We need more creative ideas for making change happen within the system. Revolutionary ideologies always seem to fall prey to powerful, amoral men rising to the top in the chaos that revolutions create. Yet reform is the enemy of revolution, in that quick band-aid type fixes discourage real change. What we need are a plethora of small synergistic changes, none too revolutionary in itself, that work together to create real revolution without the chaos.
Did you know the IWW is still around? I used to do union organizing with them, about the time Judy Bary was getting herself blown up for mixing union organizing with environmentalism. Knowing the ties it has to other movements, I'm liking Distributism even more.
JismTroll?!? How much more trollish can you get? Also, by distributist, do you mean a supporter of distributism? I had not heard of this economic philosophy before. Seems to be founded by Catholics, not Marx. I find it very compatible with my own thinking on the matter.
Carbon dating requires no assumptions. The evidence of decay is crystal clear, and in every case, carbon dating agrees with other methods used to date the same object. Creationists are not open about teaching anything and letting anyone decide. They have a world view and will do anything to uphold it and get others to agree to it. It is not far from a creationist to the torturers of the inquisition who would torture a captive until he confessed, repented and accepted God. Then they would kill him, his sould saved the only justification they needed. Creationists are cut from the same evil cloth and care only about their delusional ideas about saving fictional souls.
Any scientist that could actually prove evolution false would be lauded as a scientific genius and remembered through the ages. Just because no creationists have managed to prove anything doesn't mean that scientists wouldn't accept it if they did. Look, I can say that invisible elves make the sun rotate around the earth, and the fact that I am wearing a plaid shirt proves it, but that doesn't mean it's true or that I have in fact proved anything other than the fact that I am an uneducated idiot.
Evolution does not mean that a grand unified theory would be easy. Evolution deals with an entirely different field. I have no idea where you could have gotten so misguided an idea. Simplicity flows from complexity and vice versa. Think of the economy, it is incredibly complex, and if any one part were removed, it would cease to function in the same efficient way. if there were no steel mills, there would be no trucks, and without trucks, there would be no steel mills. How then did the economy form? Why, obviously it must have been designed by someone! Well, no, but we have a word for people who think economies must be designed. We call them communists. A free market capitalist knows that the market is governed by the "invisible hand" (which is not any sort of mystic force, but merely a force that originates from millions and millions of simple interactions.)
Creationism is not merely wrong, it is an evil idea propagated by evil people bent on malicious mind control through fear, intimidation, and forcing people to accept completely illogical thoughts. Once these evil control freaks have broken a persons mind and spirit, they are easy to control and profit from. Breaking spirits, dulling minds and profiting off the hard work of others are the only real reasons religion exists. Religion is a curse upon humanity that must be exterminated before we can truly evolve as a species.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and while you may be satisfied with the logic and evidence in favor of, say, reevaluating hundreds of years worth of dating, scientists are not. Not because the data doesn't say what they want it to, but because it does. Dating methods are not as you claim controversial in any way. They are tried and true, tested methods where the many different methods agree with and support each other, building a web of evidence that would require massive rethinking to change, not just of archeology and anthropology, but even such disciplines as physics. If dating methods were wrong, then the physics we use to help us build things like TVs and computers must be wrong as well, and that just isn't the case. The problem with people who believe in creationism is that they aren't practicing science. They start from the thing they want to prove and construct a chain of reasoning backwards. Fortunately, that chain simply doesn't hold up to any kind of critical, dispassionate thinking.
That's utterly untrue. There are plenty of scientists in all fields who believe in God. Belief in God doesn't preclude a belief in science and vice versa. Not only that, but the scientific community doesn't care what beliefs a person holds, they only care about the accuracy of their science. Really, I don't know where you are getting this "science is anti-religion" viewpoint. It certainly isn't coming from any actual experience with real scientists.
Do you really believe what you are saying or just trolling? If you do believe what you are saying, where in the world did you pick up the mistaken belief that scientists not only don't believe in God but will act prejudicially towards someone who does regardless of the validity of their research?
Yes, science still works like its supposed to. It seems that disgruntled english majors have taken to dissing science in retaliation for not being taken as seriously as they think they should be. Never mind that they got themselves into the mess by throwing out science in the first place and embracing a kind of sophistry where something is true, relatively speaking, if enough post-modern deconstructionists believe it's true. Said uninformed, ignorant pedants believe that everything is relative and science is just another form of evil patriarchy that they need to reform.
Now sure, scientists have biases, but there is no "bias of the community as a whole." Everyone has their pet theories and ideas, and the only way to make a real name for yourself is to prove a major theory incorrect and come up with something better. However, to do that you actually need proof, as in repeatable experimental proof. Not just a smart sounding paper with lots of big meaningless words in it that might pass for proof in english major circles. So things that are thrown out are not well founded in the data, because if they were, some smart upstart would have tried and succeded in making a name for himself based on it.
Can you tell that this trend of anti-intellectualism in academia pisses me off? English majors should stick to things they know and not try to critique science. They end up sounding like illiterate morons. If you still think science isn't working, try taking a look around at all the cool stuff it has brought us, like TVs, computers, automobiles, refrigeration, and medicine to name a few. Surprise, surprise, there continue to be advances in technology to this very day because science continues to do its job.
Property rights over human rights, an interesting choice. The problem comes when contemplating certain types of anarcho capitalist or libertarian ideals, where everything is privately owned. Where then do people go to protest? Their own property? What if they own none, where do the disenfranchised go to protest their disenfranchisement?
To a lesser degree, when economic circumstances force a person to live and work in a company town, how can they protest mistreatment? And what is the real difference between a state owning land and prohibiting free speech and a company owning land and doing the same? Is not a company just another type of state?
I believe that property rights constitute an agreement between individuals, i.e. you agree to uphold my right to exclude certain activities on my land and I will do the same for you. I think it is legitimate to make free speech a requirement in certain cases of property ownership where said ownership approximates a state's ownership of public lands, such as in a mall or a company town.
When googling for this, I came across a reference to the concept originating in company towns of the early half of the century. Now, I'm no Clinton fanboy. He did plenty of wack shit (and no, I don't include blowjobs under that heading.) I just hadn't heard about him fencing off protesters. To be sure, Bush has escalated the use of the policy.
To quote Barney Frank from this article (which contains anecdotal evidence for Clinton-era free speech zones), "We have a free-speech zone already, it's called the United States of America."
Ah, I'm just being a dick. I write like that too when writing informally. To be fair, you were being a bit of a dick to Zonk. Not that he doesn't deserve it at times. Really though, his game reviews aren't THAT bad and they do qualify as "news for nerds" if not "stuff that matters." I'm more peeved by the fact that none of the editors seem to actually read their own site.
Which part of your post was sarcasm? You should make it a little more obvious, because it sure sounded a lot like many right wing rants I have read recently.
"Blah, blah blah people these days don't take responsibility blah blah nanny state blah blah buncha whiners blah blah blah."
Whether or not people feel they are guaranteed the right to happiness, refuse to take responsibility for their actions, or blame others for their problems has little bearing on the issue at hand. The issue is, were they telling the truth, or were they stating an opinion, or were they maliciously lying. Only in the last case can the doctors claim libel.
It really sounded like you were just going off on a tangent there.
Well, to be honest,/. has been going to hell for years. Zonk isn't that bad, but he's not that good either.
Hopefully you edit the stuff you write professionally better than the stuff you blog. No offense, but the things I read on your blog are no better than the things Zonk writes. You should work on the run-on sentences and punctuate a little better.
Really? Care to post a link to prove your claim? I googled for "clinton free speech zone" and all I came up with were a few anecdotes from people like yourself making unsubstantiated claims. Also plenty of information on the history of free speech zones, which go way back before Clinton, so your point about the precedent being set stands. It just wasn't set by Clinton.
People feel they are guaranteed the right to justice. If they are wronged, they have every right to seek redress. There's nothing noble about not fighting back when some asshat fucks you over. Guess what? You are guaranteed the right to complain, as long as you stick to the facts or state that it is your opinion. It's called free speach.
What a preposterous straw man you have set up in order to point the finger at other people for pointing the finger. Hypocrite.
Free speach is defined by law in a certain way. Your definition of free speach may be different, but that doesn't mean that free speach as defined by law is not free. You can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater (unless there is a fire.) You can't maliciously lie about someone with the intent of harming them. You can't describe pornographic acts while in a school playground.
If one could create bonded pseudonymous accounts that were not traceable back to the owner of the account, one could have anonymity with accountability.
Well, his profile on his blog says he is a network administrator, so I'm betting he writes game reviews only on said blog. Here's a sample sentence from his review of the latest Harry Potter book:
"What I find myself thinking through this one is if only all of the series had been written as this one, just how much better they could have been."
Pure poetry. Here's another from "Buying a Game Cube."
"Mario Party 5 was the first to get some action and it was a fun time, I was a bit lucky and still trounced her but it was as competitive, even, and fun a non-gamer and a hardcore gamer can have together."
You do know the busses were used, right? Then brought back for a second run, but the water was too high at that point, and there was nobody at the pickup point. I hate how the right lies about things like the busses to make other folks look bad, as if saying, "But they screwed up too!" means the administration screwed up any less.
I had to think about this for a minute, and I concluded you may be right. Just because the White House is being hypocritical doesn't mean that the state and local governments are blameless. So it is a bit of a straw man argument. But that also doesn't make Bush any less of a failure.
Please, my sides are hurting! Beaurocratic goverment employees are just as corrupt, if not more so, as elected officials. My step dad was very high up in the FAA, head of US security for all Central and South American airports that US airlines fly into. He told all kinds of stories of graft and corruption. To be fair, most government employees are merely lazy and incompetant, not actually corrupt, but there are enough really bad apples to spoil the bunch.
Tell me, when was the last time your department spent under its budget? How many last minute purchases did it take to spend every last cent? That kind of corruption happens everywhere. The more heinous kind only happens in departments with actual authority over something valuable. Bribes and more bribes, kickbacks, nepotism, you name it, I've seen it or heard first hand stories.
So take your hurt little attitude for a ride around the block while filing an expense report for three times the mileage, m'kay?
Of course, Faux News is a media behemoth while Indymedia and the Village Voice preach only to the choir. Left wing media my ass, corporate media and invisible fringe, that's all there is. Freedom of the press only applies if you own a big enough press.
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We need more creative ideas for making change happen within the system. Revolutionary ideologies always seem to fall prey to powerful, amoral men rising to the top in the chaos that revolutions create. Yet reform is the enemy of revolution, in that quick band-aid type fixes discourage real change. What we need are a plethora of small synergistic changes, none too revolutionary in itself, that work together to create real revolution without the chaos.
Did you know the IWW is still around? I used to do union organizing with them, about the time Judy Bary was getting herself blown up for mixing union organizing with environmentalism. Knowing the ties it has to other movements, I'm liking Distributism even more.
JismTroll?!? How much more trollish can you get? Also, by distributist, do you mean a supporter of distributism? I had not heard of this economic philosophy before. Seems to be founded by Catholics, not Marx. I find it very compatible with my own thinking on the matter.
Carbon dating requires no assumptions. The evidence of decay is crystal clear, and in every case, carbon dating agrees with other methods used to date the same object. Creationists are not open about teaching anything and letting anyone decide. They have a world view and will do anything to uphold it and get others to agree to it. It is not far from a creationist to the torturers of the inquisition who would torture a captive until he confessed, repented and accepted God. Then they would kill him, his sould saved the only justification they needed. Creationists are cut from the same evil cloth and care only about their delusional ideas about saving fictional souls.
Any scientist that could actually prove evolution false would be lauded as a scientific genius and remembered through the ages. Just because no creationists have managed to prove anything doesn't mean that scientists wouldn't accept it if they did. Look, I can say that invisible elves make the sun rotate around the earth, and the fact that I am wearing a plaid shirt proves it, but that doesn't mean it's true or that I have in fact proved anything other than the fact that I am an uneducated idiot.
Evolution does not mean that a grand unified theory would be easy. Evolution deals with an entirely different field. I have no idea where you could have gotten so misguided an idea. Simplicity flows from complexity and vice versa. Think of the economy, it is incredibly complex, and if any one part were removed, it would cease to function in the same efficient way. if there were no steel mills, there would be no trucks, and without trucks, there would be no steel mills. How then did the economy form? Why, obviously it must have been designed by someone! Well, no, but we have a word for people who think economies must be designed. We call them communists. A free market capitalist knows that the market is governed by the "invisible hand" (which is not any sort of mystic force, but merely a force that originates from millions and millions of simple interactions.)
Creationism is not merely wrong, it is an evil idea propagated by evil people bent on malicious mind control through fear, intimidation, and forcing people to accept completely illogical thoughts. Once these evil control freaks have broken a persons mind and spirit, they are easy to control and profit from. Breaking spirits, dulling minds and profiting off the hard work of others are the only real reasons religion exists. Religion is a curse upon humanity that must be exterminated before we can truly evolve as a species.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and while you may be satisfied with the logic and evidence in favor of, say, reevaluating hundreds of years worth of dating, scientists are not. Not because the data doesn't say what they want it to, but because it does. Dating methods are not as you claim controversial in any way. They are tried and true, tested methods where the many different methods agree with and support each other, building a web of evidence that would require massive rethinking to change, not just of archeology and anthropology, but even such disciplines as physics. If dating methods were wrong, then the physics we use to help us build things like TVs and computers must be wrong as well, and that just isn't the case. The problem with people who believe in creationism is that they aren't practicing science. They start from the thing they want to prove and construct a chain of reasoning backwards. Fortunately, that chain simply doesn't hold up to any kind of critical, dispassionate thinking.
That's utterly untrue. There are plenty of scientists in all fields who believe in God. Belief in God doesn't preclude a belief in science and vice versa. Not only that, but the scientific community doesn't care what beliefs a person holds, they only care about the accuracy of their science. Really, I don't know where you are getting this "science is anti-religion" viewpoint. It certainly isn't coming from any actual experience with real scientists.
Do you really believe what you are saying or just trolling? If you do believe what you are saying, where in the world did you pick up the mistaken belief that scientists not only don't believe in God but will act prejudicially towards someone who does regardless of the validity of their research?
Yes, science still works like its supposed to. It seems that disgruntled english majors have taken to dissing science in retaliation for not being taken as seriously as they think they should be. Never mind that they got themselves into the mess by throwing out science in the first place and embracing a kind of sophistry where something is true, relatively speaking, if enough post-modern deconstructionists believe it's true. Said uninformed, ignorant pedants believe that everything is relative and science is just another form of evil patriarchy that they need to reform.
Now sure, scientists have biases, but there is no "bias of the community as a whole." Everyone has their pet theories and ideas, and the only way to make a real name for yourself is to prove a major theory incorrect and come up with something better. However, to do that you actually need proof, as in repeatable experimental proof. Not just a smart sounding paper with lots of big meaningless words in it that might pass for proof in english major circles. So things that are thrown out are not well founded in the data, because if they were, some smart upstart would have tried and succeded in making a name for himself based on it.
Can you tell that this trend of anti-intellectualism in academia pisses me off? English majors should stick to things they know and not try to critique science. They end up sounding like illiterate morons. If you still think science isn't working, try taking a look around at all the cool stuff it has brought us, like TVs, computers, automobiles, refrigeration, and medicine to name a few. Surprise, surprise, there continue to be advances in technology to this very day because science continues to do its job.
You know, I have a cat's rear end mounted on a plaque. I thought it was a good idea when I bought it, but it turned out to be a cat-ass-trophy.
Property rights over human rights, an interesting choice. The problem comes when contemplating certain types of anarcho capitalist or libertarian ideals, where everything is privately owned. Where then do people go to protest? Their own property? What if they own none, where do the disenfranchised go to protest their disenfranchisement?
To a lesser degree, when economic circumstances force a person to live and work in a company town, how can they protest mistreatment? And what is the real difference between a state owning land and prohibiting free speech and a company owning land and doing the same? Is not a company just another type of state?
I believe that property rights constitute an agreement between individuals, i.e. you agree to uphold my right to exclude certain activities on my land and I will do the same for you. I think it is legitimate to make free speech a requirement in certain cases of property ownership where said ownership approximates a state's ownership of public lands, such as in a mall or a company town.
When googling for this, I came across a reference to the concept originating in company towns of the early half of the century. Now, I'm no Clinton fanboy. He did plenty of wack shit (and no, I don't include blowjobs under that heading.) I just hadn't heard about him fencing off protesters. To be sure, Bush has escalated the use of the policy.
To quote Barney Frank from this article (which contains anecdotal evidence for Clinton-era free speech zones), "We have a free-speech zone already, it's called the United States of America."
Well finally, something even my tiny left wing brain can understand! You know how simple minded we liberals are. Thanks for your patience.
Seriously, though, that was funny.
Ah, I'm just being a dick. I write like that too when writing informally. To be fair, you were being a bit of a dick to Zonk. Not that he doesn't deserve it at times. Really though, his game reviews aren't THAT bad and they do qualify as "news for nerds" if not "stuff that matters." I'm more peeved by the fact that none of the editors seem to actually read their own site.
Which part of your post was sarcasm? You should make it a little more obvious, because it sure sounded a lot like many right wing rants I have read recently.
"Blah, blah blah people these days don't take responsibility blah blah nanny state blah blah buncha whiners blah blah blah."
Whether or not people feel they are guaranteed the right to happiness, refuse to take responsibility for their actions, or blame others for their problems has little bearing on the issue at hand. The issue is, were they telling the truth, or were they stating an opinion, or were they maliciously lying. Only in the last case can the doctors claim libel.
It really sounded like you were just going off on a tangent there.
Well, to be honest, /. has been going to hell for years. Zonk isn't that bad, but he's not that good either.
Hopefully you edit the stuff you write professionally better than the stuff you blog. No offense, but the things I read on your blog are no better than the things Zonk writes. You should work on the run-on sentences and punctuate a little better.
Really? Care to post a link to prove your claim? I googled for "clinton free speech zone" and all I came up with were a few anecdotes from people like yourself making unsubstantiated claims. Also plenty of information on the history of free speech zones, which go way back before Clinton, so your point about the precedent being set stands. It just wasn't set by Clinton.
People feel they are guaranteed the right to justice. If they are wronged, they have every right to seek redress. There's nothing noble about not fighting back when some asshat fucks you over. Guess what? You are guaranteed the right to complain, as long as you stick to the facts or state that it is your opinion. It's called free speach.
What a preposterous straw man you have set up in order to point the finger at other people for pointing the finger. Hypocrite.
Free speach is defined by law in a certain way. Your definition of free speach may be different, but that doesn't mean that free speach as defined by law is not free. You can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater (unless there is a fire.) You can't maliciously lie about someone with the intent of harming them. You can't describe pornographic acts while in a school playground.
If one could create bonded pseudonymous accounts that were not traceable back to the owner of the account, one could have anonymity with accountability.
Well, his profile on his blog says he is a network administrator, so I'm betting he writes game reviews only on said blog. Here's a sample sentence from his review of the latest Harry Potter book:
"What I find myself thinking through this one is if only all of the series had been written as this one, just how much better they could have been."
Pure poetry. Here's another from "Buying a Game Cube."
"Mario Party 5 was the first to get some action and it was a fun time, I was a bit lucky and still trounced her but it was as competitive, even, and fun a non-gamer and a hardcore gamer can have together."
Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
That's what happens when consonants don't eat enough fiber.
You do know the busses were used, right? Then brought back for a second run, but the water was too high at that point, and there was nobody at the pickup point. I hate how the right lies about things like the busses to make other folks look bad, as if saying, "But they screwed up too!" means the administration screwed up any less.
I had to think about this for a minute, and I concluded you may be right. Just because the White House is being hypocritical doesn't mean that the state and local governments are blameless. So it is a bit of a straw man argument. But that also doesn't make Bush any less of a failure.
Please, my sides are hurting! Beaurocratic goverment employees are just as corrupt, if not more so, as elected officials. My step dad was very high up in the FAA, head of US security for all Central and South American airports that US airlines fly into. He told all kinds of stories of graft and corruption. To be fair, most government employees are merely lazy and incompetant, not actually corrupt, but there are enough really bad apples to spoil the bunch.
Tell me, when was the last time your department spent under its budget? How many last minute purchases did it take to spend every last cent? That kind of corruption happens everywhere. The more heinous kind only happens in departments with actual authority over something valuable. Bribes and more bribes, kickbacks, nepotism, you name it, I've seen it or heard first hand stories.
So take your hurt little attitude for a ride around the block while filing an expense report for three times the mileage, m'kay?
Of course, Faux News is a media behemoth while Indymedia and the Village Voice preach only to the choir. Left wing media my ass, corporate media and invisible fringe, that's all there is. Freedom of the press only applies if you own a big enough press.
I love how the White House and its supporters speak out of both sides of their mouth.
Don't play the blame game, but it's all the state and local governments' fault.