Not exactly. Speaking of killing innocent people on purpose look how many innocent Afghani's had died as of Dec. 6th thanks to US bombing. And while that is a low estimate, and was tallied almost 2 months ago, it still supasses the number of innocents lost when the trade towers came down. Considering that the US government has ordered all news services to place a low priority on civilian deaths because they are "a normal part of war" (everything that happens in a war is generally a normal part of war, we might as well just stop reporting entirely) and even though civilian deaths haven't been the goal of our attacks, in the words of Tim Wise, "the end result has been a distinction without difference. Dead is dead, and when one's actions have entirely foreseeable consequences, it is little more than a precious and empty platitude to argue that those consequences were merely accidental."
Especially when the government specifically targets Al Jazeera's Kabul office so that they can't report on civilian deaths, you realise that the hate felt for the US is completely rational. If it weren't for an atrocious foreign policy we wouldn't have the terrorist problem (or at least it wouldn't be as big) in the first place. Remember, violence begets violence. Even if you wouldn't have joined Al Queda before, would you join it now that the US bombed your mud house with a 2000 lb. JDAM bomb (whose taxes pay for that?) and killed all of your family for reasons that you don't really even know? (See the cursor.org story.) I know I would.
Back to drugs. What if all drugs were legal? The answer can be found here. But then how would the CIA be able to fund its covert ops, and does Uncle Sam really want to give all that money spent on the WoD back to the American people? They couldn't, and Uncle Sam doesn't. The truth is that the WoD is a cash cow, and if drugs were legal then they would no longer have exorbitant black market prices (which puts people in the gutter, and supposedly funds terrorists, which I thought is what we are trying to avoid anyway).
The sad thing is that all this is just the tip of the hypothetical iceberg. The US government sucks. For the good of, well, everyone we need to reduce it to its Constitutional limitations while the people still have the power to do so without a war. Well, that or I'm out of here as soon as I'm 18.
i personally downloaded a lot of music that i didn't already own on record, cassette, or even cd... i also downloaded songs by people that had been recommended to me by friends. i didn't own those either.
it's the easiest way to hear a song that you haven't heard before. if i liked the music then i would buy the cd. if i didn't like the artist (or a particular artist's album), then i would only own one or two songs (that means it's not illegal, right?:) ). if it turned out that i didn't like the cd then its not very probable (zero percent chance actually) that i would have bought it anyway. who in their right mind would?
someone please tell me how the record companies are losing money. i only see them making money off of the free "advertising" that napster was providing. i sure know they made money from me... in a year, i'd say i bought a minimum of 30 cd's by artists that i previewed with napster. which is a decent profit from one high school student who doesn't have money to throw around.
just think: the people who are downloading songs so they don't have to buy cd's weren't going to buy them anyway.
when the RIAA took napster down, sure it made me hate their totalitarian attitude (and consequentially them) vehemently, but i was/am still willing to let some (read as most) of my money go to them as long as an artist that's making music i appreciate gets some of it. i just have to use limewire now. (java is better anyway shawn fanning!)
Stuff that matters doesn't all have to be about earthshaking life or death things
Not only are you right about that, but what he is talking about, isn't even about life and death. It's about greed. His view of life, is that money brings happiness and is, in fact, the only thing that really matters. Money is everything! Well, suprise, its not. I'm glad that so many people realize this enough to actually be concerned with what happens to "pointless and insignificant" games.
Its like in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "This planet has - or rather had [only assuming that the earth is blown up like in the book] - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. "And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches."
The sooner the kids learn to protect themselves from a surveillance society...
If you want your children to be protected from a 'surveillance society' how about trying to keep said society from being implemented in the first place?
thats unreal. just imagine.. entire digital movies downloading in less than a second from your home connection... well, someday hopefully. im still waiting for cable modem in my area:)
Behe's theories on the origin of life do not coincide with mine, but in my opinion, he does disprove Darwinian theory.
The book is based on the body's irreducibly complex systems (like the way the eye works and the ability of blood to clot).
I would write about them here, but as much as I love to write book length posts about how systems like the aforementioned work, alas, I am a mere high school freshman, and not a biochemist.
If you have $10.40(US), and need some good reading material, you can buy it here.
Slashdot Mirror
Not exactly. Speaking of killing innocent people on purpose look how many innocent Afghani's had died as of Dec. 6th thanks to US bombing. And while that is a low estimate, and was tallied almost 2 months ago, it still supasses the number of innocents lost when the trade towers came down. Considering that the US government has ordered all news services to place a low priority on civilian deaths because they are "a normal part of war" (everything that happens in a war is generally a normal part of war, we might as well just stop reporting entirely) and even though civilian deaths haven't been the goal of our attacks, in the words of Tim Wise, "the end result has been a distinction without difference. Dead is dead, and when one's actions have entirely foreseeable consequences, it is little more than a precious and empty platitude to argue that those consequences were merely accidental."
Especially when the government specifically targets Al Jazeera's Kabul office so that they can't report on civilian deaths, you realise that the hate felt for the US is completely rational. If it weren't for an atrocious foreign policy we wouldn't have the terrorist problem (or at least it wouldn't be as big) in the first place. Remember, violence begets violence. Even if you wouldn't have joined Al Queda before, would you join it now that the US bombed your mud house with a 2000 lb. JDAM bomb (whose taxes pay for that?) and killed all of your family for reasons that you don't really even know? (See the cursor.org story.) I know I would.
Back to drugs. What if all drugs were legal? The answer can be found here. But then how would the CIA be able to fund its covert ops, and does Uncle Sam really want to give all that money spent on the WoD back to the American people? They couldn't, and Uncle Sam doesn't. The truth is that the WoD is a cash cow, and if drugs were legal then they would no longer have exorbitant black market prices (which puts people in the gutter, and supposedly funds terrorists, which I thought is what we are trying to avoid anyway).
The sad thing is that all this is just the tip of the hypothetical iceberg. The US government sucks. For the good of, well, everyone we need to reduce it to its Constitutional limitations while the people still have the power to do so without a war. Well, that or I'm out of here as soon as I'm 18.
i personally downloaded a lot of music that i didn't already own on record, cassette, or even cd... i also downloaded songs by people that had been recommended to me by friends. i didn't own those either.
:) ). if it turned out that i didn't like the cd then its not very probable (zero percent chance actually) that i would have bought it anyway. who in their right mind would?
it's the easiest way to hear a song that you haven't heard before. if i liked the music then i would buy the cd. if i didn't like the artist (or a particular artist's album), then i would only own one or two songs (that means it's not illegal, right?
someone please tell me how the record companies are losing money. i only see them making money off of the free "advertising" that napster was providing. i sure know they made money from me... in a year, i'd say i bought a minimum of 30 cd's by artists that i previewed with napster. which is a decent profit from one high school student who doesn't have money to throw around.
just think: the people who are downloading songs so they don't have to buy cd's weren't going to buy them anyway.
when the RIAA took napster down, sure it made me hate their totalitarian attitude (and consequentially them) vehemently, but i was/am still willing to let some (read as most) of my money go to them as long as an artist that's making music i appreciate gets some of it. i just have to use limewire now. (java is better anyway shawn fanning!)
Stuff that matters doesn't all have to be about earthshaking life or death things
Not only are you right about that, but what he is talking about, isn't even about life and death. It's about greed. His view of life, is that money brings happiness and is, in fact, the only thing that really matters. Money is everything! Well, suprise, its not. I'm glad that so many people realize this enough to actually be concerned with what happens to "pointless and insignificant" games.
Its like in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "This planet has - or rather had [only assuming that the earth is blown up like in the book] - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
"And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches."
The sooner the kids learn to protect themselves from a surveillance society... If you want your children to be protected from a 'surveillance society' how about trying to keep said society from being implemented in the first place?
Who needs to build your own?
:)
I was looking on ebay and guess what I found.
Careful though, you just may be bidding against me, and there are only two days left...
Please take out your Bible and turn to the book of John, Chapter 3, Verse 16...
The Bible is a registered trademark of Elisha Qimron, and cannot be redistributed without his express written consent.
thats unreal. just imagine.. entire digital movies downloading in less than a second from your home connection... well, someday hopefully. im still waiting for cable modem in my area :)
Have any of you read Darwin's Black Box by Michael J. Behe?
Behe's theories on the origin of life do not coincide with mine, but in my opinion, he does disprove Darwinian theory.
The book is based on the body's irreducibly complex systems (like the way the eye works and the ability of blood to clot).
I would write about them here, but as much as I love to write book length posts about how systems like the aforementioned work, alas, I am a mere high school freshman, and not a biochemist.
If you have $10.40(US), and need some good reading material, you can buy it here.