While I am agnostic, and agree that all religions amount to ghost stories, he was not equating all religions with all religions. He was equating all Muslims with violent cultists. He was not making a point about all religions, he was belittling Muslims in particular.
No, we who have four digit IDs do not need to read the article, we already know what it will say. I was really just messing with OverloardQ, who obviously wanted everyone to guess "Teh ebil Gubermint!" Some people can't resist an opportunity to express their hatred of democracy and collective action.
I agree that this is the beginning for Egypt, with a long hard road ahead, but from everything I've seen, they have started out right, with non-violent solidarity. The army knows who really signs their paychecks (us), and are thus unlikely to back someone too radical. Anyway, not much to add, just feeling very good about human potential and hoping things go well for them.
Copyrighted work, leaked government documents, PS3 encryption keys and everything else has been posted on Slashdot but only the Church of Scientology has forced comments out of existence
One of the groups behind each of those bits of information will kill you for doing it. I'll let you guess which one.
But the whole story is about Scientology, and it even talks about Scientologists killing people, so what's to guess?
Whether the explosives were looted, a portion destroyed by air strikes during the war or later by U.S. forces during the occupation, or dispersed in advance of the war by Saddam Hussein's forces is not yet clear, a Pentagon official said Monday on condition of anonymity.
In any case, that was a very different situation. We had defeated Iraq's army, and there was no security force left to protect the conventional explosives, which weren't "weapons" in any conventional sense. Seems to me to be a good argument against invading as a method of regime change.
What rich and powerful people are in government? What regulations have they passed? Rich and powerful people don't go into government, they buy poor people in government. The real rich and powerful want you to ignore them and focus on their hired henchmen, who are infinitely replaceable. And you, like a good little corporate tool, are fighting their battles for them. Go AC!
Anonymous coward, the problem is not regulations, it is misuse of regulations. If regulations were a sure-fire way for the rich and powerful to gain and retain control over an economy, they would not be fighting them tooth and nail. But they are. Without regulations, they will do as they please, using market and extra-market forces to corrupt and control the market. With regulations, they may attempt regulatory capture, but they are always at the mercy of an informed and engaged electorate.
They already have power. Regulations do not concentrate power, they distribute it among the electorate rather than concentrating it in the hands of the rich and the ruthless. These ultra-rich would love nothing more than for you to do away with the one thing keeping them in check: government regulation.
If the government is giving power to certain groups, it is up to We, The People to correct that and take back control over our government.
Whatever, I meant "mandatory full-coverage female clothing." I'd rather not see a people try to limit what anyone can wear, it just seems a bit old fashioned.
Really? Because the army sure appears to be on the side of stability, and I imagine they are the ones with control over any dangerous hardware. When was the last time someone toppled a strongman, and other bad guys got his weaponry?
I really believe that most Americans think as you and I do, it is only our leaders who believe in the primacy of realpolitik. They think we are idealistic and stupid for believing that people in other countries should get to pick their own government even if that government is not pro-US-business-interests. Well, I think they are pompous, egotistical ass-clowns who shouldn't be allowed to drive a car, let alone run a country.
I agree it should stay secular. However, that is not for us to decide. It won't be the end of the world if the Egyptians democratically elect a government run by the Muslim Brotherhood. The one thing Egyptians won't stand for at this point is anything that takes their hard-won democracy from them. They might accept or even desire a religious country, but not one that forbids democratic elections. Therefore, while we may comment on what we would like to see in the region, we have no excuse to step in and take control if things look as though they aren't going our way.
I was just using your post as a stepping stone to make my point about the MB, not accusing you of hyperbole about them.
The Muslim Brotherhood are not fanatics. They are the real equivalent of our Southern Baptists, stuffy old conservative men who want a society centered on religion. They have always condemned violence, and continually speak out against all terrorism. I wouldn't want to see them elected any more than I want our country ruled by Southern Baptists, but they are not radical terrorist Muslims. Oh, you will find some people claiming they are, but those are the same people who would believe a Muslim stamp collecting club was a terrorist organization. You won't find Al Qaeda praising the Muslim Brotherhood, indeed, all radical Muslims condemn it as too moderate.
As I said, i wouldn't want to see them elected, not because they would attack Israel, or turn against us, but they might require women to wear Burkhas and a lot of them seem quite keen on stoning adulterers. Not good, but not suicide bombers, either.
Good point, but people like their myths in black and white, thank you very much, we'll have no shades of gray here. If someone is a hero, they must be all hero, and if a villain, they must be pure evil. Anything else just confuses people. They just want to know whether they should love or hate someone.
There are limits, and an ex associate of Assange's claims he broke those limits. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, we don't know. How do we know Assange is the wingnut, and not Domscheit-Berg? It's pretty clear that at least one of them is a monomaniacal loon, if not both.
Actually, there are two default behaviors. There are only two cultures in the world.The culture of feast, and the culture of famine. Most cultures today are, like our own, the culture of famine. But look at certain cultures, such as some isolated rainforest tribes, and you will see something very different. One such culture is described in "The Continuum Concept," a book by a cultural anthropologist who spent quite some time with them. Many others are listed in a book based on a very large cultural survey of over two thousand cultures, "Saharasia," which sets out a theory on the origins of human violence.
Basically, we spent most of our time on earth, back when we were hunter gatherers, in the culture of feast. When times got tight, we might descend into the culture of famine for a little while, leading to low level "warfare" which is more like an extreme sport where the worst a loser might expect was disfigurement and severely reduced mating prospects. But being hunter gatherers, we simply moved along when times got tight. Then we discovered agriculture and animal husbandry, developed a surplus, and settled down. We couldn't really move when the first big climate change hit the northern Sahara, around 4,500 BC.
Before that, you see no swords or other weapons designed primarily to kill other humans, You see no city walls, and very few mass graves. You see no real evidence of famine culture. You see, all famine cultures are the same: they have rigid sex roles, they practice ritualized child abuse, usually involving some kind of genital mutilation like circumcision, they have a rigid hierarchy, and they are violent, imposing their culture by force and oppression. Feast cultures do not oppress, they have no taboos whatsoever. Not even against incest, though incest happens less in feast cultures than in famine.
Anyway, the Sahara dried up. It used to be fertile grassland. The cultures living there faced a famine the likes of which mobile hunter gatherers could never have imagined. Although they were using it up quickly, they still had a surplus, and the social organization to wage real war for the first time. But real war does something to people, it's called PTSD. So you had a whole generation of severely PTSD parents raising a generation of brain damaged children Starvation inhibits myelin formation. And that was enough to "lock in" the culture of famine, which then spread across the world through violence and oppression.
We are naturally capable of being selfish, self oriented, violent and hierarchical like our relatives the chimpanzees. But we are also capable of being selfless, loving, cooperative and non-violent, like our relatives who live in a more productive environment, the bonobos. Personally, given that the bonobos have really kinky sex nearly all day long, I think we might want to work on getting back to feast culture. There is a LOT more sex in feast cultures.
Tiamat was a Babylonian chaos monster and ocean goddess. No ancient texts described her as dragon-like, that is a D&D invention.
Though Tiamat is often described by modern authors as a sea serpent or dragon, no ancient texts exist in which there is a clear association with those kinds of creatures, and the identification is debated.[8] The Enûma Elish specifically states that Tiamat did give birth to dragons and serpents, but they are included among a larger and more general list of monsters including scorpion men and merpeople, none of which imply that any of the children resemble the mother or are even limited to aquatic creatures.
In the Enûma Elish her physical description includes a tail, a thigh, "lower parts" (which shake together), a belly, an udder, ribs, a neck, a head, a skull, eyes, nostrils, a mouth, and lips. She has insides (possibly "entrails"), a heart, arteries, and blood.
The strictly modern depiction of Tiamat as a multi-headed dragon was popularized in the 1970s as a fixture of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game inspired by earlier sources associating Tiamat with later mythological characters, such as Lotan.
Is somebody a little distressed from not being spanked enough as a kid? Ah, I tell you what little guy. How about you go play in the corner with your GI Joes while us adults talk about this, ok? If you stay in that corner and play with your toys, you will get a sucker if you are good. How does that sound?
Here, you take me seriously, thinking I am actually insulting the original poster for saying people should not be offended by words. But if I am being insulting, aren't I negating my own point? First fucking clue you should have seen.
Back to the adults talking now: Teacher or any profession, it is known that while employed, you do not talk about your dislike of the job anywhere and let people know it is you. I don't really care that she is a teacher, as this applies to all fields. You talk trash, you get fired.
Can't fault you for this, it is absolutely true.
As for the kids/parents: stop being so damn shocked that your kid is stupid. Today, everybody thinks their kid is the best and smartest. Well, many of your's are not. Face it. Maybe get them to bulk up and play football or a sport that they don't have to think about so that they can still send you a check. Either that or let them work in a kitchen until they retire. Who knows, I have seem some idiot Kitchen Managers. Maybe he can work his way up the Chiilli's ladder. Sorry, but your kid sucks. Stop getting all offended when you know it is true and somebody tells you the truth.
Stop being so offended that someone insulted someone else on the Internet. Stop giving advice no one needs. Stop trying to sound so superior to everyone else, it isn't working.
For the parents that were offended: If you visit/. at all, you kid sucks. Teach them to cook or get them into sports. That is about all you can hope for.
Okay, rereading this it is obvious you were, as the Brits say, taking the piss. Damn it, maybe the troll has been trolled. What fun is that, two trolls trolling each other? Stick to civilians, don't bust into someone else's troll thread and ruin the fun.
But I'm not pissed. This whole thread is a joke. Allow me to explain. Someone posted a dig at people who get offended by mean words. I posted some words that a humorless idiot might find insulting, but the vast majority of people would recognize as a joke. Then I simply waited for someone like you to come along and take me seriously. When you did, I insulted you. At that point, you had two options: let your hurt feelings show, or don't. By letting everyone see that your feelings actually are hurt by someone else's "mean words" you negate both your point and that of the original poster.
Congratulations. You've fallen for the oldest trick in the troll handbook, helped make your opponent's point for him, and shown the world you are a thin skinned humorless twat.
The problem is sociopaths, bullies and tyrants. If not for that small minority, the rest of us would not need force to be good citizens. Society works because we are excellent cooperators by nature. Society is not something imposed by force, it has evolved in our species because it provides a vast advantage in fitness.
Slashdot Mirror
While I am agnostic, and agree that all religions amount to ghost stories, he was not equating all religions with all religions. He was equating all Muslims with violent cultists. He was not making a point about all religions, he was belittling Muslims in particular.
DIgiShaman, are you claiming that ALL Muslims are akin to Westboro Baptist Church and Scientologists?
No, we who have four digit IDs do not need to read the article, we already know what it will say. I was really just messing with OverloardQ, who obviously wanted everyone to guess "Teh ebil Gubermint!" Some people can't resist an opportunity to express their hatred of democracy and collective action.
I agree that this is the beginning for Egypt, with a long hard road ahead, but from everything I've seen, they have started out right, with non-violent solidarity. The army knows who really signs their paychecks (us), and are thus unlikely to back someone too radical. Anyway, not much to add, just feeling very good about human potential and hoping things go well for them.
One of the groups behind each of those bits of information will kill you for doing it. I'll let you guess which one.
But the whole story is about Scientology, and it even talks about Scientologists killing people, so what's to guess?
From the Pentagon's statement on the "looting:"
Whether the explosives were looted, a portion destroyed by air strikes during the war or later by U.S. forces during the occupation, or dispersed in advance of the war by Saddam Hussein's forces is not yet clear, a Pentagon official said Monday on condition of anonymity.
In any case, that was a very different situation. We had defeated Iraq's army, and there was no security force left to protect the conventional explosives, which weren't "weapons" in any conventional sense. Seems to me to be a good argument against invading as a method of regime change.
What rich and powerful people are in government? What regulations have they passed? Rich and powerful people don't go into government, they buy poor people in government. The real rich and powerful want you to ignore them and focus on their hired henchmen, who are infinitely replaceable. And you, like a good little corporate tool, are fighting their battles for them. Go AC!
Anonymous coward, the problem is not regulations, it is misuse of regulations. If regulations were a sure-fire way for the rich and powerful to gain and retain control over an economy, they would not be fighting them tooth and nail. But they are. Without regulations, they will do as they please, using market and extra-market forces to corrupt and control the market. With regulations, they may attempt regulatory capture, but they are always at the mercy of an informed and engaged electorate.
They already have power. Regulations do not concentrate power, they distribute it among the electorate rather than concentrating it in the hands of the rich and the ruthless. These ultra-rich would love nothing more than for you to do away with the one thing keeping them in check: government regulation.
If the government is giving power to certain groups, it is up to We, The People to correct that and take back control over our government.
Whatever, I meant "mandatory full-coverage female clothing." I'd rather not see a people try to limit what anyone can wear, it just seems a bit old fashioned.
Really? Because the army sure appears to be on the side of stability, and I imagine they are the ones with control over any dangerous hardware. When was the last time someone toppled a strongman, and other bad guys got his weaponry?
I really believe that most Americans think as you and I do, it is only our leaders who believe in the primacy of realpolitik. They think we are idealistic and stupid for believing that people in other countries should get to pick their own government even if that government is not pro-US-business-interests. Well, I think they are pompous, egotistical ass-clowns who shouldn't be allowed to drive a car, let alone run a country.
I agree it should stay secular. However, that is not for us to decide. It won't be the end of the world if the Egyptians democratically elect a government run by the Muslim Brotherhood. The one thing Egyptians won't stand for at this point is anything that takes their hard-won democracy from them. They might accept or even desire a religious country, but not one that forbids democratic elections. Therefore, while we may comment on what we would like to see in the region, we have no excuse to step in and take control if things look as though they aren't going our way.
I was just using your post as a stepping stone to make my point about the MB, not accusing you of hyperbole about them.
Does this include the annoyingly named, "Great Firewall of China" that U.S. tech companies built?
No, because we have no evidence* of human rights abuses in China.
*Because we refuse to look.
The Muslim Brotherhood are not fanatics. They are the real equivalent of our Southern Baptists, stuffy old conservative men who want a society centered on religion. They have always condemned violence, and continually speak out against all terrorism. I wouldn't want to see them elected any more than I want our country ruled by Southern Baptists, but they are not radical terrorist Muslims. Oh, you will find some people claiming they are, but those are the same people who would believe a Muslim stamp collecting club was a terrorist organization. You won't find Al Qaeda praising the Muslim Brotherhood, indeed, all radical Muslims condemn it as too moderate.
As I said, i wouldn't want to see them elected, not because they would attack Israel, or turn against us, but they might require women to wear Burkhas and a lot of them seem quite keen on stoning adulterers. Not good, but not suicide bombers, either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood
Good point, but people like their myths in black and white, thank you very much, we'll have no shades of gray here. If someone is a hero, they must be all hero, and if a villain, they must be pure evil. Anything else just confuses people. They just want to know whether they should love or hate someone.
Damn it, monomaniacal? Megalomaniacal. Teach me to accept the spellchecker's suggestions without looking more carefully.
There are limits, and an ex associate of Assange's claims he broke those limits. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, we don't know. How do we know Assange is the wingnut, and not Domscheit-Berg? It's pretty clear that at least one of them is a monomaniacal loon, if not both.
Actually, there are two default behaviors. There are only two cultures in the world.The culture of feast, and the culture of famine. Most cultures today are, like our own, the culture of famine. But look at certain cultures, such as some isolated rainforest tribes, and you will see something very different. One such culture is described in "The Continuum Concept," a book by a cultural anthropologist who spent quite some time with them. Many others are listed in a book based on a very large cultural survey of over two thousand cultures, "Saharasia," which sets out a theory on the origins of human violence.
Basically, we spent most of our time on earth, back when we were hunter gatherers, in the culture of feast. When times got tight, we might descend into the culture of famine for a little while, leading to low level "warfare" which is more like an extreme sport where the worst a loser might expect was disfigurement and severely reduced mating prospects. But being hunter gatherers, we simply moved along when times got tight. Then we discovered agriculture and animal husbandry, developed a surplus, and settled down. We couldn't really move when the first big climate change hit the northern Sahara, around 4,500 BC.
Before that, you see no swords or other weapons designed primarily to kill other humans, You see no city walls, and very few mass graves. You see no real evidence of famine culture. You see, all famine cultures are the same: they have rigid sex roles, they practice ritualized child abuse, usually involving some kind of genital mutilation like circumcision, they have a rigid hierarchy, and they are violent, imposing their culture by force and oppression. Feast cultures do not oppress, they have no taboos whatsoever. Not even against incest, though incest happens less in feast cultures than in famine.
Anyway, the Sahara dried up. It used to be fertile grassland. The cultures living there faced a famine the likes of which mobile hunter gatherers could never have imagined. Although they were using it up quickly, they still had a surplus, and the social organization to wage real war for the first time. But real war does something to people, it's called PTSD. So you had a whole generation of severely PTSD parents raising a generation of brain damaged children Starvation inhibits myelin formation. And that was enough to "lock in" the culture of famine, which then spread across the world through violence and oppression.
We are naturally capable of being selfish, self oriented, violent and hierarchical like our relatives the chimpanzees. But we are also capable of being selfless, loving, cooperative and non-violent, like our relatives who live in a more productive environment, the bonobos. Personally, given that the bonobos have really kinky sex nearly all day long, I think we might want to work on getting back to feast culture. There is a LOT more sex in feast cultures.
Tiamat was a Babylonian chaos monster and ocean goddess. No ancient texts described her as dragon-like, that is a D&D invention.
Though Tiamat is often described by modern authors as a sea serpent or dragon, no ancient texts exist in which there is a clear association with those kinds of creatures, and the identification is debated.[8] The Enûma Elish specifically states that Tiamat did give birth to dragons and serpents, but they are included among a larger and more general list of monsters including scorpion men and merpeople, none of which imply that any of the children resemble the mother or are even limited to aquatic creatures.
In the Enûma Elish her physical description includes a tail, a thigh, "lower parts" (which shake together), a belly, an udder, ribs, a neck, a head, a skull, eyes, nostrils, a mouth, and lips. She has insides (possibly "entrails"), a heart, arteries, and blood.
The strictly modern depiction of Tiamat as a multi-headed dragon was popularized in the 1970s as a fixture of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game inspired by earlier sources associating Tiamat with later mythological characters, such as Lotan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiamat
Absolutely. A game played by kings where we are the pawns.
Is somebody a little distressed from not being spanked enough as a kid? Ah, I tell you what little guy. How about you go play in the corner with your GI Joes while us adults talk about this, ok? If you stay in that corner and play with your toys, you will get a sucker if you are good. How does that sound?
Here, you take me seriously, thinking I am actually insulting the original poster for saying people should not be offended by words. But if I am being insulting, aren't I negating my own point? First fucking clue you should have seen.
Back to the adults talking now: Teacher or any profession, it is known that while employed, you do not talk about your dislike of the job anywhere and let people know it is you. I don't really care that she is a teacher, as this applies to all fields. You talk trash, you get fired.
Can't fault you for this, it is absolutely true.
As for the kids/parents: stop being so damn shocked that your kid is stupid. Today, everybody thinks their kid is the best and smartest. Well, many of your's are not. Face it. Maybe get them to bulk up and play football or a sport that they don't have to think about so that they can still send you a check. Either that or let them work in a kitchen until they retire. Who knows, I have seem some idiot Kitchen Managers. Maybe he can work his way up the Chiilli's ladder. Sorry, but your kid sucks. Stop getting all offended when you know it is true and somebody tells you the truth.
Stop being so offended that someone insulted someone else on the Internet. Stop giving advice no one needs. Stop trying to sound so superior to everyone else, it isn't working.
For the parents that were offended: If you visit /. at all, you kid sucks. Teach them to cook or get them into sports. That is about all you can hope for.
Okay, rereading this it is obvious you were, as the Brits say, taking the piss. Damn it, maybe the troll has been trolled. What fun is that, two trolls trolling each other? Stick to civilians, don't bust into someone else's troll thread and ruin the fun.
But I'm not pissed. This whole thread is a joke. Allow me to explain. Someone posted a dig at people who get offended by mean words. I posted some words that a humorless idiot might find insulting, but the vast majority of people would recognize as a joke. Then I simply waited for someone like you to come along and take me seriously. When you did, I insulted you. At that point, you had two options: let your hurt feelings show, or don't. By letting everyone see that your feelings actually are hurt by someone else's "mean words" you negate both your point and that of the original poster.
Congratulations. You've fallen for the oldest trick in the troll handbook, helped make your opponent's point for him, and shown the world you are a thin skinned humorless twat.
Still trying to save face?
The problem is sociopaths, bullies and tyrants. If not for that small minority, the rest of us would not need force to be good citizens. Society works because we are excellent cooperators by nature. Society is not something imposed by force, it has evolved in our species because it provides a vast advantage in fitness.
Ah, okay. Got me there I guess. China too, but it still wasn't that common.