"The condescending attitude and disrespect of "blue-staters" toward the "red-staters" is one of the biggest reasons why you are losing election after election. "
"We" may not have lost the elections had the Secretary of State of Ohio had not "saved the country from liberalism" by thwarting every call for investigation of the games the pubs played with voting machines last November. Let's not even talk about Catherine Harris, who outright stole the election by selectively obeying the intent of the law. Oh, BTW: The SofS of Ohio is vindictively sanctioning the lawyers who had the temerity to question his criminal behavior. This is now a one party dictatorship, using the law as window dressing to get anything it wants and destroy whomever it hates.
As for the "condescending attitude": Karl Rove spawned horseshit. This "problem" with blue "attitude" was never mentioned by a damned soul until the hours after the election was called for Bush, in the wee late night. I witnessed the meme insertion by selected pundits, the "they condescend against poor christian believers" fabricated idiocy which was picked up by the usual Republican Wurlitzer the next day and accepted by the Katie Courics of the news media almost immediately. Rove had this PR campaign ready to go the instant they won the election, with the goal of deballing even what pitiful sway the Democrats could hold on the public imagination after they were "hugely defeated".
Excuse me: Bush had the lowest public approval of any reelected president after his "win"; he squeaked by in Ohio by tens of thousands of votes, he had no "mandate". He barely won, using the vilest personal attacks against Kerry's military service and congressional record, while simultaneously smothering what pitiful handful of journalists found about his desertion of the National Guard and his arrest record for drunken driving and cocaine use. This bastard has completely wired the national media to shill for him. It's a Randolph Hearst wet dream. They Bush team has used America's worst personality traits, the jingoism, laziness, bigotry, xenophobia, superstition, and hatred of the wrong sort of people to barely win a squeaker.
Now they are going to absolutely steal social security and divert funds to brokers. As Great Britain and Argentina showed us, much like the HMO fiasco, when allowed in, the con men rob 20 - 40 percent of the "private" funds for "administrative costs", AKA outright theft. No normal mortal can stop them, and a right-wing president has no desire to. It's his goal.
NOW, back to point: if ya'll think everyone in the "blue" states is laughing at you, you might want to collectively head for some psychiatrists, cause baby, you have some major doubts about your belief systems if you think everyone thinks you dumb. Get help. But don't piously murder brown people abroad and steal my cash and constitution while you are at it.
Knock of the Rove meme campaigns. No one cared or even much knew about "red" attitudes until you collectively started weeping about how the class was laughing at you. You suck at being winners; even as you take over my nation, you still play the victim card. Grow up.
"Unauthorized computer access was made a felony in the late 90s. Unauthorized computer access was also labeled 'terrorism' by the so-called Patriot Act. But these unauthorized accesses are defacto protected by the current federal govt. because they are commercial(tm) and are not prosecuted like a lone pimply cracker defacing a commercial(tm) website would be."
Didn't the Republican party get access to the Democrats' communications in congress by hacking a common server, so that they knew every move the enemy was making before they made it? Was anyone arrested for this major felony? [crickets chirping]
"Crimes" are prosecuted in inverse proportion to the ability of the criminals to defend themselves. Or have a party member as the AG.
Taxation is not extortion. You are free to leave, firstly, to find a town that doesn't have any taxes (I'd assume they'd get by by robbing travellers?), and secondly, governments can levy "taxes". Calling it "extortion" is like calling copying a file "stealing".
No, I haven't; and there is no such thing as a "sort of contract":)
"More, you've accepted a license."
No, I didn't. I didn't sign anything.
"If they have it so in the license that you agree to by watching their content that you mustn't do the things Tivo does with that content, then you've agreed not to. "Shrink-wrap" licenses are still licenses."
No, they are not. I always, as a precaution, chant "No, I do not accept your terms" as I open any package with some sort of sticker on it. It's not my fault they provide no means of communications with them on this matter:) The EULA is still not legally tested, and even if a pro-business Supreme Court eventually does uphold it, I will not abide by shrink wrap licenses. If I buy an object, I own it, by common law and hundreds of years of precedent. I'll do what I like with it.
"It's their content and by watching their content, accepting their content, you must agree to a licence which they distribute it under for you. Enforcing those licences would be something that the government does."
It's not "their" content. They own the physical media on which they store their masters. They don't own the "content". They possess copy rights, not property rights, on the content. However, I have fair use rights over the content, because I have such under law, and because the media is my property, if property rights are to enter such a discussion. I do not accept any licenses as to how I use a machine I purchase, and the government be damned if they are paid to violate my rights by breaking down my door to stop me using my own property.
"Opposing libertarianism against this problem of your's doesn't work...because, sometimes, companies can get so rich they can begin to own the rulebook of the market itself, so to speak."
You're absolutely right, and I don't mean to criticize you, by the way, merely the idea of these new "rights" these rich people have recently purchased. If the U.S. manages to inflict this new idea of property on the world, its all over for freedom as we know it. Copyright and licenses and property rights will be used, ARE being used, to silence dissent in the U.S. and abroad. Petty dictators are a horror, but they eventually die and become dust. This new regime is corporate, immortal, and unkillable.
"Are they really idiots? How else do you propose for them to finace their dubious content? If it is worth downloading for so many people it is obviously worth something. If they are dinosaurs, who will replace them and how?"
Let's go all Young Republican: Who cares if they can't survive? They can get new jobs if they aren't lazy. Who said we owed them an industry? We haven't signed any contracts stating we must watch their commericals. If the Free Market says that we don't have to pay for the content, then they will go out of business. Sometimes a market really can be free. It's not the government's job to force people to watch TV commercials.
Content will either dry up, or it won't. If it does, the market will have instructed people that downloading stuff for free destroys the golden goose, and they will self-correct. If it doesn't dry up, and the content creators thrive (which seems to be the case so far, manipulated RIAA figures to the contrary), then the dubious content providers were wrong and the downloaders are right: downloads don't hurt the business model.
Dodos weren't obsolete. They survived everything except hungry Europeans who didn't give a damn about species preservation. It's hard to evolve a defense against hundreds of godwillsit types with guns in a few years.
" 'cos the Bush voters living in "Jesusland" would refuse to use it, going on about the Book of Revelation, man's mark required to buy or sell, etc."
It's only "flamebait" if you're a member of Jesusland, moderator. Actually, the threads on Slashdot are stuffed with fundie geeks going on about Revelations and the Number of the Beast vis-a-vis electronic ID. But I don't think the fundies will have a problem with it in the long run, because they are very Calvinistically pro-business. What's good for making money is good for Jesus.
With feudalism, at least, the lord owes you his protection, up to a point, in exchange for your vows.
Corporations expect loyalty, but return none of it. They want a purely business relationship -- money for showing up, with no sentimentality or human feelings, with you, but expect you to bend the knee, piss in a bottle, look in the retinal scanner and submit to them reviewing your private dining and drinking habits?
At least when your local lord had you killed, it was with a personal, knife-to-your-groin sort of animosity that showed you that you were valued.
"No... Fast food workers refuse to eat where they work for 2 reasons, first they know what goes in the food (scary stuff), and second they are sick of the taste and smell of it."
There is a third reason.
I speak from experience from three years employment at a fast food joint when I was a yungun: we couldn't afford the food. We were paid around US$4 an hour back then, and a meal would run you about six bucks. With abbreviated shifts, you'd pull down maybe 18-24 dollars a day, net. Eating at the restaurant was an experience I rarely indulged in, even with a 10 percent discount. I still wonder what some of the menu tasted like. And sneaking food was a termination offence. The owner had the left over food weighed at the end of the day by a trusted manager, and the figure was crunched with the days total weight sold to see if anyone was sneaking a gizzard or a mushroom on the side.
The franchise was rescinded by the home company after I left -- the boss had finally cut too many corners and fired too many good people, and the place became a healthcode violating dump.
"I've known more than a few who got fired for having lunch at Taco Bell."
The more times I hear this the sadder I become. Where you eat is none of your employer's business. What you drink in your own time is between you and your softdrink god.
When did Americans accept peonage as a cost of living? Shouldn't our employers live in castles? Maybe corporations should just stop pretending to be businesses and just promote people to ranks such as Squire, Knight, Baron, Duke, Prince, King...
An argument I've long made: if you want to colonize and explore Mars, stop thinking in terms of "returning" people like some gigantic Apollo program. One-way tickets ONLY, until the new martians build their own ships. I'd go in a shot. So would thousands of others. After all, it's not necessarily forever, and secondly, with a whole world to see for the very first time, why would you want to go back?
President Bush, I need some advice regarding God's Laws and how best to follow them
Dear President Bush:
11/26/04 "ICH" -- Congratulations on your election victory and for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from you and understand why you would propose and support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. As you said, "in the eyes of God marriage is based between a man a woman." I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18.22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.
However, I do need some advice from you regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how best to follow them.
1. Leviticus 25.44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans but not to Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21.7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness (Leviticus15.19-24). The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord. (Leviticus 1.9) The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35.2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?
6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Leviticus11.10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there degrees of abomination?
7. Leviticus.21.20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?
8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Leviticus19.27. How should they die?
9. I know from Leviticus 11.6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean. May I still play football if I wear gloves?
10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Leviticus 19.19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Leviticus 24.10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, as we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Leviticus 20.14)
I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
Yours truly, An Inquiring Supporter
P.S. I look forward to your answers because there are a number of other issues that I'd like to get settled as soon as you've enlightened me on these... Thanks again.
But, in this modified solar-sail plan, the beam isn't interplanetary. The microwave emitters are on earth, and are only in play for the first hour after the craft starts the journey. I don't think they can focus the microwaves across interplantary distances -- you'd need a laser for that kind of tight focus. I don't think masers can do the distance.
The emitters are on earth in TFA. No solar cells necessary; just a 60 MW power plant. On earth. You can send the craft to Mars using a coal fired generator.
" Actually, it would be trivial. All you need is a heat shield."
Afraid not. First, because the shield would have to withstand friction at 60 kilometers per second - I don't have the physics to calculate this, but seat of my pants guessing says orders of magnitude better shields then we have now.
Secondly, at 60 kps, it would wink in and out of the Martian atmosphere in less than five seconds, if a standard aerobraking pattern is used. If it came in straight at the ground, it would be through the atmosphere in a second. A streak of plasma smacking into the ground.
In either case, there isn't enough air, or enough time in the air, to decrease the speed of the craft appreciably.
Nope. I believe they said that it would require ONE hour of focused microwave energy on the sail while still in low earth orbit to achieve Ludicrous Speed. Then it coasts.
So, basically you build 20 2 MW transmitters and focus their output on a point a few hundred or thousand miles away -- I assume after an hour the craft will be moving away pretty damned quick, so a few thousand miles then.
How does this thing STOP? You make Mars, but what's slowing it down from 150 miles per second so that it'll achieve orbit? Atmospheric braking? Um, no, let that go - no airbraking, it'd vaporize. Even if it could withstand a 150 mps entry without puffing out, it'd punch out of the atmosphere in seconds, with no time to kill much speed. No rockets either -- can't carry enough fuel to kill 150 mps.
You'd need another microwave array in a high Martian orbit to fire at the solar sail as it came streaking in from Earth, if you want it to downspeed to make orbit. I'd assume the sail reverses somehow, so the craft comes in tail first.
Now. If you want a FAST vehicle, build a solar powered multi-megawatt laser at an LaGrange point, and use the nicely focused red laser on a solar sail. The craft'll be at Mars in, what, two weeks?
There's a couple of points that occur to me: the mass of the object being towed by the sail is irrelevant, mostly; you could tow the Sears Tower if you want. You'd just have to fire the lasers/microwaves for a longer time. A laser/purely reflective sail would be used for really heavy objects, and the gas-outing microwave system for smaller payloads, because the amount of paint on the sail is limited and will be exhausted, while a pure mirror-sail is static and can be used indefinitely.
No, he was just fired, his staff canned, the entire news organization replaced with more Bush-friendly types. His rep was smeared with an unproven charge of forged evidence that his provider was unable to refute for fear of ruining his source's life. The story of Bush's golden slide from the Guard was permanently stamped as "false", even though Palast broke - and proved true - that story four years ago. NO ONE will take on on Bush's people, else they get the Wilson/Rather treatment. Hell, Rove was willing to nuke an entire CIA front company to get the WIFE of Wilson! That's showing anyone who's thinking og growing a pair that their life is worth exactly one tub of used kitty litter. Who needs government censorship when corporate censorship works so much better?
"Also, the dictionaries disagree with you regarding pronunciation:"
Oh, of course, no question. NO one says AYY-nostik. But that's because of sloppiness. Such is life; I'm not going to try to correct the world. But it's such a self-evident concept if it's pronounced correctly AND people know what a "gnostic" is -- a double near-impossibility in the U.S.
I meant Leviticus, not the Bible. The christian bible, as a whole, really doesn't lend itself to analysis. It's too many pieces from too many times written by too many different types of people. On top of all that, it was sliced, editted, and rebuilt constantly. There is no overall theme that you can sink your teeth into. A theme can be chosen for you, taking on the aspects supporting whatever they like while they toss whatever they like. Hence the American Christians/Baptists, who believe in a Warrior Jesus rather than a teaching Jesus, etc., blending Old and New Testaments to support the worldview that Bush believes in -- America as Jesus's warrior army, taming evil around the world in preparation for the Apocalypse. YMMV for INRI.
Slashdot Mirror
"The condescending attitude and disrespect of "blue-staters" toward the "red-staters" is one of the biggest reasons why you are losing election after election. "
"We" may not have lost the elections had the Secretary of State of Ohio had not "saved the country from liberalism" by thwarting every call for investigation of the games the pubs played with voting machines last November. Let's not even talk about Catherine Harris, who outright stole the election by selectively obeying the intent of the law. Oh, BTW: The SofS of Ohio is vindictively sanctioning the lawyers who had the temerity to question his criminal behavior. This is now a one party dictatorship, using the law as window dressing to get anything it wants and destroy whomever it hates.
As for the "condescending attitude": Karl Rove spawned horseshit. This "problem" with blue "attitude" was never mentioned by a damned soul until the hours after the election was called for Bush, in the wee late night. I witnessed the meme insertion by selected pundits, the "they condescend against poor christian believers" fabricated idiocy which was picked up by the usual Republican Wurlitzer the next day and accepted by the Katie Courics of the news media almost immediately. Rove had this PR campaign ready to go the instant they won the election, with the goal of deballing even what pitiful sway the Democrats could hold on the public imagination after they were "hugely defeated".
Excuse me: Bush had the lowest public approval of any reelected president after his "win"; he squeaked by in Ohio by tens of thousands of votes, he had no "mandate". He barely won, using the vilest personal attacks against Kerry's military service and congressional record, while simultaneously smothering what pitiful handful of journalists found about his desertion of the National Guard and his arrest record for drunken driving and cocaine use. This bastard has completely wired the national media to shill for him. It's a Randolph Hearst wet dream. They Bush team has used America's worst personality traits, the jingoism, laziness, bigotry, xenophobia, superstition, and hatred of the wrong sort of people to barely win a squeaker.
Now they are going to absolutely steal social security and divert funds to brokers. As Great Britain and Argentina showed us, much like the HMO fiasco, when allowed in, the con men rob 20 - 40 percent of the "private" funds for "administrative costs", AKA outright theft. No normal mortal can stop them, and a right-wing president has no desire to. It's his goal.
NOW, back to point: if ya'll think everyone in the "blue" states is laughing at you, you might want to collectively head for some psychiatrists, cause baby, you have some major doubts about your belief systems if you think everyone thinks you dumb. Get help. But don't piously murder brown people abroad and steal my cash and constitution while you are at it.
Knock of the Rove meme campaigns. No one cared or even much knew about "red" attitudes until you collectively started weeping about how the class was laughing at you. You suck at being winners; even as you take over my nation, you still play the victim card. Grow up.
"Unauthorized computer access was made a felony in the late 90s. Unauthorized computer access was also labeled 'terrorism' by the so-called Patriot Act. But these unauthorized accesses are defacto protected by the current federal govt. because they are commercial(tm) and are not prosecuted like a lone pimply cracker defacing a commercial(tm) website would be."
Didn't the Republican party get access to the Democrats' communications in congress by hacking a common server, so that they knew every move the enemy was making before they made it? Was anyone arrested for this major felony? [crickets chirping]
"Crimes" are prosecuted in inverse proportion to the ability of the criminals to defend themselves. Or have a party member as the AG.
Taxation is not extortion. You are free to leave, firstly, to find a town that doesn't have any taxes (I'd assume they'd get by by robbing travellers?), and secondly, governments can levy "taxes". Calling it "extortion" is like calling copying a file "stealing".
Waitaminnit...
Hm. There's a difference between free food and free food preparation.
"Is your neighborhood under the constant threat of attack from roving mobs? "
Only in the summer. Street gangs are seasonal.
"Do people drive whatever speed they want while throwing litter out of their windows on your street?"
Ohhhh, yes.
"You have signed a sort of contract."
:)
:) The EULA is still not legally tested, and even if a pro-business Supreme Court eventually does uphold it, I will not abide by shrink wrap licenses. If I buy an object, I own it, by common law and hundreds of years of precedent. I'll do what I like with it.
No, I haven't; and there is no such thing as a "sort of contract"
"More, you've accepted a license."
No, I didn't. I didn't sign anything.
"If they have it so in the license that you agree to by watching their content that you mustn't do the things Tivo does with that content, then you've agreed not to. "Shrink-wrap" licenses are still licenses."
No, they are not. I always, as a precaution, chant "No, I do not accept your terms" as I open any package with some sort of sticker on it. It's not my fault they provide no means of communications with them on this matter
"It's their content and by watching their content, accepting their content, you must agree to a licence which they distribute it under for you. Enforcing those licences would be something that the government does."
It's not "their" content. They own the physical media on which they store their masters. They don't own the "content". They possess copy rights, not property rights, on the content. However, I have fair use rights over the content, because I have such under law, and because the media is my property, if property rights are to enter such a discussion. I do not accept any licenses as to how I use a machine I purchase, and the government be damned if they are paid to violate my rights by breaking down my door to stop me using my own property.
"Opposing libertarianism against this problem of your's doesn't work...because, sometimes, companies can get so rich they can begin to own the rulebook of the market itself, so to speak."
You're absolutely right, and I don't mean to criticize you, by the way, merely the idea of these new "rights" these rich people have recently purchased. If the U.S. manages to inflict this new idea of property on the world, its all over for freedom as we know it. Copyright and licenses and property rights will be used, ARE being used, to silence dissent in the U.S. and abroad. Petty dictators are a horror, but they eventually die and become dust. This new regime is corporate, immortal, and unkillable.
"Are they really idiots? How else do you propose for them to finace their dubious content? If it is worth downloading for so many people it is obviously worth something. If they are dinosaurs, who will replace them and how?"
Let's go all Young Republican: Who cares if they can't survive? They can get new jobs if they aren't lazy. Who said we owed them an industry? We haven't signed any contracts stating we must watch their commericals. If the Free Market says that we don't have to pay for the content, then they will go out of business. Sometimes a market really can be free. It's not the government's job to force people to watch TV commercials.
Content will either dry up, or it won't. If it does, the market will have instructed people that downloading stuff for free destroys the golden goose, and they will self-correct. If it doesn't dry up, and the content creators thrive (which seems to be the case so far, manipulated RIAA figures to the contrary), then the dubious content providers were wrong and the downloaders are right: downloads don't hurt the business model.
Either way, let them eat cake.
Dodos weren't obsolete. They survived everything except hungry Europeans who didn't give a damn about species preservation. It's hard to evolve a defense against hundreds of godwillsit types with guns in a few years.
If it was discussed on a movie, a professional has already done it.
A bad cop is a good cop who doesn't like YOU.
" 'cos the Bush voters living in "Jesusland" would refuse to use it, going on about the Book of Revelation, man's mark required to buy or sell, etc."
It's only "flamebait" if you're a member of Jesusland, moderator. Actually, the threads on Slashdot are stuffed with fundie geeks going on about Revelations and the Number of the Beast vis-a-vis electronic ID. But I don't think the fundies will have a problem with it in the long run, because they are very Calvinistically pro-business. What's good for making money is good for Jesus.
With feudalism, at least, the lord owes you his protection, up to a point, in exchange for your vows.
Corporations expect loyalty, but return none of it. They want a purely business relationship -- money for showing up, with no sentimentality or human feelings, with you, but expect you to bend the knee, piss in a bottle, look in the retinal scanner and submit to them reviewing your private dining and drinking habits?
At least when your local lord had you killed, it was with a personal, knife-to-your-groin sort of animosity that showed you that you were valued.
"No... Fast food workers refuse to eat where they work for 2 reasons, first they know what goes in the food (scary stuff), and second they are sick of the taste and smell of it."
There is a third reason.
I speak from experience from three years employment at a fast food joint when I was a yungun: we couldn't afford the food. We were paid around US$4 an hour back then, and a meal would run you about six bucks. With abbreviated shifts, you'd pull down maybe 18-24 dollars a day, net. Eating at the restaurant was an experience I rarely indulged in, even with a 10 percent discount. I still wonder what some of the menu tasted like. And sneaking food was a termination offence. The owner had the left over food weighed at the end of the day by a trusted manager, and the figure was crunched with the days total weight sold to see if anyone was sneaking a gizzard or a mushroom on the side.
The franchise was rescinded by the home company after I left -- the boss had finally cut too many corners and fired too many good people, and the place became a healthcode violating dump.
"I've known more than a few who got fired for having lunch at Taco Bell."
The more times I hear this the sadder I become. Where you eat is none of your employer's business. What you drink in your own time is between you and your softdrink god.
When did Americans accept peonage as a cost of living? Shouldn't our employers live in castles? Maybe corporations should just stop pretending to be businesses and just promote people to ranks such as Squire, Knight, Baron, Duke, Prince, King...
An argument I've long made: if you want to colonize and explore Mars, stop thinking in terms of "returning" people like some gigantic Apollo program. One-way tickets ONLY, until the new martians build their own ships. I'd go in a shot. So would thousands of others. After all, it's not necessarily forever, and secondly, with a whole world to see for the very first time, why would you want to go back?
Let's just take a look at a letter to Bush regarding Leviticus:
... Thanks again.
President Bush, I need some advice regarding God's Laws and how best to follow them
Dear President Bush:
11/26/04 "ICH" -- Congratulations on your election victory and for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from you and understand why you would propose and support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. As you said, "in the eyes of God marriage is based between a man a woman." I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18.22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.
However, I do need some advice from you regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how best to follow them.
1. Leviticus 25.44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans but not to Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21.7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness (Leviticus15.19-24). The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord. (Leviticus 1.9) The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35.2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?
6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Leviticus11.10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there degrees of abomination?
7. Leviticus.21.20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?
8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Leviticus19.27. How should they die?
9. I know from Leviticus 11.6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean. May I still play football if I wear gloves?
10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Leviticus 19.19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Leviticus 24.10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, as we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Leviticus 20.14)
I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
Yours truly,
An Inquiring Supporter
P.S. I look forward to your answers because there are a number of other issues that I'd like to get settled as soon as you've enlightened me on these
Great job!
But, in this modified solar-sail plan, the beam isn't interplanetary. The microwave emitters are on earth, and are only in play for the first hour after the craft starts the journey. I don't think they can focus the microwaves across interplantary distances -- you'd need a laser for that kind of tight focus. I don't think masers can do the distance.
At 60 kps, you ain't slingshotting, you're getting a minor course deviation. The craft has solar escape velocity, and its going, going, gone....
The emitters are on earth in TFA. No solar cells necessary; just a 60 MW power plant. On earth. You can send the craft to Mars using a coal fired generator.
" Actually, it would be trivial. All you need is a heat shield."
Afraid not. First, because the shield would have to withstand friction at 60 kilometers per second - I don't have the physics to calculate this, but seat of my pants guessing says orders of magnitude better shields then we have now.
Secondly, at 60 kps, it would wink in and out of the Martian atmosphere in less than five seconds, if a standard aerobraking pattern is used. If it came in straight at the ground, it would be through the atmosphere in a second. A streak of plasma smacking into the ground.
In either case, there isn't enough air, or enough time in the air, to decrease the speed of the craft appreciably.
replace that "150 mps" with "60 kps". I'd pulled the 150 out of me butt, just for argument's sake.
Nope. I believe they said that it would require ONE hour of focused microwave energy on the sail while still in low earth orbit to achieve Ludicrous Speed.
Then it coasts.
So, basically you build 20 2 MW transmitters and focus their output on a point a few hundred or thousand miles away -- I assume after an hour the craft will be moving away pretty damned quick, so a few thousand miles then.
How does this thing STOP? You make Mars, but what's slowing it down from 150 miles per second so that it'll achieve orbit? Atmospheric braking? Um, no, let that go - no airbraking, it'd vaporize. Even if it could withstand a 150 mps entry without puffing out, it'd punch out of the atmosphere in seconds, with no time to kill much speed. No rockets either -- can't carry enough fuel to kill 150 mps.
You'd need another microwave array in a high Martian orbit to fire at the solar sail as it came streaking in from Earth, if you want it to downspeed to make orbit. I'd assume the sail reverses somehow, so the craft comes in tail first.
Now. If you want a FAST vehicle, build a solar powered multi-megawatt laser at an LaGrange point, and use the nicely focused red laser on a solar sail. The craft'll be at Mars in, what, two weeks?
There's a couple of points that occur to me: the mass of the object being towed by the sail is irrelevant, mostly; you could tow the Sears Tower if you want. You'd just have to fire the lasers/microwaves for a longer time. A laser/purely reflective sail would be used for really heavy objects, and the gas-outing microwave system for smaller payloads, because the amount of paint on the sail is limited and will be exhausted, while a pure mirror-sail is static and can be used indefinitely.
"Oh wait he wasn't."
No, he was just fired, his staff canned, the entire news organization replaced with more Bush-friendly types. His rep was smeared with an unproven charge of forged evidence that his provider was unable to refute for fear of ruining his source's life.
The story of Bush's golden slide from the Guard was permanently stamped as "false", even though Palast broke - and proved true - that story four years ago. NO ONE will take on on Bush's people, else they get the Wilson/Rather treatment. Hell, Rove was willing to nuke an entire CIA front company to get the WIFE of Wilson! That's showing anyone who's thinking og growing a pair that their life is worth exactly one tub of used kitty litter. Who needs government censorship when corporate censorship works so much better?
"Also, the dictionaries disagree with you regarding pronunciation:"
Oh, of course, no question. NO one says AYY-nostik. But that's because of sloppiness. Such is life; I'm not going to try to correct the world. But it's such a self-evident concept if it's pronounced correctly AND people know what a "gnostic" is -- a double near-impossibility in the U.S.
" I have read the whole text."
I meant Leviticus, not the Bible. The christian bible, as a whole, really doesn't lend itself to analysis. It's too many pieces from too many times written by too many different types of people. On top of all that, it was sliced, editted, and rebuilt constantly. There is no overall theme that you can sink your teeth into. A theme can be chosen for you, taking on the aspects supporting whatever they like while they toss whatever they like. Hence the American Christians/Baptists, who believe in a Warrior Jesus rather than a teaching Jesus, etc., blending Old and New Testaments to support the worldview that Bush believes in -- America as Jesus's warrior army, taming evil around the world in preparation for the Apocalypse. YMMV for INRI.