Why would smoking weed even be put on the same moral ground as slavery? It has no benefits other than personal recreation, and has quite a bit of a downside. Slavery is immoral by nature.
The question, then, is why would the ban on drugs be unethical or immoral? It isn't that the law against helping slaves escape was ethical or moral, in fact it was quite the opposite. Slavery itself is an abomination. But it doesn't equate to drug usage in any way.
On one hand, you deal with human life. On the other, you deal with a selfish persuit of the self. So, you tell me which is just and which is not? Can you seriously believe that someone actually has a moral obligation to smoke weed?
It is a case by case scenario. I wasn't espousing the complete following of the law, instead, I was saying that breaking this particular law is foolish. If you want to call it "civil disobedience," it is even more foolish. This law, though, is not even on the same level as slavery / discrimination. You can't argue the subject of a mouse by talking about an elephant.
Mr. Kerry, where do you actually stand with regards to executive power? How do you plan to resolve the situation in Iraq? What would you do, and how, to get American soldiers back home on our soil, and how then would you gaurantee protection from the evils of this world?
Would you try to make peace with the guys that blew up the World Trade Center? How would you prevent such a thing from happening again? How are you any different from the moron that we have in office?
I lament the situation. There are zealots on the other side of the world that hate America and all it stands for. They don't care who is in power, they just want Americans to die. Bush, Kerry... whoever. If Kerry comes to power, will we see the same kind of intelligence budget cuts that Clinton made? If Bush stays in office, will we see a continuation of the BS that's happening in Iraq?
If he were left in power, American values would be directly calibrated by the actions of Saddam Hussein.
I don't see this as much different from what was happening in Bosnia, it's just that no one cares about Iraqis, I guess. That, and everyone would rather point at the oil, and the fact that Bush is republican.
I don't remember saying something to the effect of what is "more evil." I did, however, say that the law is the law. It's best for you to not break the law.
If you don't like the law, write your representatives, and show your distaste with those in power at the voting booth. Another option is that you could try to run for office yourself. I'd rather see that then laws being put into place that people take for granted, or break because they "disagree" with it. You're a part of American society. You've had a part in what has become law and what has not.
Idiots that don't understand that they are the govenment deserve to be governed. Perhaps you didn't catch the "If you don't like it, do the legwork to change it."
As for the drug thing, personally I don't care. I don't do drugs, and never will. If it were legal, I wouldn't really give a crap either. I'm not going to do your legwork, though.
As for the "terrorist activities," perhaps you'd like to explain the logical connection between what I said (following the law), and the results of your lack of involvement in your own government (Patriot Act). Then again, I'm not too scared of being picked up as a terrorist, mostly because I live in a shack in the woods and send stuff anonymously via fedex.
The gist, if you're still to dense to understand, is that if you don't like it, you're empowered enough to affect a change. Then again, if we have dopes like you running around, I'd be afraid of whatever you do put into place.
SimMicroscopicOrganism (Where you watch alcohol and CO2 being produced)
SimSTD (Where you try to kill the world)
SimMS
SimVirus (Where you try to crash the world)
SimRadio
SimTV
SimMoon (Hell, they had a SimEarth)
SimUniverse
You know... these all seem sort of dumb or boring. Except maybe SimTV or SimRadio. Maybe they could come out with a SimMedia, where you try to control a growing media empire. Shades of TWINE
Technically, Jewish and Christian men are also allowed to have multiple wives. The same doesn't go for the women, but that's a result of the foundation of the faith. I suppose it just isn't very popular (or legal in many places).
Why don't we just use a different word for unions in the eye of the government? Same-sex or not, I don't believe that government has the authority to deem it a "marriage." Sure, let same-sex unions have the same tax breaks or whatever, but don't make society believe that it falls within the bounds of "marriage."
Marriage is something that is too religion based to be dictated by government. In my viewpoint, which may be "narrow" in your eyes, marriage can only be granted by the Church. Thinking poorly of someone because they follow their faith is rather... narrow-minded itself, as well as being a load of shit. Oh... yeah. It's spelled "shit."
Want to cut taxpayer burden? Here's an idea... CUT TAXES!
This has been done. There really isn't any proof of it actually relieving the burden.
Which program to cut first? How 'bout the drug war?
No. How about DCFS, the FDA, and all of the employees of Senators and Congressman. Let the damn lawmakers read their own email.
Then, how 'bout letting the people who get sick pay their own damn bills?
And when they show up in the emergency room, hacking up half a lung, doctors operate, then they don't have the money to pay? The cost of health care is rising exponentially, it seems. My insurance costs have gone through the roof, and I'm a young male (the group that has the lowest overall costs). There are a number of things to blame about medical costs, but I think the FDA is the number one reason. The costs of medical schools is another.
If I want to smoke, I'll either pay my own medical bills or I'll die. That oughta save you some money.
Go ahead. Smoking cigarettes is not a denied right. Smoking pot, though, is. Why not try following the law instead of being a vigilante. Your actions end up costing us more in the end than anything. The war on drugs would be significantly cheaper if there weren't so many drug-using idiots.
The other thing is the medical bills. I say go ahead and don't get insurance. Just don't let me catch your ass getting treatment at an emergency room, and then skipping out on the pay. I know that I've spent nearly half of my life working already, and that throughout my time working, I've been paying a heap of money to this social security thing. Since I've been paying so much damn money, I want to make sure that I get some sort of benefit out of it. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's going to happen.
Maybe I'll run for office. That way, I can fleece 'Merica.
I can tell you what is illegal about smoking pot. SMOKING POT is illegal. You doof. There is no hypocrisy, because drinking and smoking cigarettes is fully covered within the law. Smoking pot is not.
There is nothing about your life that gives you precedence over the law. If you want the law changed, fine, try to get the law changed. You have to do the legwork. Until then, I have no problem with the cops picking your ass up for breaking the law.
Heh. Then you don't qualify to ask questions either, since you aren't 18.;-)
Every other guy out there has to enter selective service. It's doubtful that we'll ever have a draft again, espcially since the technology of killing people has become so advanced. The modern era of combat will be small units with high mobility, remote controlled machines, and big laser/video guided bombs.
I hate SUV's, and think they should be made illegal in some way. Either that, or they should make it mandatory that the tires be more than 6 feet in radius. That way, I could drive my small car under them without having any problems.
Damn SUV's. Hard to see around, and people drive them like maniacs. I'd like to drive with a big ramming pole jutting up at an angle, so I can roll them off of the road.
I think that the Clinton-weed thing was genius on his part. Most of the US found humor in it, when he admitted to it, then went on to play sax for Leno.
The ultimate reality here is that nobody really gives a damn about what drugs the candidates did. Clinton smoked weed. Sure. Whatever. Bush did coke. Sure. Whatever. Drug history doesn't really have any bearing on political ability... Except that it seems that you can't really gain office without having done some smack earlier in life (mayor of DC, Obama, Clinton, Bush, etc.)
In all, your argument is flawed. Smoking a joint is no better or worse than doing coke. A "Little Joint" is just as illegal as a line of coke. My point is, again, that most Americans don't care.
After all, he already fucked the economy, he fucked Iraq, he fucked our international relations, he fucked our intelligence services, he fucked our civil liberties, and he fucked our electoral system.
Actually, you are about 66% wrong. You see, the economy was set up to fail by Clinton. He did the equivalent of attaching a pressure-pump to a fragile balloon. I'm glad that the economy flopped, because the shakeout got rid of the cruft in most industries. It's righted itself already, and the jobs are being redistributed according to what people are good at. There may be some exceptions, but in general, you won't have any MBA airheads programming for a.Bomb.
The intelligence services were fucked in a big way by Clinton, who made massive cuts in the budget by reducing funding for intelligence. You want to know what laid the groundwork for 9/11? BTW, wasn't Kerry on the Senatorial Intelligence Commitee?
The electoral system was almost fucked by Gore. Our system is based on the electoral college, which may or may not vote in accordance with the popular vote of the state. In any case, both parties are to blame for the massive amount of corruption in the voting. Gore may have won some other states because of truckloads of republican votes being destroyed... Bush may have won florida by a hanging chad.
In all, I think that the most annoying thing about Bush being president is all of the ignorant bitches that whine about how he shouldn't be president. It's been four years already. We'll see who will win in the next election. Get over it already.
As long as places like ASUS, ABIT, MSI, and Chaintech are around, I doubt that this will happen. They seem to take that rebellious attitude in their hardware design: coloring their motherboards, adding bright LED's, using funky fans and heat sinks, and allowing easy overclocking through the bios. Any sort of encouragement by MS to move to a boring All-your-base type of arrangement would be lost on deaf ears to them.
People who build their own machines usually go with these manufacturers as well. If your intention is to buy a pre-built machine, then who cares? When you buy a dell, you aren't buying a dell with the intention of upgrading. Of course, upgrading is a nice option, but your joe-sixpack user would only upgrade if his geeky cousin told him to.
I'm not too worried. It's far easier to build a computer from parts than it is to build a car. There are fewer parts, lighter parts, less mechanical knowledge is required, etc. etc. If you want this part and that part, but can't find the package, it's not hard to build it yourself. Now, buying a base-package car and installing your own upgrades would be similar, and not as difficult, but some people don't want to spend the two or three hours to do so.
School goes too slow for half of people and too fast for the other half. If you're even a little bit above average you're going to find some things a lot easier than many other kids do. That's why education shouldn't be limited to the school.
The point of a montessori education is to avoid this. The pragmatic aproach that Americans have taken towards education, on the heels of Dewey and his ilk, has led to the modern "classroom" with "grade levels" that groups of students progress through. The montessori approach is to try to allow students to progress through their education at their own pace.
Interestingly enough, the montessori kids/grads that I've met have been very political minded, opinionated, and have a lot of leadership qualities. There is definitely something lacking from the current American system, which may be addressed by instituting a montessori system instead.
That's probably because of the HAL. I imagine that being able to dump instructions onto the graphics chip would require a patch to the HAL to allow an application direct access to the hardware. This would also explain why it magically runs faster on MAC OS Classic and Windows (MS has the ability to patch their own HAL, and I don't think that non OS-X MAC OS's require a HAL.)
One of the most frequent complaints I've seen levied against Kerry has been that he hasn't presented a clear plan for what he would do if he were president....
I'd appreciate an individual who runs for president who says "I'll do the work of putting the decisions of congress into action," as the answer to "What will you do as president?"
This country (US) has departed a bit too far from the original Constitution, in that people expect the president to be half legislative, and three quarters executive. Do people not realize that you get a better representation of the people of this country through the House and Senate? (well, you're supposed to, at least). One man or woman can't represent the ideals of all Americans, which is a direction in which we've headed over the years. It's a troubling thing too, since it's starting to resemble an elected dictatorship.
That, with "Would you willingly send your child off to war" is what Moore used when on the O'Reilly show. I'm not much a fan of Michael or Bill, but I do have problems with Moore's question.
The last time I checked, it was the decision of the enlisting individual, and not one of the parents. O'Reilly wouldn't be "sending his child" any more than Moore would be sending someone. It would be O'Reilly's child sending him/herself. If they're old enough to be in the military, they are old enough to be independant, and to make decisions on their own.
A good parent would advise the child of the positive and negative aspects of the decision, but ultimately would let the grown-up individual make their own decision. Besides, the military is an intelligent choice of career path. It provides good job training, structured discipline, and an appreciation for those who do sacrifice themselves for the country. It isn't like enlisting is a draft anyways, people have a choice to join or not, and they also have the choice of what service to join.
If you've ever spoken with a native Russian speaker, you'd realize that they're 'v' sound is extremely soft. So soft, in fact, that it sounds extremely like a 'w.'
I see your point on the creativity issue. Doom 3 is nice, but it does seem to rehash the previous Doom versions. What I eagerly await, however, is Quake 4. id is the king of multi-player, what with Quake, Quake 2, and Quake 3. The third is purely multi-player.
UT and all of it's descendants came after the Quakes, and IMO pale in comparison. I just don't like them as much, mostly due to the weapons, the feel, etc. Quake 4 should be awesome, and that's what I rely on id to do.
Leave it to Raven to come up with an inventive single player game. They always seem to do a good job.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would smoking weed even be put on the same moral ground as slavery? It has no benefits other than personal recreation, and has quite a bit of a downside. Slavery is immoral by nature.
The question, then, is why would the ban on drugs be unethical or immoral? It isn't that the law against helping slaves escape was ethical or moral, in fact it was quite the opposite. Slavery itself is an abomination. But it doesn't equate to drug usage in any way.
On one hand, you deal with human life. On the other, you deal with a selfish persuit of the self. So, you tell me which is just and which is not? Can you seriously believe that someone actually has a moral obligation to smoke weed?
It is a case by case scenario. I wasn't espousing the complete following of the law, instead, I was saying that breaking this particular law is foolish. If you want to call it "civil disobedience," it is even more foolish. This law, though, is not even on the same level as slavery / discrimination. You can't argue the subject of a mouse by talking about an elephant.
No kidding
Mr. Kerry, where do you actually stand with regards to executive power? How do you plan to resolve the situation in Iraq? What would you do, and how, to get American soldiers back home on our soil, and how then would you gaurantee protection from the evils of this world?
Would you try to make peace with the guys that blew up the World Trade Center? How would you prevent such a thing from happening again? How are you any different from the moron that we have in office?
I lament the situation. There are zealots on the other side of the world that hate America and all it stands for. They don't care who is in power, they just want Americans to die. Bush, Kerry... whoever. If Kerry comes to power, will we see the same kind of intelligence budget cuts that Clinton made? If Bush stays in office, will we see a continuation of the BS that's happening in Iraq?
If he were left in power, American values would be directly calibrated by the actions of Saddam Hussein.
I don't see this as much different from what was happening in Bosnia, it's just that no one cares about Iraqis, I guess. That, and everyone would rather point at the oil, and the fact that Bush is republican.
I don't remember saying something to the effect of what is "more evil." I did, however, say that the law is the law. It's best for you to not break the law.
If you don't like the law, write your representatives, and show your distaste with those in power at the voting booth. Another option is that you could try to run for office yourself. I'd rather see that then laws being put into place that people take for granted, or break because they "disagree" with it. You're a part of American society. You've had a part in what has become law and what has not.
Idiots that don't understand that they are the govenment deserve to be governed. Perhaps you didn't catch the "If you don't like it, do the legwork to change it."
As for the drug thing, personally I don't care. I don't do drugs, and never will. If it were legal, I wouldn't really give a crap either. I'm not going to do your legwork, though.
As for the "terrorist activities," perhaps you'd like to explain the logical connection between what I said (following the law), and the results of your lack of involvement in your own government (Patriot Act). Then again, I'm not too scared of being picked up as a terrorist, mostly because I live in a shack in the woods and send stuff anonymously via fedex.
The gist, if you're still to dense to understand, is that if you don't like it, you're empowered enough to affect a change. Then again, if we have dopes like you running around, I'd be afraid of whatever you do put into place.
Here are some ideas:
SimMicroscopicOrganism (Where you watch alcohol and CO2 being produced)
SimSTD (Where you try to kill the world)
SimMS
SimVirus (Where you try to crash the world)
SimRadio
SimTV
SimMoon (Hell, they had a SimEarth)
SimUniverse
You know... these all seem sort of dumb or boring. Except maybe SimTV or SimRadio. Maybe they could come out with a SimMedia, where you try to control a growing media empire. Shades of TWINE
Technically, Jewish and Christian men are also allowed to have multiple wives. The same doesn't go for the women, but that's a result of the foundation of the faith. I suppose it just isn't very popular (or legal in many places).
Why don't we just use a different word for unions in the eye of the government? Same-sex or not, I don't believe that government has the authority to deem it a "marriage." Sure, let same-sex unions have the same tax breaks or whatever, but don't make society believe that it falls within the bounds of "marriage."
Marriage is something that is too religion based to be dictated by government. In my viewpoint, which may be "narrow" in your eyes, marriage can only be granted by the Church. Thinking poorly of someone because they follow their faith is rather... narrow-minded itself, as well as being a load of shit. Oh... yeah. It's spelled "shit."
Want to cut taxpayer burden? Here's an idea... CUT TAXES!
This has been done. There really isn't any proof of it actually relieving the burden.
Which program to cut first? How 'bout the drug war?
No. How about DCFS, the FDA, and all of the employees of Senators and Congressman. Let the damn lawmakers read their own email.
Then, how 'bout letting the people who get sick pay their own damn bills?
And when they show up in the emergency room, hacking up half a lung, doctors operate, then they don't have the money to pay? The cost of health care is rising exponentially, it seems. My insurance costs have gone through the roof, and I'm a young male (the group that has the lowest overall costs). There are a number of things to blame about medical costs, but I think the FDA is the number one reason. The costs of medical schools is another.
If I want to smoke, I'll either pay my own medical bills or I'll die. That oughta save you some money.
Go ahead. Smoking cigarettes is not a denied right. Smoking pot, though, is. Why not try following the law instead of being a vigilante. Your actions end up costing us more in the end than anything. The war on drugs would be significantly cheaper if there weren't so many drug-using idiots.
The other thing is the medical bills. I say go ahead and don't get insurance. Just don't let me catch your ass getting treatment at an emergency room, and then skipping out on the pay. I know that I've spent nearly half of my life working already, and that throughout my time working, I've been paying a heap of money to this social security thing. Since I've been paying so much damn money, I want to make sure that I get some sort of benefit out of it. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's going to happen.
Maybe I'll run for office. That way, I can fleece 'Merica.
Tell me what is illegal about having a drink?
I can tell you what is illegal about smoking pot. SMOKING POT is illegal. You doof. There is no hypocrisy, because drinking and smoking cigarettes is fully covered within the law. Smoking pot is not.
There is nothing about your life that gives you precedence over the law. If you want the law changed, fine, try to get the law changed. You have to do the legwork. Until then, I have no problem with the cops picking your ass up for breaking the law.
Heh. Then you don't qualify to ask questions either, since you aren't 18. ;-)
Every other guy out there has to enter selective service. It's doubtful that we'll ever have a draft again, espcially since the technology of killing people has become so advanced. The modern era of combat will be small units with high mobility, remote controlled machines, and big laser/video guided bombs.
I really wish you could.
I hate SUV's, and think they should be made illegal in some way. Either that, or they should make it mandatory that the tires be more than 6 feet in radius. That way, I could drive my small car under them without having any problems.
Damn SUV's. Hard to see around, and people drive them like maniacs. I'd like to drive with a big ramming pole jutting up at an angle, so I can roll them off of the road.
I think that the Clinton-weed thing was genius on his part. Most of the US found humor in it, when he admitted to it, then went on to play sax for Leno.
The ultimate reality here is that nobody really gives a damn about what drugs the candidates did. Clinton smoked weed. Sure. Whatever. Bush did coke. Sure. Whatever. Drug history doesn't really have any bearing on political ability... Except that it seems that you can't really gain office without having done some smack earlier in life (mayor of DC, Obama, Clinton, Bush, etc.)
In all, your argument is flawed. Smoking a joint is no better or worse than doing coke. A "Little Joint" is just as illegal as a line of coke. My point is, again, that most Americans don't care.
After all, he already fucked the economy, he fucked Iraq, he fucked our international relations, he fucked our intelligence services, he fucked our civil liberties, and he fucked our electoral system.
Actually, you are about 66% wrong. You see, the economy was set up to fail by Clinton. He did the equivalent of attaching a pressure-pump to a fragile balloon. I'm glad that the economy flopped, because the shakeout got rid of the cruft in most industries. It's righted itself already, and the jobs are being redistributed according to what people are good at. There may be some exceptions, but in general, you won't have any MBA airheads programming for a .Bomb.
The intelligence services were fucked in a big way by Clinton, who made massive cuts in the budget by reducing funding for intelligence. You want to know what laid the groundwork for 9/11? BTW, wasn't Kerry on the Senatorial Intelligence Commitee?
The electoral system was almost fucked by Gore. Our system is based on the electoral college, which may or may not vote in accordance with the popular vote of the state. In any case, both parties are to blame for the massive amount of corruption in the voting. Gore may have won some other states because of truckloads of republican votes being destroyed... Bush may have won florida by a hanging chad.
In all, I think that the most annoying thing about Bush being president is all of the ignorant bitches that whine about how he shouldn't be president. It's been four years already. We'll see who will win in the next election. Get over it already.
As long as places like ASUS, ABIT, MSI, and Chaintech are around, I doubt that this will happen. They seem to take that rebellious attitude in their hardware design: coloring their motherboards, adding bright LED's, using funky fans and heat sinks, and allowing easy overclocking through the bios. Any sort of encouragement by MS to move to a boring All-your-base type of arrangement would be lost on deaf ears to them.
People who build their own machines usually go with these manufacturers as well. If your intention is to buy a pre-built machine, then who cares? When you buy a dell, you aren't buying a dell with the intention of upgrading. Of course, upgrading is a nice option, but your joe-sixpack user would only upgrade if his geeky cousin told him to.
I'm not too worried. It's far easier to build a computer from parts than it is to build a car. There are fewer parts, lighter parts, less mechanical knowledge is required, etc. etc. If you want this part and that part, but can't find the package, it's not hard to build it yourself. Now, buying a base-package car and installing your own upgrades would be similar, and not as difficult, but some people don't want to spend the two or three hours to do so.
So, what are the "Supported versions of Windows and IE?"
They'll probably state that they only support XP & Server 2003...
Sunni Islam into declaring
Didn't that used to be Cat Stevens? Hmm. It was probably a favor that he owed the RIAA.
School goes too slow for half of people and too fast for the other half. If you're even a little bit above average you're going to find some things a lot easier than many other kids do. That's why education shouldn't be limited to the school.
The point of a montessori education is to avoid this. The pragmatic aproach that Americans have taken towards education, on the heels of Dewey and his ilk, has led to the modern "classroom" with "grade levels" that groups of students progress through. The montessori approach is to try to allow students to progress through their education at their own pace.
Interestingly enough, the montessori kids/grads that I've met have been very political minded, opinionated, and have a lot of leadership qualities. There is definitely something lacking from the current American system, which may be addressed by instituting a montessori system instead.
That's probably because of the HAL. I imagine that being able to dump instructions onto the graphics chip would require a patch to the HAL to allow an application direct access to the hardware. This would also explain why it magically runs faster on MAC OS Classic and Windows (MS has the ability to patch their own HAL, and I don't think that non OS-X MAC OS's require a HAL.)
Fuck that!
Who cares about the issues. I want to see BRASS knuckles and BLOODY noses.
One of the most frequent complaints I've seen levied against Kerry has been that he hasn't presented a clear plan for what he would do if he were president....
I'd appreciate an individual who runs for president who says "I'll do the work of putting the decisions of congress into action," as the answer to "What will you do as president?"
This country (US) has departed a bit too far from the original Constitution, in that people expect the president to be half legislative, and three quarters executive. Do people not realize that you get a better representation of the people of this country through the House and Senate? (well, you're supposed to, at least). One man or woman can't represent the ideals of all Americans, which is a direction in which we've headed over the years. It's a troubling thing too, since it's starting to resemble an elected dictatorship.
will you enlist your kid
That, with "Would you willingly send your child off to war" is what Moore used when on the O'Reilly show. I'm not much a fan of Michael or Bill, but I do have problems with Moore's question.
The last time I checked, it was the decision of the enlisting individual, and not one of the parents. O'Reilly wouldn't be "sending his child" any more than Moore would be sending someone. It would be O'Reilly's child sending him/herself. If they're old enough to be in the military, they are old enough to be independant, and to make decisions on their own.
A good parent would advise the child of the positive and negative aspects of the decision, but ultimately would let the grown-up individual make their own decision. Besides, the military is an intelligent choice of career path. It provides good job training, structured discipline, and an appreciation for those who do sacrifice themselves for the country. It isn't like enlisting is a draft anyways, people have a choice to join or not, and they also have the choice of what service to join.
What legal system would they use? Right... the one in place under the government that MS would be sueing.
The U.S. doesn't have jurisdiction in other countries' governments, with exception of the retards sitting in Australia.
If you've ever spoken with a native Russian speaker, you'd realize that they're 'v' sound is extremely soft. So soft, in fact, that it sounds extremely like a 'w.'
I see your point on the creativity issue. Doom 3 is nice, but it does seem to rehash the previous Doom versions. What I eagerly await, however, is Quake 4. id is the king of multi-player, what with Quake, Quake 2, and Quake 3. The third is purely multi-player.
UT and all of it's descendants came after the Quakes, and IMO pale in comparison. I just don't like them as much, mostly due to the weapons, the feel, etc. Quake 4 should be awesome, and that's what I rely on id to do.
Leave it to Raven to come up with an inventive single player game. They always seem to do a good job.