Of course, you don't even have to be corrupt to profit from the Drug War. You can sell at home drug tests and DARE paraphenalia, you can boost your agency budget by confiscating houses, boats, cars, guns or whatever else you can get your paws on, you can get more employees, higher wages and better benefits for yourself and everyone in your agency by scare-mongering, etc., etc. Everyone knows wars are good for the economy, after all WWII 'ended the Depression'. Of course, if you are on the losing side(Germans and Japanese), or even if you win but not by much (Soviets and French), you've got problems. Is there a lesson here? Well, probably not one that FB will get...
One can't be both totalitarian and pro-freedom at the same time. It's one or the other.
Although it is almost required that a government wants to be totalitarian should act as if it were really pro-freedom. It is also entirely possible that someone might create laws that are in fact totalitarian in nature, while thinking that they are simply preserving order to allow freedom.
Of course, that would mean that politicians are liars and/or stupid.
GWB's 'mistakes' might have been 'youthful' so we should forgive them, I mean Gore admitted to smoking pot, and it wasn't a big deal in the last election right? Well, FB, I'd be willing to overlook them except that if you were arrested in TX for using coke (and your daddy wasn't a big oilman/politician/Director of Central Intelligence/all of the above, of course), you might still be in prison, finding out how Big John got his nickname. But let's say you only got a small possession felony conviction, and did say 8 years or so, giving you your freedom in the early '80s. Can you go hunting with your buddies and try to get business investments from them that you can blow on failing to drill oil? No - you're an ex-con and even in Texas, they won't let you own or use a gun. Can you use your family name to get a sweetheart deal on owning the Rangers for a couple of years, then turn around and sell it for big moolah? Doubtful, MLB might be willing to let a drug addict/felon (which is how some people would portray you) be an minority owner since it would give you some common experiences with the players, but would that out of state group of investors want you to be their good ol' boy who talks to the press? I think not. Could you run for office? Well, you couldn't even vote so what do you think?
You see, FB, the real problem isn't Bush's past as much as it is his hypocrisy about it. He talks family values, honor to the office, law and order, but basically, he's had his whole life handed to him on a platter, used his name and connections to get into Ivy League schools and the Air National Guard and business deals and elected office,and has weaseled out of even answering tough questions about his past, much less answering them honestly. Hmm, that last trait sure got Clinton in a lot of trouble from the Republicans didn't it?
Look, if you like GWB that's fine, everybody's got the right to be wrong, but don't turn him into some kind of free-thinking, go-against-the-grain libertarian. He's a big government political machine, just like every other prez since who knows when, the only differences are what they spend money on.
Thank you, Fearsome Badgers, all of you, however many there are, for posting the Greatest Slashdot Troll Ever In A Non-Computer Category.
You are correct, consenual crimes are a contradiction in terms that the 'freedom loving' Republicans should be able to notice and should work to rectify. The fact that they do not do so, simply shows them to be as control obsessed as their opponents, and therefore hypocrites who are willing to trample rights and lives in order to get votes. Your brilliant satirical attack has both revealed their folly and triggered a wave of retaliation, furthering revealing the Republican complicity in the War on Drugs. Bravo.
I mean you couldn't really be serious about GWB's (alleged with no supporting references) views on decriminalization unless you were totally ignorant of the history of the War on Drugs, could you? The fact that you made no mention of Nixon starting it, and Reagan/Bush pushing it to the forefront both by the 'Just Say No' campaign and the creation of a 'Drug Czar', as well as creating the asset forfeiture laws that not only presume guilt, but also make money doing so, just shows how good a satirist you are.
Quyite a lovely little troll, you had me going until you referred to yuppies and the Home Shopping Network as the 'bastard progeny' of communism. HAND.
Um, no they weren't. As has been pointed out previously, the plane had US markings all over it and the crew were all wearing US uniforms. If you asked the crew, or the Navy, or the Pentagon, what those kinds of planes did, they would say 'Listen in on the communications of other countries.' Spies wear normal street clothes for the country they are spying on and generally say that they do anything other than listen in on the communications of other countries. They don't travel in a group in brightly colored vehicles like The Scooby Gang does. Spies can be jailed or executed without too many international repercussions, while executing uniformed military personnel is a stupid thing to do in the geopolitical realm, and totally immoral to boot.
This is pretty doubtful. Even if a 3-400mph turboprop could evade/jam/spoof/whatever the (IIRC) four missles F-8's carry, they've still got cannon that they could use to shoot down a non-combat spy/surveillance plane. Heck, they could just ram the thing and force it to land if they wanted to...
You've got to admit that one mans surveillance is another mans spying. "Mom, Jimmy was spying us while we were playing!" "Was not! It was surveillance!"
Besides, what about the Aurora if it existed, which it doesn't?
One Soviet pilot did just that with a Mig-25 fighter (at a time when the Mig-25 was thought to be the most advanced fighter in the world), and defected. IIRC, the USSR got the plane back (although in pieces after having been thoroughly checked out by the DoD:). Since the pilot wanted to stay (and becuase it would piss off the Soviets to no end) he was allowed to stay.
I really liked Gladiator. The whole grand vision of it and the painstaking attention to detail got me hooked.
Do you mean the attention to detail like when they got the thimbs up/thumbs down backwards? Gladiator was a good movie - great battle scene in the beginning, Richard Harris, and Russell Crowe kicking ass almost as much as he did in LA Confidential - but it wasn't the Best Picture. Hell, it wasn't even the best effects filled historical epic with a total bad ass as the lead this year...
If you're registering at Target, you really should do it in-store. Then you get to chase your fiance around with the scanner making ST phaser noises (and the occasional innuendo "Set phasers on 'Caress'":)) while grade schoolers look at you funny. Also, register for power tools - your male relatives will be ecstatic to by them for you, instead of having to hear Aunt Minnie debate herself on the merits of the throw pillow v. the kitchen towels - "Screw that we're getting 'em the circular saw!".
Did Piers Anthony do that when he started out though? Once you've got some name recognition, you can probably do that though... Hmm, why not web publish a couple of chapters, or maybe extract out a short story/novella for web publishing and see if that gets any interest. You might be able to sell a short story, either pulled from your novel or just set in the same universe, to a traditional magazine, which might not be so ethically troubling to you. Also, not all publishers are going to by so nasty, especially if you don't generate as much $$$ as JK Rowling. See if a smaller press will cut you some slack in this area. ISTR that Baen Books allows chapters and the like posted on their website, so they may be amenable to this (or not, if they feel that giving away free stuff is doing enough), but the usually publish military science fiction, not S&S fantasy...
Re:To the most excellent people in this thread...
on
New Human Ancestor?
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· Score: 1
I disagree, level-headed discussion has no place on/., usenet, or anyplace else in our society. Surely such 'discussion' will cause the downfall of our ranting, hysterical anarchy of a society, resulting in a polite, thoughtful one, which I am sure no one wants.
You are a Christian and therefore believe that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, correct?
Therefore, if God wanted to he could end all misery, evil, and suffering at the snap of His fingers (so to speak), but chooses not to because of His plan. There are things that humans are not meant to, or are not able to, understand the reasons behind, correct? We must accept them and endure in our faith.
If I've mis-stated any of your beliefs, please let me know how the above is incorrect, btw.
So, if humanity is supposed to accept that death camps, cancer and child molesters are part of His plans, why is the idea that the seven days in Genesis are a metaphor such a bitter pill?
I find this especially odd, given that most of the people who are most opposed to evolution are also the ones who are the most vehement about accepting tribulations as a part of His plans. Is their faith that weak, that the idea of a metaphor for what is essentially a sidebar in the Bible (remember, the whole point of Christianity is that Christ died for our sins, not who begat whom), can threaten their whole relationship with Christ? Do these people really think that they know exactly how God does everything that He does?
Really when you look at it, the whole creation versus evolution debate can be reduced to 'God created everything by fixing the dice' on the creationist side versus 'God knew that if the universe was created this way, the results would be this' on the evolutionary side. Which seems more respectful? Which puts limits on God's perceptions and abilities?
I married a born-again Christian, and I'm in the process of struggling with my faith (or rather my lack thereof). Oddly enough, neither my wife, a field biologist and evolutionist, nor her father, a Lutheran pastor, see any contradiction between faith and evolution. Maybe if you opened your mind just a little, and you'd see that there's nothing to fear.
As a Scottish girl used to the pleasures of my native Glasgow, I was very dissappointed in the variety of cuisine, nightlife and people here in Bangor, Maine when I first arrived. Bangor must be pretty bad, since I live in the paradigm of bland America (Peoria, as in 'Will it play in Peoria' - 'Is it white-bread enough for the hicks?'), yet I can easily walk to Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, and Lebanese restaurants, a great sub place, and a funky little coffee house with awesome breakfasts, not to mention a college theatre and an outdoor theatre, have a 10 minute drive to an awesome Thai restaurant and a third playhouse, and a 30-minute drive to a Shakespeare festival and a cool restored old movie house that shows classic films (as in 'Citizen Kane', not 'Ernest Goes to Someplace Wacky'). Plus decent college level basketball (two Division 1 schools), indoor football and minor-league hockey, if you like sports. Maybe the problem is you...
Ummm, I wasn't a history major or anything, but I'm pretty sure that no one tried to cover up the Crusades. Sure the reasons were misrepresented, and the uglier aspects were gloosed over/ignored, but if you ask a Jesuit 'Did a shitload of people get killed in the crusades?', he'll be startled by your language, but he'd admit it happened. If you went back in time and asked Pope Whoever about while they were going on, he'd say 'Damn straight, bubba!' (translated from the Latin). No one Christain denies thwe Crusades, the Inquisition or the Salem Witch Trials, and I've never heard anybody say that they were actually Good Things either. The Co$, got this woman out of an emergency room, held her in their 'hotel' for several days, even though she was urinating and defecating on herself, forced her to take 'medicine' and let her die of dehydration. BTW, dehydration takes days of neglect, it does't happen overnight, barring a massive infection, which this woman had no signs of. Then, the people at this 'hotel' took her corpse to a different emergency room (in a different county), lied to the doctors there, lied to the police, lied to the press, 'lost' records relating to what they did to her at the 'hotel' and did everything they could to act like the woman died of a bacterial infection overnight. Hell, even the Catholic Church will occasionally admit that some priests have a taste for the altar boys and try to find some other place for them to work, but they don't put up this much of a stonewall.
Also, Nazism was not Christian even in name. They were either strict materialists, or some kind of Old Norse-derived paganists. Their symbol, the swastika, was usually refered to as a 'hakenkruaz' (bad German spelling, I'm sure), which basically means twisted or broken cross. Not to mention that they went after Christianity's spiritual forebears, and were quite willing to squash any church that didn't toe the line and quickly (look up 'Dietrich Bonhoeffer'). Christianity has done shitloads worth of stuff, but the Nazis != Christians. Don't let the Neo-Nazis fool ya on that one.
My father-in-law is a Lutheran minister, and he has repeatedly said that whenever a church turns to secular methods (Crusade, Inquisition, Witch hunt) instead of religious methods (outreach, evangelism, telling people that they're going to hell if they don't shape up, whatever) only bad things come of it. The Co$'s methods of secrecy, ma$$ive donation$ before you get counseling, sending lawyers after any dissenters, etc., all sound pretty secular to me....
Arbirary school rules are valid because they are private schools that students have elected to attend, and this very election constitutes tacit support of their policies
Actually, the parents probably elected for the kids to attend that school, but I get your point. Of course, this brings up an interesting point: If my kids go Private School X, does that mean I can't say stuff like 'It's a good school for the most part, but I hate their restrictive policy on complaining about it.' Seriously, if I was thinking about sending my kids to a private school, I wouldn't put to much faith in what other teenage kids said, especially on a website, but I'd listen to their parents when they talked about the teachers, administration, and extra-curriculars.
I think that you are correct geographically (but I could be way off about that), but Gotham is another nickname for NYC. I think that 'Metropolis' is based on the tourism board's view of NYC - relatively clean, safe and prosperous - while Gotham City is based on a slightly diferent view - dark, poor, rainy, the only protection from the psychis is another psycho.
Re:Haven't seen the movie, probably won't...
on
15 Minutes
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· Score: 1
Can you make a movie condemning violence without featuring any violence?
I've thought about this a couple of times, and I think that it would be theoretically possible, but it would never be a Big Hollywood movie, unless it turned into a pretentious pile of crap. You could just focus on, the families of the victims or show the rehab of someone who was wounded but not killed. Start the movie immediately after a big car chase/shoot-out. Show the cops having nightmares while they try to learn to use that arm that had a 'mere' shoulder wound. Show gut-shot criminals who survived trying to survive in prison with a colostomy bag. Show innocent bystanders trying to explain to their kids why Daddy's not coming back, etc. etc. Not exactly a great fomula for box office success. Heck, I probably wouldn't go see it and I just wrote the damn thing:)
So they have one poor soul doing 5 peoples' IT jobs. *sigh*
Amen to that, brother. The vendors use NTs ease of use (shallow learning curve) as a big selling point, so that the PHBs think they can have one schmuck for network, phone/voice-mail, and desktop support, regardless of how users there are, or what their skill level is. Not that I'm bitter or anything...
Harlan is an awesome writer with great talent and unlimited bile. He's written great short stories, novellas, screenplays (although from his point of view almost none of them have been done correctly, see 'unlimited bile' above), reviews and non-fiction. Some of his stuff is laugh out loud hilarious and some is superhumanly enraged, but he can also be gentle and nostalgic as in "When Jeffty Was Five". Almost none of it is boring. See if your library has "The Essential Ellison" which has got his best stuff and lots of it.
It's rather well-known that he still does all his writing on a typewriter.
He's actually claimed that this is a great benefit to him becuase when he's done with a page he will yank it out of his Stone Age contraption, review it, and if needed, crumple it up and start over, but he feels that if he had a word processor the he'd never really review his stuff well. Obviously professional writers can be eccentric.:)
I think you may be confusing some things here. HE wrote a story about a DOD computer that starts a war to kill off humanity ("I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream") and another about a soldier from the future that goes back in time to prevent a war (IIRC, "Soldier"). After "Terminator" came out, HE said that it was a great movie, but wanted to have some credit for 'inspiring' the story - a soldier goes back in time to prevent a war caused by a DOD computer to kill off humanity. PKD wrote a story called "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" which was turned into "Total Recall", which probably had little to do with PKD by the time Arnie and Verhoeven got through with it. I've never heard anything about HE accusing PKD of ripping him off, and since HE doesn't tend to bottle up his feelings (obviously), HE probably wasn't too miffed...
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, you don't even have to be corrupt to profit from the Drug War. You can sell at home drug tests and DARE paraphenalia, you can boost your agency budget by confiscating houses, boats, cars, guns or whatever else you can get your paws on, you can get more employees, higher wages and better benefits for yourself and everyone in your agency by scare-mongering, etc., etc. Everyone knows wars are good for the economy, after all WWII 'ended the Depression'. Of course, if you are on the losing side(Germans and Japanese), or even if you win but not by much (Soviets and French), you've got problems. Is there a lesson here? Well, probably not one that FB will get...
One can't be both totalitarian and pro-freedom at the same time. It's one or the other.
Although it is almost required that a government wants to be totalitarian should act as if it were really pro-freedom. It is also entirely possible that someone might create laws that are in fact totalitarian in nature, while thinking that they are simply preserving order to allow freedom.
Of course, that would mean that politicians are liars and/or stupid.
GWB's 'mistakes' might have been 'youthful' so we should forgive them, I mean Gore admitted to smoking pot, and it wasn't a big deal in the last election right? Well, FB, I'd be willing to overlook them except that if you were arrested in TX for using coke (and your daddy wasn't a big oilman/politician/Director of Central Intelligence/all of the above, of course), you might still be in prison, finding out how Big John got his nickname. But let's say you only got a small possession felony conviction, and did say 8 years or so, giving you your freedom in the early '80s. Can you go hunting with your buddies and try to get business investments from them that you can blow on failing to drill oil? No - you're an ex-con and even in Texas, they won't let you own or use a gun. Can you use your family name to get a sweetheart deal on owning the Rangers for a couple of years, then turn around and sell it for big moolah? Doubtful, MLB might be willing to let a drug addict/felon (which is how some people would portray you) be an minority owner since it would give you some common experiences with the players, but would that out of state group of investors want you to be their good ol' boy who talks to the press? I think not. Could you run for office? Well, you couldn't even vote so what do you think?
You see, FB, the real problem isn't Bush's past as much as it is his hypocrisy about it. He talks family values, honor to the office, law and order, but basically, he's had his whole life handed to him on a platter, used his name and connections to get into Ivy League schools and the Air National Guard and business deals and elected office,and has weaseled out of even answering tough questions about his past, much less answering them honestly. Hmm, that last trait sure got Clinton in a lot of trouble from the Republicans didn't it?
Look, if you like GWB that's fine, everybody's got the right to be wrong, but don't turn him into some kind of free-thinking, go-against-the-grain libertarian. He's a big government political machine, just like every other prez since who knows when, the only differences are what they spend money on.
Thank you, Fearsome Badgers, all of you, however many there are, for posting the Greatest Slashdot Troll Ever In A Non-Computer Category.
You are correct, consenual crimes are a contradiction in terms that the 'freedom loving' Republicans should be able to notice and should work to rectify. The fact that they do not do so, simply shows them to be as control obsessed as their opponents, and therefore hypocrites who are willing to trample rights and lives in order to get votes. Your brilliant satirical attack has both revealed their folly and triggered a wave of retaliation, furthering revealing the Republican complicity in the War on Drugs. Bravo.
I mean you couldn't really be serious about GWB's (alleged with no supporting references) views on decriminalization unless you were totally ignorant of the history of the War on Drugs, could you? The fact that you made no mention of Nixon starting it, and Reagan/Bush pushing it to the forefront both by the 'Just Say No' campaign and the creation of a 'Drug Czar', as well as creating the asset forfeiture laws that not only presume guilt, but also make money doing so, just shows how good a satirist you are.
Quyite a lovely little troll, you had me going until you referred to yuppies and the Home Shopping Network as the 'bastard progeny' of communism. HAND.
The US crew were spies.
Um, no they weren't. As has been pointed out previously, the plane had US markings all over it and the crew were all wearing US uniforms. If you asked the crew, or the Navy, or the Pentagon, what those kinds of planes did, they would say 'Listen in on the communications of other countries.' Spies wear normal street clothes for the country they are spying on and generally say that they do anything other than listen in on the communications of other countries. They don't travel in a group in brightly colored vehicles like The Scooby Gang does. Spies can be jailed or executed without too many international repercussions, while executing uniformed military personnel is a stupid thing to do in the geopolitical realm, and totally immoral to boot.
This is pretty doubtful. Even if a 3-400mph turboprop could evade/jam/spoof/whatever the (IIRC) four missles F-8's carry, they've still got cannon that they could use to shoot down a non-combat spy/surveillance plane. Heck, they could just ram the thing and force it to land if they wanted to...
You've got to admit that one mans surveillance is another mans spying. "Mom, Jimmy was spying us while we were playing!" "Was not! It was surveillance!"
Besides, what about the Aurora if it existed, which it doesn't?
One Soviet pilot did just that with a Mig-25 fighter (at a time when the Mig-25 was thought to be the most advanced fighter in the world), and defected. IIRC, the USSR got the plane back (although in pieces after having been thoroughly checked out by the DoD:). Since the pilot wanted to stay (and becuase it would piss off the Soviets to no end) he was allowed to stay.
I really liked Gladiator. The whole grand vision of it and the painstaking attention to detail got me hooked.
Do you mean the attention to detail like when they got the thimbs up/thumbs down backwards? Gladiator was a good movie - great battle scene in the beginning, Richard Harris, and Russell Crowe kicking ass almost as much as he did in LA Confidential - but it wasn't the Best Picture. Hell, it wasn't even the best effects filled historical epic with a total bad ass as the lead this year...
If you're registering at Target, you really should do it in-store. Then you get to chase your fiance around with the scanner making ST phaser noises (and the occasional innuendo "Set phasers on 'Caress'":)) while grade schoolers look at you funny. Also, register for power tools - your male relatives will be ecstatic to by them for you, instead of having to hear Aunt Minnie debate herself on the merits of the throw pillow v. the kitchen towels - "Screw that we're getting 'em the circular saw!".
And, of course, Congratulations!
Did Piers Anthony do that when he started out though? Once you've got some name recognition, you can probably do that though...
Hmm, why not web publish a couple of chapters, or maybe extract out a short story/novella for web publishing and see if that gets any interest. You might be able to sell a short story, either pulled from your novel or just set in the same universe, to a traditional magazine, which might not be so ethically troubling to you.
Also, not all publishers are going to by so nasty, especially if you don't generate as much $$$ as JK Rowling. See if a smaller press will cut you some slack in this area. ISTR that Baen Books allows chapters and the like posted on their website, so they may be amenable to this (or not, if they feel that giving away free stuff is doing enough), but the usually publish military science fiction, not S&S fantasy...
I disagree, level-headed discussion has no place on /., usenet, or anyplace else in our society. Surely such 'discussion' will cause the downfall of our ranting, hysterical anarchy of a society, resulting in a polite, thoughtful one, which I am sure no one wants.
So let me get this straight...
You are a Christian and therefore believe that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, correct?
Therefore, if God wanted to he could end all misery, evil, and suffering at the snap of His fingers (so to speak), but chooses not to because of His plan. There are things that humans are not meant to, or are not able to, understand the reasons behind, correct? We must accept them and endure in our faith.
If I've mis-stated any of your beliefs, please let me know how the above is incorrect, btw.
So, if humanity is supposed to accept that death camps, cancer and child molesters are part of His plans, why is the idea that the seven days in Genesis are a metaphor such a bitter pill?
I find this especially odd, given that most of the people who are most opposed to evolution are also the ones who are the most vehement about accepting tribulations as a part of His plans. Is their faith that weak, that the idea of a metaphor for what is essentially a sidebar in the Bible (remember, the whole point of Christianity is that Christ died for our sins, not who begat whom), can threaten their whole relationship with Christ? Do these people really think that they know exactly how God does everything that He does?
Really when you look at it, the whole creation versus evolution debate can be reduced to 'God created everything by fixing the dice' on the creationist side versus 'God knew that if the universe was created this way, the results would be this' on the evolutionary side. Which seems more respectful? Which puts limits on God's perceptions and abilities?
I married a born-again Christian, and I'm in the process of struggling with my faith (or rather my lack thereof). Oddly enough, neither my wife, a field biologist and evolutionist, nor her father, a Lutheran pastor, see any contradiction between faith and evolution. Maybe if you opened your mind just a little, and you'd see that there's nothing to fear.
As a Scottish girl used to the pleasures of my native Glasgow, I was very dissappointed in the variety of cuisine, nightlife and people here in Bangor, Maine when I first arrived.
Bangor must be pretty bad, since I live in the paradigm of bland America (Peoria, as in 'Will it play in Peoria' - 'Is it white-bread enough for the hicks?'), yet I can easily walk to Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, and Lebanese restaurants, a great sub place, and a funky little coffee house with awesome breakfasts, not to mention a college theatre and an outdoor theatre, have a 10 minute drive to an awesome Thai restaurant and a third playhouse, and a 30-minute drive to a Shakespeare festival and a cool restored old movie house that shows classic films (as in 'Citizen Kane', not 'Ernest Goes to Someplace Wacky'). Plus decent college level basketball (two Division 1 schools), indoor football and minor-league hockey, if you like sports.
Maybe the problem is you...
Ummm, I wasn't a history major or anything, but I'm pretty sure that no one tried to cover up the Crusades. Sure the reasons were misrepresented, and the uglier aspects were gloosed over/ignored, but if you ask a Jesuit 'Did a shitload of people get killed in the crusades?', he'll be startled by your language, but he'd admit it happened. If you went back in time and asked Pope Whoever about while they were going on, he'd say 'Damn straight, bubba!' (translated from the Latin). No one Christain denies thwe Crusades, the Inquisition or the Salem Witch Trials, and I've never heard anybody say that they were actually Good Things either. The Co$, got this woman out of an emergency room, held her in their 'hotel' for several days, even though she was urinating and defecating on herself, forced her to take 'medicine' and let her die of dehydration. BTW, dehydration takes days of neglect, it does't happen overnight, barring a massive infection, which this woman had no signs of. Then, the people at this 'hotel' took her corpse to a different emergency room (in a different county), lied to the doctors there, lied to the police, lied to the press, 'lost' records relating to what they did to her at the 'hotel' and did everything they could to act like the woman died of a bacterial infection overnight. Hell, even the Catholic Church will occasionally admit that some priests have a taste for the altar boys and try to find some other place for them to work, but they don't put up this much of a stonewall.
Also, Nazism was not Christian even in name. They were either strict materialists, or some kind of Old Norse-derived paganists. Their symbol, the swastika, was usually refered to as a 'hakenkruaz' (bad German spelling, I'm sure), which basically means twisted or broken cross. Not to mention that they went after Christianity's spiritual forebears, and were quite willing to squash any church that didn't toe the line and quickly (look up 'Dietrich Bonhoeffer'). Christianity has done shitloads worth of stuff, but the Nazis != Christians. Don't let the Neo-Nazis fool ya on that one.
My father-in-law is a Lutheran minister, and he has repeatedly said that whenever a church turns to secular methods (Crusade, Inquisition, Witch hunt) instead of religious methods (outreach, evangelism, telling people that they're going to hell if they don't shape up, whatever) only bad things come of it. The Co$'s methods of secrecy, ma$$ive donation$ before you get counseling, sending lawyers after any dissenters, etc., all sound pretty secular to me....
Arbirary school rules are valid because they are private schools that students have elected to attend, and this very election constitutes tacit support of their policies
Actually, the parents probably elected for the kids to attend that school, but I get your point. Of course, this brings up an interesting point: If my kids go Private School X, does that mean I can't say stuff like 'It's a good school for the most part, but I hate their restrictive policy on complaining about it.' Seriously, if I was thinking about sending my kids to a private school, I wouldn't put to much faith in what other teenage kids said, especially on a website, but I'd listen to their parents when they talked about the teachers, administration, and extra-curriculars.
I think that you are correct geographically (but I could be way off about that), but Gotham is another nickname for NYC. I think that 'Metropolis' is based on the tourism board's view of NYC - relatively clean, safe and prosperous - while Gotham City is based on a slightly diferent view - dark, poor, rainy, the only protection from the psychis is another psycho.
Can you make a movie condemning violence without featuring any violence?
I've thought about this a couple of times, and I think that it would be theoretically possible, but it would never be a Big Hollywood movie, unless it turned into a pretentious pile of crap. You could just focus on, the families of the victims or show the rehab of someone who was wounded but not killed. Start the movie immediately after a big car chase/shoot-out. Show the cops having nightmares while they try to learn to use that arm that had a 'mere' shoulder wound. Show gut-shot criminals who survived trying to survive in prison with a colostomy bag. Show innocent bystanders trying to explain to their kids why Daddy's not coming back, etc. etc. Not exactly a great fomula for box office success. Heck, I probably wouldn't go see it and I just wrote the damn thing:)
So they have one poor soul doing 5 peoples' IT jobs. *sigh*
Amen to that, brother. The vendors use NTs ease of use (shallow learning curve) as a big selling point, so that the PHBs think they can have one schmuck for network, phone/voice-mail, and desktop support, regardless of how users there are, or what their skill level is. Not that I'm bitter or anything...
Damn, what you said is making some lights come on in my head. Guess I'll have to read it again also...Darn:)
That's the one that I couldn't think of! Harlan's awesome when he's on...
Harlan is an awesome writer with great talent and unlimited bile. He's written great short stories, novellas, screenplays (although from his point of view almost none of them have been done correctly, see 'unlimited bile' above), reviews and non-fiction. Some of his stuff is laugh out loud hilarious and some is superhumanly enraged, but he can also be gentle and nostalgic as in "When Jeffty Was Five". Almost none of it is boring. See if your library has "The Essential Ellison" which has got his best stuff and lots of it.
It's rather well-known that he still does all his writing on a typewriter.
He's actually claimed that this is a great benefit to him becuase when he's done with a page he will yank it out of his Stone Age contraption, review it, and if needed, crumple it up and start over, but he feels that if he had a word processor the he'd never really review his stuff well. Obviously professional writers can be eccentric.:)
I think you may be confusing some things here. HE wrote a story about a DOD computer that starts a war to kill off humanity ("I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream") and another about a soldier from the future that goes back in time to prevent a war (IIRC, "Soldier"). After "Terminator" came out, HE said that it was a great movie, but wanted to have some credit for 'inspiring' the story - a soldier goes back in time to prevent a war caused by a DOD computer to kill off humanity.
PKD wrote a story called "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" which was turned into "Total Recall", which probably had little to do with PKD by the time Arnie and Verhoeven got through with it. I've never heard anything about HE accusing PKD of ripping him off, and since HE doesn't tend to bottle up his feelings (obviously), HE probably wasn't too miffed...