be unambiguously evil. And yet, for the first time in living memory, reasonable men and women in our country have begun to reconsider it publicly. Interest in the subject appears to have been provoked by an interview given by Alan Dershowitz, an erstwhile champion of the rights of the innocent until proven guilty, on CBS's 60 Minutes. There, before millions who would have thought the concept of torture impossible to rehabilitate, Dershowitz laid out the paradigmatic ticking bomb case."
DIGITIG: "
>This is a lie! Please cite.
Elsewhere in the thread I have backed this up with direct quotes (page 129 of the edition that I have). Sorry, but it's not a lie; you weren't reading carefully enough.
>DIGITIG, YOU HAVE DELIBERATELY LIED TO THE READERS.
Nope, I just read the book more carefully than you did. "
p128 (129 in the digitig's) "...States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them.
I have a lot of experience with home-built/experimental aviation. Generally the aircraft built by enthusiasts from either raw materials and a set of plans or a kit are better quality and built to a much higher standard of finish than the crap Cessna, Piper and the other big commercial manufacturers put out. Light experimental aircraft had glass cockpits 10+ years ago using non certified equipment that is just as good as the over priced certified equipment just getting into factory built aircraft now. The performance is also generally much better and the cost much lower partly because the product liability insurance premium on a new factory built aircraft is something like $50,000.
FAA certification really isn't that onerous. The real reason little innovation goes on with factory built aircraft is liability. The companies play it safe by sticking with the tech they have and making cosmetic changes. Unfortunately the tech they have was mostly developed in the 50's.
Vans aircraft is a pretty typical kit builder and over 5000 of their kits are completed and flying. It's not much compared to the big companies but when you consider that each one was built by the owner in his/her garage, living room or basement (people build planes in all sorts of places and sometimes have to knock out walls to get them out) then this is pretty damned impressive.
The experimental system actually makes a whole lot of sense if you want to foster innovation and are willing to let people take responsibility for their own actions. Shit it felt strange typing that in today's fucked up litigation mentality world. The aircraft are subject to FAA inspections throughout the assembly/construction process and have to fly off 40 hours in a restricted zone around a specific airport to prove they are safe but after that they can go anywhere. The only absolute prohibition on the use of experimental aircraft is in commercial operations. They are for private non profit use only. Aussie Jon Johanson flew his Vans RV-4 round the world twice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vans_RV-4.
UM meta-moderation -- unfair.
Yes. It should have been higher.
This is not informative, rather it is a troll.
No it is a valid point I am making. I think you are just trying to be politically correct.
ALL belief systems taken to extremes are dangerous, and non more so then the poster's beleif system.Read between the lines and the poster is saying "All beliefs but MINE are evil and dangerous and must be destroyed." How is this different from that which he claims to decry?
You are absolutely correct. They are all dangerous. But you are also absolutely WRONG! I am an atheist. I have no belief system or beliefs and I do not even vaguely suggest the destruction of anything. The most dangerous people are the ones who are willing to fight not for freedom but for their religion.
Extremists of any kind are dangerous not just in thmeselves but because they justify extremists of the opposite point of view.
Again I agree with you.
Chrsitinaity practoiced b yman is a relkigio nof lvoe a tolerance but practiced by extremeists it is a hate-filled thing that leads to the shooting of doctors and beating of gay men to death. In the apst it has been an excuse for the most horrendous of crimes (see "the Crusades" and "the inquisition.")
Yes, Christianity has been and still is an instrument of evil in the hands of some. But I certainly do not defend it in my post so you are on my side here.
So Islam practiced by the majority is a religion of love and respect and I've known many such muslim personally. (I,btw, am Jewish.) Practiced by the extremists though it ebcomes as dangerous as any other extreme.
Here, if you look at the site I referred to in my original post, you will find you partly wrong. Yes most Muslims do lead peaceful good lives and would never think of committing terorist attrocities (I pretty much stated this in my original post). But in order to properly follow the Qur'an this is not possible. The Qur'an calls for the destruction of the infidels so the terrorist were only doing what they were commanded to by their holy book.
And as dangerous the poster.
How am I dangerous. I am an atheist. I have no god to kill for and I don't belive that by dying while killing others I will instantly be zapped off to paradise. When was the last time you heard on the news "This morning an atheist extremist hijacked an airliner and flew it into an office tower killing x000 people?" NEVER!
So my original point remains valid though restated here for a little more clarity. RELIGION is the problem here and Islam in particular even though most Muslims do not practice the more barbaric aspects of what the Qur'an commands.
If you had taken the time to check out the site I provided www.secularislam.org/call.htm, written by ex Muslims, and weren't so eager to prove how politically correct you are by slandering me you might have understood my point.
Firstly. I do not suffer from the mental illness of political correctness. I am just trying to use reason, unlike the fanatical scum who murder innocent people for a free ride to paradise and 72 virgin brides.
Secondly. I am not American but an Aussie.
Finally. If all Muslims decide to join some sort of sick holy war against freedom (the west) then I would be one of the first to say 'nuke them all'. If Muslims living in western nations take up arms against us I would want them rounded up and any guilty of terrorist acts killed and the rest deported to the middle east on old oil tankers. But killing them for simply being Muslim is not acceptable if they do not pose a threat.
I just hope there are enough rational and intelligent Muslims out who are willing and able to exert influence over their less educated brothers and sisters, that we won't have to do that sort of thing.
Muslims have to take a bloody good look at the philosophy of Islam/the Qur'an and it's relevance to the modern world, stop trying to blame everyone else for it's problems and take responsibility for itself.
I am afraid you missed the point a little. So long as Muslim Americans are willing to pledge allegiance to the USA first rather than Islam they are not a threat. So long as they do not attempt to practice PURE Islam they are not a threat.
It is only the most ignorant and uneducated people who can be sucked in by the most extreme practice and interpretation of Islam and these people are a very real threat.
In it's most pure form Islam is no different to Nazism. It tolerates no opposition. No dissent. No difference. But it would have been foolish to suggest we had to kill all Germans! (and don't get too hung up on the goodness of Christianity because it has less than a perfect track record)
Suggesting that we kill all Muslims makes you no better than the terrorists or the Nazis. It also denies the freedom of choice we value in the west, which is the very thing they hate us for. As for a religious war. That sort of talk is exactly like our current enemy. This is a war to defend freedom against oppression and is no different to WWII
Further, those who argue that the terrorist problem is not about religion but economics and poverty are fools or liars. South America is rife with poverty but you don't see thousands of people from there training to become terrorists. It is an ISLAMIC problem and the only people who can truly solve it are Muslims.
This: http//www.secularislam.org/call.htm is the link to the site in my original post. You will have to cut and paste because I don't know how to make it work properly inside the post.
"The mind of the bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine into it, the more it shrinks."
I expect to be branded a Fascist Racist by some for bringing this to peoples attention but you get that.
I am on a mailing list for a group dedicated to trying to teach people about the dangers, to society, civilization and the individual of organised religion.
I got a mail referring me to this site regarding the true nature of Islam and what is really preached in the Koran.
This site was produced by a group of Muslims turned atheist, contains numerous quotations from the Koran and sort of blows the comfy, trendy fantasy of Islam as a religion of love and peace out of the water.
I think it is a must read for everybody who values democracy and freedom of choice. It shows just how necessary it is to fight this war against terrorism and gives a good idea of just what we are up against.
It also kills the poisonous arguments of the apologists that the USA deserved what happened because of it's international policies. The terrorists who do these things hate the US in particular and the west in general because WE ARE FREE TO CHOOSE! Under Islamic law only total submission to Allah is allowed and those who do not submit must die!
It can't be stated often enough that not all MUSLIMS are the problem here. But ISLAM is!
Basically what happened was that at some point in our space program our half-witted technologically illiterate politicians of the time, not to say they are any better now, asked the Americans and British what Australia should do about all this high technology space rocket business and were told that we should leave it to them and just concentrate on sheep and wheat. The same goes for our computer industry in which Australia was a major player.
So we did! The remains of our space program was sold to India for scrap value. A large part of the reason India now has a well established space industry. The scientists who were studying computer science and technology at the government CSIRO labs were, I think, told to work on "useful" things like new strains of grain and cloud seeding.
And yes, Christmas Island is an Australian territory since about 1958 when the British handed it over. Though past and even present Aussie governments, not wanting the responsibility of looking after it, have tried to give it away to both Singapore and Indonesia. Neither wants it for fear of disturbing the delicate strategic balance in the area.
Those brilliant political decisions put this country behind by decades and condemned Australia to being little more than a backwater consumer of technology instead of a leading developer.
Most people should be able to look at the size of the equipment in the factory and compare it with the size of each aircraft. It is obvious the 747 is larger. To argue otherwise makes no sense.
I have flown a 747 (and many 727 years ago), I know my planes buddy! 211 feet 5 inches for a 747! hah! you think anyone is going to beleive that rubbish? BTW - the 727 is the largest plane in existance. no doubt.
I can not let crass stupidity like this go without comment! Even though I am probably just being sucked into playing this AC's little game.
I appologise if this offends anyone, other than the AC it is directed to. I know my aircraft and have been an aviation enthusiast for most of my 31 years and just can't stand reading this sort of rubbish. There is too much ignorance about aviation in the community and misinformation in the trash mainstream media already without this sort of thing being spread about. It is especially galling to read it on a forum like/. where the users are supposed to be inteligent thinking people.
-------------------------------
When and where did you fly these aircraft and with what airline? (Microsoft flight sim does not count!) How many hours do you have? What endorsments do you have? While you are at it give us the details of your source of stats. If you have one!
No pilot I know, and I fly myself, is stupid enough to even try to argue that the 727 is larger than the 747, even as a joke. All you have to do to know that the 747 is much larger is open your eyes and look. Take a trip to a major airport and have a look at the apron from the public viewing area.
My guess is you are just a snotty nosed little pre pubescent jerk who made his own aircraft model for flight sim (727 with 8 engines) and you are arguing a stupid point for the sake of it. Sometimes this sort of thing is funny but in this case it is just plain nauseating.
I guess that next you'll tell us the Cessna 152 is bigger than a DC3. As for the largest aircraft in existence, that honour goes to the Russian Antonov AN225 Mriya (Dream). A six engined monster brother to the AN124 freighter which, when introduced to service, took the crown from the USAF C-5 Galaxy.
If you really did fly these aircraft and it was MANY years ago then perhaps we should forgive your crass stupidity. You can't do anything about senile dementure after all.
Maybe you should reveal yourself COWARD. But after the crap you've posted I wouldn't want to either.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know your specific circumstances so I don't know if this is applicable to you.
I'm in Australia and I was mutilated as an infant.
By the age of 41 I had lost so much sensitivity I was impotent. Now, several years later now and I've started restoration.
It's a slow process (I expect at least 2 years) and won't give me everything that was taken by the unethical bastard who cut me but I expect to be able to have sex again.
If nothing else I will take back ownership of my body.
When I read that I wondered if thinking of babies as chattels or property helps American parents rationalise their mutilation. Would circumcision would be less prevalent in the USA if parents knew that some of the doctors who cut babies are sadistic fetishists and paedophiles who get their sexual thrills from the act?
http://www.circumcisionandhiv.com/2011/04/uk-doctor-struck-off-the-medical-registry-for-taking-circumcision-fetish-too-far.html
I forgot to add that while male genital mutilation is currently irrevocable there is some hope for men who are not happy with what was done to them. The field of regenerative medicine is rapidly advancing and holds the key to regenerating a natural foreskin.
The video on this page isn't about foreskins but it gives a good idea of where this is going and how quickly. (requires flash)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec11/tissuescience_12-15.html
There is a non profit organisation raising money for research of foreskin regeneration.
http://www.foregen.org/
It has non profit status in the USA and donations are tax deductible.
Geekoid, from the way you argue I'm going to guess you're a circumcision fetishist.
http://www.circleaks.org/
No major health organisation (not even in Israel) recommends infant circumcision and the AAP has been criticised around the world.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/28/circumcision-the-cruellest-cut?newsfeed=true
http://www.circumcision.org/aap.htm
http://chhrp.org/index.php/news/childrens-health-human-rights-partnership-condemns-new-aap-policy-statement/
In the past the AAP has been deeply influenced by circumcision fetishists such as Edgar Schoen. He was chairman of the American Academy of Paediatrics task force on circumcision that published a report in 1989 recommending infant circumcision. He was not involved in 1999 when the policy position was reversed. It would appear the fetishists are back in though.
Most people don't even know what circumcision is so, what is circumcision?
http://www.noharmm.org/separated.htm
Lets have a look at some critical analysis of the African RCT's.
http://www.circumstitions.com/HIV-SA.html
http://www.circumstitions.com/HIV.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22320006
http://www.circinfo.org/africa.html
I suggest everyone pay close attention to the bit in the first page about men who were lost from study and bear in mind that their HIV status is unknown. If the RCT's have any value at all we would see benefits in the real world. Just looking at developed Western nations, Europe has the lowest rate of MGM while the USA has the highest. The USA also has the highest rate of HIV infection.
http://joseph4gi.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/where-circumcision-doesnt-prevent-hiv.html
Where is the benefit in the real world?
The reality is that the RCT's were not about combating HIV in Africa or anywhere, it is all about creating bogus 'scientific' evidence to bolster the practice of infant circumcision in the USA. Doctors can make a tidy extra income from it:
http://www.circumstitions.com/$$$.html
cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies purchase amputated foreskins and use then in the production of various products:
http://www.foreskin.org/f4sale.htm
You claim it's a lie that babies die from it:
http://www.circumstitions.com/death.html
Now let's look at a timeline of the miraculous claims that have been made for circumcision since the puritans introduced it to America to prevent masturbation.
https://sites.google.com/site/completebaby/medicalization
If circumcision is so beneficial, why has it been necessary to make so many false claims about it? The current claims of HIV protection are just a rehash of the claims in 1855 and 1949 that it protects against Syphilis.
You also arrogantly claim there are no complications in later life. I am middle aged, I was mutilated as a baby and I now find that I have so little sensitivity that I can't maintain an erection during intercourse. Most of the time I can't even feel if I am inside a woman. It has nothing to do with health or lifestyle factors. I swim long distance ocean races a
Did Jesus exist?
The whole thing didn't just grow up out of nowhere. Christianity is an evolution/bastardisation of pagan sun worship and messiah cults and the Christianity we know today was created by Roman Emperor Constantine.
He's the one who decided which scriptures and gospels were canonical and would be included in the official holy book for Christianity which he declare to be the new state religion.
I've been away from the computer for a few hours and have only just seen your reply. I have also done a bit of reading about this Chris Hedges and have fully re-read Sam's reply to him.
It seems that Chris is the only one who is making a public fuss about what Sam said and then being quoted, mostly blindly. Being the cynic I am I have to doubt if Chris's selective quoting of Sam is for anything but profit. He does of course have a book to sell called "I Don't Believe in Atheists". He is also religious so this probably colours his interpretation of the book a little.
The passage involving a nuclear first strike against an Islamic regime that has nuclear weapons is a hypothetical. It explores the possibility and as Sam says himself the whole situation is "perfectly insane".
I think the most important part of the passage is this:
"I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world's population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the philosopher's stone, and unicorns. That it would be a horrible absurdity for so many of us to die for the sake of myth does not mean, however, that it could not happen. Indeed, given the immunity to all reasonable intrusions that faith enjoys in our discourse, a catastrophe of this sort seems increasingly likely."
Sam goes on to say:
"We must come to terms with the possibility that men who are every bit as zealous to die as the nineteen hijackers may one day get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry. The Muslim world in particular must anticipate this possibility and find some way to prevent it. Given the steady proliferation of technology, it is safe to say that time is not on our side."
The whole point he is making is that if it comes to this absurd situation it will be caused by the fact that a group of supposedly mature adults insist upon holding on to a belief in an imaginary friend. Human civilisation could be brought, close if not fully, to an end because of fantasy and fairytale. Sam puts the responsibility for stopping it right where it belongs. With Muslims.
Sam does not in any way endorse or call for a first strike against Islam and has only done what a group of military planners might do in proposing a possible threat, possible response to it and outlining the possible repercussions of the response. He's done it to prove his point that religious faith is dangerous. At least that is how I read it.
The Islamists who blow themselves up or fly aeroplanes into buildings do so on *faith*. Faith in an afterlife. Faith in the reward for martyrdom. Faith in their one true god. Faith in their absolute certainty that they are right.
Sam is correct when he says that faith is the cause of all the problems with religion because it is by far the most powerful component of the whole religious experience. As revolting and absurd as the idea is, a large part of the world population may one day face the threat of extermination in a fireball courtesy of a bunch of irrational Islamists.
That is something that concerns me.
DIGITIG:
"Militant atheist Sam Harris, according to "The End of Faith" apparently wants to see humanity exterminated"
www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2/
'Apparently' implies you haven't read the book for yourself. If you really have read the book then you have clearly, wilfully and disingenuously misinterpreted what Sam wrote.
DIGITIG:
"...in "The End of Faith", Sam Harris insists that his own ethical position is based on assumptions about human nature that are so obvious that it "need not be validated by a controlled study" (p192) -- this in a chapter on "The Science of Good and Evil" (my emphasis), so the "science" on which Harris calls for our extermination -- yours and mine -- is a "science" that needn't bother with study when Harris already "knows" the answer."
Here is the text from the last paragraph of p191 and all of p192.
p191 to 192
"Given this situation, we can see that one could desire to become more loving and compassionate for purely selfish reasons. This is a paradox, of sorts, because these attitudes undermine selfishness, by definition. They also inspire behaviour that tends to contribute to the happiness of other human beings. These states of mind not only feel good; they ramify social relationships that lead one to feel good with others, leading others to feel good with oneself. Hate, envy, spite, disgust, shame. These are not sources of happiness, personally or socially. Love and compassion are. Like so much that we know about ourselves, claims of this sort need not be validated by a controlled study. We can easily imagine evolutionary reasons for why positive social emotions make us feel good, while negative ones do not, but they would be beside the point. The point is that the disposition to take the happiness of others into account to be ethical seems to be a rational way to augment ones own happiness. As we will see in the next chapter, the linkage here becomes increasingly relevant the more rarefied ones happiness becomes. The connection between spirituality, the cultivation of happiness directly through precise refinements of attention and ethics is well attested. Certain attitudes and behaviours seem to be conducive to contemplative insight, while others are not. This is not a proposition to be merely believed. It is, rather, a hypothesis to be tested in the laboratory of ones life.
A Loophole for Torquemada?
Casting questions about ethics in terms of happiness and suffering can quickly lead us into unfamiliar territory. Consider the case of judicial torture. It would seem, at first glance, to be unambiguously evil. And yet, for the first time in living memory, reasonable men and women in our country have begun to reconsider it publicly. Interest in the subject appears to have been provoked by an interview given by Alan Dershowitz, an erstwhile champion of the rights of the innocent until proven guilty, on CBS's 60 Minutes. There, before millions who would have thought the concept of torture impossible to rehabilitate, Dershowitz laid out the paradigmatic ticking bomb case."
DIGITIG:
"
>This is a lie! Please cite.
Elsewhere in the thread I have backed this up with direct quotes (page 129 of the edition that I have). Sorry, but it's not a lie; you weren't reading carefully enough.
>DIGITIG, YOU HAVE DELIBERATELY LIED TO THE READERS.
Nope, I just read the book more carefully than you did.
"
p128 (129 in the digitig's)
"...States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them.
I have a lot of experience with home-built/experimental aviation. Generally the aircraft built by enthusiasts from either raw materials and a set of plans or a kit are better quality and built to a much higher standard of finish than the crap Cessna, Piper and the other big commercial manufacturers put out. Light experimental aircraft had glass cockpits 10+ years ago using non certified equipment that is just as good as the over priced certified equipment just getting into factory built aircraft now. The performance is also generally much better and the cost much lower partly because the product liability insurance premium on a new factory built aircraft is something like $50,000.
FAA certification really isn't that onerous. The real reason little innovation goes on with factory built aircraft is liability. The companies play it safe by sticking with the tech they have and making cosmetic changes. Unfortunately the tech they have was mostly developed in the 50's.
Vans aircraft is a pretty typical kit builder and over 5000 of their kits are completed and flying. It's not much compared to the big companies but when you consider that each one was built by the owner in his/her garage, living room or basement (people build planes in all sorts of places and sometimes have to knock out walls to get them out) then this is pretty damned impressive.
The experimental system actually makes a whole lot of sense if you want to foster innovation and are willing to let people take responsibility for their own actions. Shit it felt strange typing that in today's fucked up litigation mentality world. The aircraft are subject to FAA inspections throughout the assembly/construction process and have to fly off 40 hours in a restricted zone around a specific airport to prove they are safe but after that they can go anywhere. The only absolute prohibition on the use of experimental aircraft is in commercial operations. They are for private non profit use only. Aussie Jon Johanson flew his Vans RV-4 round the world twice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vans_RV-4.
Yes. It should have been higher.
This is not informative, rather it is a troll.
No it is a valid point I am making. I think you are just trying to be politically correct.
ALL belief systems taken to extremes are dangerous, and non more so then the poster's beleif system. Read between the lines and the poster is saying "All beliefs but MINE are evil and dangerous and must be destroyed." How is this different from that which he claims to decry?
You are absolutely correct. They are all dangerous. But you are also absolutely WRONG! I am an atheist. I have no belief system or beliefs and I do not even vaguely suggest the destruction of anything. The most dangerous people are the ones who are willing to fight not for freedom but for their religion.
Extremists of any kind are dangerous not just in thmeselves but because they justify extremists of the opposite point of view.
Again I agree with you.
Chrsitinaity practoiced b yman is a relkigio nof lvoe a tolerance but practiced by extremeists it is a hate-filled thing that leads to the shooting of doctors and beating of gay men to death. In the apst it has been an excuse for the most horrendous of crimes (see "the Crusades" and "the inquisition.")
Yes, Christianity has been and still is an instrument of evil in the hands of some. But I certainly do not defend it in my post so you are on my side here.
So Islam practiced by the majority is a religion of love and respect and I've known many such muslim personally. (I ,btw, am Jewish.) Practiced by the extremists though it ebcomes as dangerous as any other extreme.
Here, if you look at the site I referred to in my original post, you will find you partly wrong. Yes most Muslims do lead peaceful good lives and would never think of committing terorist attrocities (I pretty much stated this in my original post). But in order to properly follow the Qur'an this is not possible. The Qur'an calls for the destruction of the infidels so the terrorist were only doing what they were commanded to by their holy book.
And as dangerous the poster.
How am I dangerous. I am an atheist. I have no god to kill for and I don't belive that by dying while killing others I will instantly be zapped off to paradise. When was the last time you heard on the news "This morning an atheist extremist hijacked an airliner and flew it into an office tower killing x000 people?" NEVER!
So my original point remains valid though restated here for a little more clarity. RELIGION is the problem here and Islam in particular even though most Muslims do not practice the more barbaric aspects of what the Qur'an commands.
If you had taken the time to check out the site I provided www.secularislam.org/call.htm, written by ex Muslims, and weren't so eager to prove how politically correct you are by slandering me you might have understood my point.
Firstly. I do not suffer from the mental illness of political correctness. I am just trying to use reason, unlike the fanatical scum who murder innocent people for a free ride to paradise and 72 virgin brides.
Secondly. I am not American but an Aussie.
Finally. If all Muslims decide to join some sort of sick holy war against freedom (the west) then I would be one of the first to say 'nuke them all'. If Muslims living in western nations take up arms against us I would want them rounded up and any guilty of terrorist acts killed and the rest deported to the middle east on old oil tankers. But killing them for simply being Muslim is not acceptable if they do not pose a threat.
I just hope there are enough rational and intelligent Muslims out who are willing and able to exert influence over their less educated brothers and sisters, that we won't have to do that sort of thing.
Muslims have to take a bloody good look at the philosophy of Islam/the Qur'an and it's relevance to the modern world, stop trying to blame everyone else for it's problems and take responsibility for itself.
It is only the most ignorant and uneducated people who can be sucked in by the most extreme practice and interpretation of Islam and these people are a very real threat.
In it's most pure form Islam is no different to Nazism. It tolerates no opposition. No dissent. No difference. But it would have been foolish to suggest we had to kill all Germans! (and don't get too hung up on the goodness of Christianity because it has less than a perfect track record)
Suggesting that we kill all Muslims makes you no better than the terrorists or the Nazis. It also denies the freedom of choice we value in the west, which is the very thing they hate us for. As for a religious war. That sort of talk is exactly like our current enemy. This is a war to defend freedom against oppression and is no different to WWII
Further, those who argue that the terrorist problem is not about religion but economics and poverty are fools or liars. South America is rife with poverty but you don't see thousands of people from there training to become terrorists. It is an ISLAMIC problem and the only people who can truly solve it are Muslims.
This: http//www.secularislam.org/call.htm is the link to the site in my original post. You will have to cut and paste because I don't know how to make it work properly inside the post.
"The mind of the bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine into it, the more it shrinks."
I am on a mailing list for a group dedicated to trying to teach people about the dangers, to society, civilization and the individual of organised religion.
I got a mail referring me to this site regarding the true nature of Islam and what is really preached in the Koran.
This site was produced by a group of Muslims turned atheist, contains numerous quotations from the Koran and sort of blows the comfy, trendy fantasy of Islam as a religion of love and peace out of the water.
I think it is a must read for everybody who values democracy and freedom of choice. It shows just how necessary it is to fight this war against terrorism and gives a good idea of just what we are up against.
It also kills the poisonous arguments of the apologists that the USA deserved what happened because of it's international policies. The terrorists who do these things hate the US in particular and the west in general because WE ARE FREE TO CHOOSE! Under Islamic law only total submission to Allah is allowed and those who do not submit must die!
It can't be stated often enough that not all MUSLIMS are the problem here. But ISLAM is!
Basically what happened was that at some point in our space program our half-witted technologically illiterate politicians of the time, not to say they are any better now, asked the Americans and British what Australia should do about all this high technology space rocket business and were told that we should leave it to them and just concentrate on sheep and wheat. The same goes for our computer industry in which Australia was a major player.
So we did! The remains of our space program was sold to India for scrap value. A large part of the reason India now has a well established space industry. The scientists who were studying computer science and technology at the government CSIRO labs were, I think, told to work on "useful" things like new strains of grain and cloud seeding.
And yes, Christmas Island is an Australian territory since about 1958 when the British handed it over. Though past and even present Aussie governments, not wanting the responsibility of looking after it, have tried to give it away to both Singapore and Indonesia. Neither wants it for fear of disturbing the delicate strategic balance in the area.
Those brilliant political decisions put this country behind by decades and condemned Australia to being little more than a backwater consumer of technology instead of a leading developer.
Here are two photo's on the Boeing web site.
727-100 's in factory.
747-400' s in factory.
Most people should be able to look at the size of the equipment in the factory and compare it with the size of each aircraft. It is obvious the 747 is larger. To argue otherwise makes no sense.
Biggles
I can not let crass stupidity like this go without comment! Even though I am probably just being sucked into playing this AC's little game.
I appologise if this offends anyone, other than the AC it is directed to. I know my aircraft and have been an aviation enthusiast for most of my 31 years and just can't stand reading this sort of rubbish. There is too much ignorance about aviation in the community and misinformation in the trash mainstream media already without this sort of thing being spread about. It is especially galling to read it on a forum like /. where the users are supposed to be inteligent thinking people.
-------------------------------When and where did you fly these aircraft and with what airline? (Microsoft flight sim does not count!) How many hours do you have? What endorsments do you have? While you are at it give us the details of your source of stats. If you have one!
No pilot I know, and I fly myself, is stupid enough to even try to argue that the 727 is larger than the 747, even as a joke. All you have to do to know that the 747 is much larger is open your eyes and look. Take a trip to a major airport and have a look at the apron from the public viewing area.
My guess is you are just a snotty nosed little pre pubescent jerk who made his own aircraft model for flight sim (727 with 8 engines) and you are arguing a stupid point for the sake of it. Sometimes this sort of thing is funny but in this case it is just plain nauseating.
I guess that next you'll tell us the Cessna 152 is bigger than a DC3. As for the largest aircraft in existence, that honour goes to the Russian Antonov AN225 Mriya (Dream). A six engined monster brother to the AN124 freighter which, when introduced to service, took the crown from the USAF C-5 Galaxy.
If you really did fly these aircraft and it was MANY years ago then perhaps we should forgive your crass stupidity. You can't do anything about senile dementure after all.
Maybe you should reveal yourself COWARD. But after the crap you've posted I wouldn't want to either.