Well, to be (sorta) fair, FARC are terrorists. That really can't be denied if you look at their record. FARC are not nice people. Of course, the (US government supported) Columbian government is equally terroristic (is that a word?) or quite possibly worse, as are the (US government supported) corporate militias. There really is no good side in Columbia these days. But, hey, those are minor details. After all, where would the US be today without extensive hypocrisy?
No, you were right the first time. There's no evidence that any kind of god exists, and no evidence that gods don't exist. There's also no evidence that the Invisible Pink Unicorn exists, and no evidence that it doesn't. Should a claim that the universe was created by the IPU be treated with anything other than ridicule by scientists, unless I can come up with positive evidence of the existence of the IPU? The point was that there are mountains of evidence supporting the modern theories of cosmology, abiogenesis, and biological evolution, compared to the zero evidence supporting biblical creationism, or the existence of the Christian god. Despite this fact, creationists still insist on being treated seriously. What SY (and the rest of us) are asking for is for creation "scientists" to take 5 minutes off from demonstrating their ignorance of scientific principles, and come up with some evidence that their god actually exists. Let's see the evidence, kids.
That's what it comes down to, and this is my question to all creationists. Until we see evidence that your god exists, why should we take you seriously?
Dude, if you think player skill isn't required for RPGs, I can only assume you never grouped in those games. There's plenty of skill required, it's just that skill in RPGs is a matter of timing and tactics rather than reflexes. A healer who doesn't know how to prioritize healing or control aggro, a tank who hits mezzed/rooted mobs, a main assist who doesn't know how to pick which mob to hit, a crowd controller who doesn't know when to use what spell... Any of these WILL get your group killed. And even if they don't, they'll slow down your rate of killing to a crawl.
The actual difference is that an unskilled player in the games you like doesn't cost his fellow players anything, except maybe embarrassment. Grouping with an unskilled player in an MMORPG can easily cost you hours or days worth of time due to death penalties.
Nope. The judge isn't saying that the contract isn't valid, he's saying that some of the terms are unfair and unenforceable. If anything, the basic assumption is that the EULA is a vaild contract, which would actually strengthen EULAs.
Nope. Capitalism isn't necessarily in favor of corporatism, though (surprise surprise) the corporate media's done their best to make you believe that. Capitalism is just an economic system where the ownership of the means of production is in individual hands. It includes under its umbrella many different socioeconomic theories which have very different ideas of government involvement in the economy. Most variants of authoritarian capitalism, such as fascism and modern US corporate feudalism, are in favor of "anything that helps corps sell more stuff", but it's not fundamental to capitalism.
Actually, copyright infringement can be civil or criminal. If the copyright owner goes after you, it's a civil proceeding. If the copyright owner gets the FBI to go after you, (generally, if you're a large-scale illegal commercial operation), it's a criminal action.
I'm not sure whether patent or trademark infringement can be criminal, though.
What do you feel would be a "logical" alternative.
His point is that disproving evolution by natural selection does not automatically prove Christian young-earth creationism. That would require objective evidence that the Christian creation myth happened, and would require that the Christian creation myth allow scientists to make testable predictions.
Sure, evolution is fact...micro-evolution. Micro-evolution has been observed and documented, but macro-evolution (which is the "evolution" most people refer to when using the term "evolution") has never been observed.
This is false. First, "macro-evolution" can be observed repeatedly throughout the fossil record.
Second, "micro-" and "macro-evolution" are both pseudoscientific weasel words invented by creationists to avoid having to admit that evolution by natural selection as fact. When it became impossible for creationists to deny that changes occur within species, they invented the term "micro-evolution" to describe that, and invented the term "macro-evolution" instead of using the term speciation. Neither term is part of any biological evolution theory.
Actually, it wouldn't have to explain. Whether you're a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Budhist, or whatever, the supernatural explanation for something does not have to "fall in line" with natural explanations.
No, it wouldn't. The supernatural world is not observed by the scientific method. It wouldn't have to be held to the same rules.
Why not? Why does mythology get a get-out-of-jail free card? Why should any intelligent person accept it as fact if it doesn't/isn't?
Many evolutionist state that the earth is the collection of cosmic debris (old planets, dust, etc.) coalescing to form a planet. Creationists argue this, stating that the earth was formed in the blink of an eye (actually faster) and at least attempt to backup their statement by citing that certain radioactive elements found inside the earth have half-lives of fractions of a second.
No. That's what every cosmologist states. Biological evolution has jack shit to do with the formation of the earth.
As for the radiation claim, support please? Never heard that one, so I don't have a link to one of the people who's debunked it.
In fact, the fossil record has proven that dinosaurs lived with man, or man with dinosaurs.
No, it hasn't. Creationists refuse to allow actual scientists to examine that "evidence" of theirs, so it can be safely assumed it's a hoax. Especially since it contradicts every single piece of fossil evidence that has been uncovered, rather than manufactured.
I do find it odd you mention the speed of light slowing down over time, because this has actually been observed, and a report here on Slashdot not long ago was the subject of much debate.
Cite, please? The only discussions I've seen had to do with the speed of light in different materials.
You also fail to mention Einstein. In very rudimentary terms (rudimentary by the way I will describe it, not the way he stated it, he states that the universe expands...during this expansion, time is expanded too, not just space. Light is affected as well. This expansion could account for the millions of light-years between the plantes, even though the center of the universe may have only been around for 1000 years. Yes, I picked 1000 years out of my head...it's just a number...plug in any number you want, 1, 10, 100, 5000000. I don't care...it doesn't matter.
By what mechanism? Furthermore, the "expansion" of time is universal. It may have only been 1000 years, or 1000 seconds, or 1000 trillion years to an outside observer, but the universe and the earth have experienced billions of years, not six thousand. In case you've forgotten, distance between stars and planets is not exactly the only evidence that supports the fact that the universe is billions of years old. Furthermore, it was Edwin Hubble who came up with the theory of universal expansion, though he based it on general relativity.
I strongly suggest you don't try to bring up theories you obviously don't understand.
I prefer listening to music, rather than arguing Ceationism Vs Evolutionism because people don't like to admit they are wrong. If one believes in evolution, most of the time he is automatically biased against Creationism.
Actually, I'm biased against people who assert facts without evidence. It would be nice if there was a God (someone to blame, if nothing else), but the fact remains that there's no evidence that one exists. Belief without evidence is stupid and illogical, and I don't choose to indulge. I believe that evolution occurs through the process of natural selection as there is vast amounts of objective evidence to support it. If the creationists ever come up with objective, non-disprovable evidence that their mythology is actually true, I'm willing to change my beliefs. However, until then, I'll treat them as the laughingstock, annoyance, or threat that they've proved themselves to be at various times.
Science with all of it's claims of unbiased interpretation of the facts completely shuts down when it comes to the possible existence of a creator.
Scientists doesn't have anything to say one way or the other about a creator. Science doesn't care. The possibility of an intelligent creator is the domain of theology, not the physical sciences, until someone comes up with a way of objectively testing the existence of that creator. Until then, scientific principles don't have anything to say about it one way or the other.
Isn't it possible there are facts waiting to be found that prove the existence of a creator? Why are proponents of evoltuion so closed-minded to this possibility?
It's possible. However, theists have had centuries to come up with that evidence, and have failed to do so. Science is based on facts, not wishes. If objective irrefutable evidence of a creator is brought forward, then science will expand to encompass the fact of the existance of a creator. Until then, it's not closedminded to say that wishful thinking doesn't constitute objective irrefutable evidence.
Science is always open to remote possibilities. However, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, and when a claim is repeated over and over for years without any proof whatsoever, scientists tend to dismiss it in order to concentrate on things that actually have support.
Contrary to the belief of theists who want to pretend they're persecuted, science isn't out to get you. Science doesn't care about you one way or the other, except when you start insisting that mythological concepts be treated and taught as scientific fact.
That's right. So the fact that the right to privacy isn't mentioned in the Constitution doesn't mean that it doesn't exist in our relationship with employers either. By your own argument, your claim that "There is no such thing as a "right to privacy" in the United States. Check out the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. You won't find find it..." is completely invalid. Furthermore, more than one law and court decision quoted elsewhere in this story have restricted our employers' right to monitor our activities at work using company property. These laws and decisions were based on a human right to privacy. Therefore, legally, in the US, the right to privacy exists and is not automatically surrendered by the use of company equipment. The only claim you can make is that this monitoring isn't an illegal invasion of the right to privacy and privacy laws, and that's for the courts to decide.
Stop lying. Speed limits in the US are set absurdly low, at least 10-15 MPH under a safe speed, and significantly more than that for a competent driver in a well-maintained car in decent driving conditions. Driving over the posted speed limit is not unsafe and does not cause accidents. For that matter, if you drive at the speed limit YOU are putting people in danger, as it's been repeatedly proved that the safest speed is within 5 MPH of the flow of traffic, and traffic almost everywhere moves 10 MPH+ over the limit. Speed limits aren't set where they are for traffic safety, they're set there to guarantee police departments an income, and to guarantee that cops have a "valid" reason to stop anyone driving. Or hadn't you heard that in several states it is now considered valid probable cause of illegal activity to be obeying the speed limit?
Accidents aren't caused by speeding, unless the speed is so high as to constitute reckless driving. Accidents are caused by tailgating, cutting people off, weaving through traffic, blowing stop signs and traffic signals, not paying attention to driving, unsafe vehicles, hitting your brakes when you're being tailgated, refusing to move right for faster traffic and forcing someone to pass on the right, and things like that. Speeding makes accidents caused by stupid behaviors more severe, but it doesn't cause accidents in and of itself.
You do realize that the Egyptian AC would have been on the US side, right? I mean, it's not real likely that the 82nd would have been helping Iraqi allies, is it? You do realize that the governments of many of the Arab and Persian states sent both troops and money to aid the US war against Iraq, right?
Nope, it's still what creationists claim is "micro-evolution". Of course, macro- and micro-evolution are both pseudoscientific weasel words that the creationist nutjobs use to avoid having to admit that they're wrong, but that's pretty much beside the point. They've made up "micro-evolution" to describe the changes within species that they can no longer deny, and "macro-evolution" to describe speciation. 200 years ago, the creationist mantra was "everything that ever lived is alive today, unchanged." The mounting archaeological evidence forced them to change that to, "Species can become extinct, but they don't come about on their own, and they don't change." Today, the evidence has forced them to say "OK, we were wrong again, and species do change significantly in response to their environment, but these changes still don't cause speciation!"
Hmmm... The evolution of the creationist?:)
There's no debate among biologists over whether speciation happens. Creationists try to create the impression that it does in order to decieve the generally scientifically illiterate population into believing that creationism is a scientifically valid alternative to biological evolution. However, it's nothing but intellectual dishonesty. The debate among biologists is how it happens, not whether. The only people who claim it doesn't are religious zealots who insist on believing that their mythology constitutes scientific evidence and that it's a literal and accurate account of the "creation of the world." Now they do include scientists among them, but if you actually track down the "scientist" who made whatever quote they're quoting, you invariably find his credentials are in a completely different discipline than the one they're quoting him on.
This really isn't revolutionary evidence of anything, it's news because it fills out our understanding of how we evolved. It's interesting, and it does further our understanding of our history, but it's not really revolutionary.
So, because the ACLU doesn't defend *one* Constitutional right, they're not worth helping. They've spent a century protecting your rights, they're probably the number one reason we're not living in a *complete* police state today, but that doesn't count for anything since they don't spend their time and money supporting the *one* Constitutional right that already has millions of dollars and millions of fanatical supporters? Dude, the ACLU has about half the NRA's funding, and nine times the number of Amendments to defend. Given that the NRA's got the Second Amendment adequately defended, doesn't it make more sense for the ACLU to spend its limited time and resources working on the others?
RTFA. The plaintiff's seeking to decrypt and publish block lists, in order to have evidence against censorware and mandatory censorware laws. He doesn't work for the censorware companies.
Yes, the story submission was poorly phrased. This is one of the reasons to actually read articles before posting.
Yes. CNN, like the majority of corporate-owned news sources, is center-right in bias. The reason you feel it's left-biased is due to mainly to a twenty-year shift to the right in US political attitudes, and to a fifty-year Republican propoganda campaign. On pure social issues such as abortion and gay rights, a soft liberal bias isn't uncommon. Social issues aren't a threat to the profits of the 6 multinational corporations that control 90% of the media in the US. On economic issues, however, the corporate media has a strong neoliberal bias. Consider CNN reporting that tear gas wasn't being used in Seattle, until internet reports got to enough people to force them to retract their lies. Consider the way issues such as DeCSS are reported. Consider the way the East Timor genocide wasn't reported for twenty years. Consider the complicity of the media in presenting a president such as Bill Clinton, who took positions to the right of those of Richard Nixon on labor, the environment, taxes, workplace safety, and practically every other issue other than abortion and his gay-rights waffling, as solidly left wing. Or portraying Bob Dole and Dubya as moderates. When was the last time CNN reported the way the WTO has been set up as a completely undemocratic supergovernmental authority? The World Bank? The times NAFTA's been used to prevent enforcement of US environmental laws?
One of the claims I'm absolutely certain you're going to bring up is how the majority of the commentators describe themselves as liberal. While many may be soft liberals, there are practically no solid left-wingers who ever appear on the national media. The right, however, is more than adequately represented. When was the last time Noam Chomsky was invited on TV to balance George Will? How often does Michael Moore balance Pat Buchanan? Instead, it's an airhead soft liberal like Elanor Clift or an incoherent authoritarian like Jesse Jackson who supposedly represents the left.
The corporate media is not in any way left wing. They range from CNN's neoliberal economic/social soft liberal presentations to Fox News' neoliberal economic/social conservative. But if you want reporting without a neoliberal bias, you have to look beyond ABC, CNN, or Fox.
If I hide all my illegally gotten money in off-shore accounts, the US government can still come and take that money away, even if what I did was legal there, etc.
Yeah, but they can't send an infiltration team to break into the bank and clean out your accounts. The point is that the method used by the Italian police to remove the content may well be illegal in the place it was committed. For that matter, it may well be illegal under international law.
The police had the (legal, not moral) right to remove the content from the US webservers. However, they must do so in a manner that obeys the law. They may well not have done so.
No arguments there. But I don't see why we shouldn't send exploratory missions to Mars while we're working on the Moon colony. The better Mars is explored before we start planning the colony, the better chance it'll have. And the longer the period we have good data for, the better we can predict changes that might affect a human colony.
See, here's the deal. See that big yellow light bulb in the big room with the blue ceiling? We know, sooner or later, that that light's going to burn out. We also know that, before it does, it'll get real big. If we're not off Earth by the time it happens, there won't be any people left. And that's assuming we don't manage to render ourselves extinct by any of the other ways we're doing our best to kill ourselves off with. Either way, the space program is our only means of assuring that the human race goes on without Earth. Maybe it doesn't benefit you directly, but your heirs will benefit. It assures that you will have heirs, period.
Yeah, maybe it's military applications that get the funding. But that's no reason to throw them out, when they can be used for good for a change.
Probably Mars colonization will never benefit people like you and me. But how about colonization of the asteroid belt? Lessons learned in Mars investigation could apply just as well. And if you're too short-sighted to see the benefits to you and me in mining the asteroids (how does "ridiculously large supply of raw materials" sound), I suggest you visit your opthamologist today.
Why do you care if some people believe that God created the world in a certain way? They have free speech, they don't seem to be here bothering you.
If that were true, we wouldn't care. The problem is with people who insist on passing laws that utterly unscientific myths, unsupported by the slightest objective evidence, should be taught in science classes as valid scientific theories. They're neither valid nor scientific. Science classes should teach science. We object to kids having their heads filled with nonsense, is what we object to. As long as creationist zealots insist on peddling their mythology as science, I'll keep objecting.
I don't have any problem with the view you stated. (That an intelligent "God" chose to use evolution by natural selection to create life as we know it today.) It's a religious question, not a scientific one; it's unprovable either way. My problem is with people who insist that science is flawed because it can't answer religious questions, or that religious myth is evidence to disprove scientific conclusions, or that science is a religion. These people are religious zealots, plain and simple. The fact that they are doesn't mean that everyone with religious beliefs is a zealot. It's just the the zealots are loudmouthed and annoying enough, as well as common enough in the US, to cause serious problems for people who prefer to know things, based on observational evidence, rather than to believe in them based on faith.
Closed source has a large advantage in this area, since it is harder to find bugs by trial and error than by reviewing the source.
Actually, they both have an advantage in that area. Security flaws in closed source are less likely to be discovered by an attacker, but with fewer people looking at the code, they're also less likely to be discovered by someone who can actually fix them. Access to the code is an advantage to both sides, not just to the attacker. If it's ten times easier to find flaws to exploit them, there's also ten times as many people looking for flaws to fix them, which means the flaws get found and fixed ten times faster.
Your second "fault" is really your first repeated; i.e., it's easier to find flaws when you have the source than by trial and error.
Basically, the tradeoff is that exploits are less likely to happen with closed source, but when they do, they're more likely to remain unpatched for a longer period of time since it takes longer for both sides to find the flaws.
Not really. It's more accurate to say that there are more, smaller windows of exposure.
The time to discover a security hole in OSS is smaller for both black hats and the "good guys". A black hat is more likely to discover a flaw and exploit it quickly, but someone's also more likely to quickly find and fix the same flaw. There's going to be more holes exploited, but the same holes are also likely to be found and fixed much more quickly.
With closed source, it's harder for the black hat to find an exploit, so there won't be as many found. However, there are fewer people who can find and fix the same exploits, so a hole discovered by a black hat is likely to remain unpatched for a longer period.
OSS is likely to generate more frequent exploits, while closed source is likely to generate more dangerous exploits. (I'm defining "dangerous" as a combination of the severity of the exploit and the time it remains unpatched.) It's a tradeoff, but I'd prefer to deal with 100 exploits that I know about in a week and can patch in 72 hours, rather than 10 exploits that I don't know about for three months and can't patch for another month after that.
Actually, I feel the exact opposite. Their "monopoly" on RDRAM is due to their patents, and I don't see that their RDRAM patents are suspicious. I feel that their RDRAM-specific patents are perfectly valid. Whether RDRAM's actually any better than the alternatives is a different story, as is whether SLDRAM (more or less killed by RDRAM) would have actually been a significant improvement. However, I don't think there's anything wrong with Rambus' actions in regards to RDRAM.
Their SDRAM patents, however, are a different story. Patenting other peoples' work, submarine patents, contract violations... I have problems with these things.
It says that "everyone does it, so why should we hold these people to a higher standard?"
Uh, no. It says,
We therefore somewhat unrealistically expect them to be paragons of virtue, selfless public servants dedicated to the task of making our country a better place for everyone, into whose heads the very thought of wrongdoing never intrudes. Congressmen are mere human beings, however, and so some of them exhibit the same flawed behaviors as some of us: they lie, they steal, they cheat on their spouses, they put personal gain ahead of public service, they line their pockets at the expense of those whom they are supposed to serve, etc. None of this should be surprising to anyone but the most naive among us.
It says this in the first of several dozen paragraphs, and doesn't mention it or anything similar afterward. The entire rest of the article is used to substantively debunk the original claims. It points out that the original source has a huge anti-government bias, that the original source provided zero documentation of its claims and that no one since has bothered to provide any documentation, that the claims are worded imprecisely, and any number of other issues with them.
You're right, we do need to get rid of the trash in Congress. However, repeating hysterical unsupported crap isn't the way to go about this. Name the Congressmen who were convicted of abusing their spouses so that their electorates can get them removed; don't just claim "29 members of congress were accused of spousal abuse." An accusation isn't even a charge, much less a conviction. I hereby accuse you of wifebeating! Are you now ineligible for Congress? Name the Congressmen who used Congressional immunity to get around parking tickets, make them talk about the circumstances, and allow their electorates to determine whether this use constitutes an abuse of power that they should be removed for.
Start giving people hard facts rather than wild-eyed frothing-at-the-mouth insubstantiated demogoguery, and we can start actually doing something about the slime in office. It's a hell of a lot more productive than spreading crap on Internet message boards to make libertarians feel good about themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, to be (sorta) fair, FARC are terrorists. That really can't be denied if you look at their record. FARC are not nice people. Of course, the (US government supported) Columbian government is equally terroristic (is that a word?) or quite possibly worse, as are the (US government supported) corporate militias. There really is no good side in Columbia these days. But, hey, those are minor details. After all, where would the US be today without extensive hypocrisy?
Ya know, I sure as hell hope God isn't the chair I'm sitting on. If it is, I'm going to hell for sure, since I had beans for lunch...
No, you were right the first time. There's no evidence that any kind of god exists, and no evidence that gods don't exist. There's also no evidence that the Invisible Pink Unicorn exists, and no evidence that it doesn't. Should a claim that the universe was created by the IPU be treated with anything other than ridicule by scientists, unless I can come up with positive evidence of the existence of the IPU? The point was that there are mountains of evidence supporting the modern theories of cosmology, abiogenesis, and biological evolution, compared to the zero evidence supporting biblical creationism, or the existence of the Christian god. Despite this fact, creationists still insist on being treated seriously. What SY (and the rest of us) are asking for is for creation "scientists" to take 5 minutes off from demonstrating their ignorance of scientific principles, and come up with some evidence that their god actually exists. Let's see the evidence, kids.
That's what it comes down to, and this is my question to all creationists. Until we see evidence that your god exists, why should we take you seriously?
Dude, if you think player skill isn't required for RPGs, I can only assume you never grouped in those games. There's plenty of skill required, it's just that skill in RPGs is a matter of timing and tactics rather than reflexes. A healer who doesn't know how to prioritize healing or control aggro, a tank who hits mezzed/rooted mobs, a main assist who doesn't know how to pick which mob to hit, a crowd controller who doesn't know when to use what spell... Any of these WILL get your group killed. And even if they don't, they'll slow down your rate of killing to a crawl.
The actual difference is that an unskilled player in the games you like doesn't cost his fellow players anything, except maybe embarrassment. Grouping with an unskilled player in an MMORPG can easily cost you hours or days worth of time due to death penalties.
Nope. The judge isn't saying that the contract isn't valid, he's saying that some of the terms are unfair and unenforceable. If anything, the basic assumption is that the EULA is a vaild contract, which would actually strengthen EULAs.
Nope. Capitalism isn't necessarily in favor of corporatism, though (surprise surprise) the corporate media's done their best to make you believe that. Capitalism is just an economic system where the ownership of the means of production is in individual hands. It includes under its umbrella many different socioeconomic theories which have very different ideas of government involvement in the economy. Most variants of authoritarian capitalism, such as fascism and modern US corporate feudalism, are in favor of "anything that helps corps sell more stuff", but it's not fundamental to capitalism.
Actually, copyright infringement can be civil or criminal. If the copyright owner goes after you, it's a civil proceeding. If the copyright owner gets the FBI to go after you, (generally, if you're a large-scale illegal commercial operation), it's a criminal action.
I'm not sure whether patent or trademark infringement can be criminal, though.
What do you feel would be a "logical" alternative.
His point is that disproving evolution by natural selection does not automatically prove Christian young-earth creationism. That would require objective evidence that the Christian creation myth happened, and would require that the Christian creation myth allow scientists to make testable predictions.
Sure, evolution is fact...micro-evolution. Micro-evolution has been observed and documented, but macro-evolution (which is the "evolution" most people refer to when using the term "evolution") has never been observed.
This is false. First, "macro-evolution" can be observed repeatedly throughout the fossil record.
Second, "micro-" and "macro-evolution" are both pseudoscientific weasel words invented by creationists to avoid having to admit that evolution by natural selection as fact. When it became impossible for creationists to deny that changes occur within species, they invented the term "micro-evolution" to describe that, and invented the term "macro-evolution" instead of using the term speciation. Neither term is part of any biological evolution theory.
Actually, it wouldn't have to explain. Whether you're a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Budhist, or whatever, the supernatural explanation for something does not have to "fall in line" with natural explanations.
No, it wouldn't. The supernatural world is not observed by the scientific method. It wouldn't have to be held to the same rules.
Why not? Why does mythology get a get-out-of-jail free card? Why should any intelligent person accept it as fact if it doesn't/isn't?
Many evolutionist state that the earth is the collection of cosmic debris (old planets, dust, etc.) coalescing to form a planet. Creationists argue this, stating that the earth was formed in the blink of an eye (actually faster) and at least attempt to backup their statement by citing that certain radioactive elements found inside the earth have half-lives of fractions of a second.
No. That's what every cosmologist states. Biological evolution has jack shit to do with the formation of the earth.
As for the radiation claim, support please? Never heard that one, so I don't have a link to one of the people who's debunked it.
In fact, the fossil record has proven that dinosaurs lived with man, or man with dinosaurs.
No, it hasn't. Creationists refuse to allow actual scientists to examine that "evidence" of theirs, so it can be safely assumed it's a hoax. Especially since it contradicts every single piece of fossil evidence that has been uncovered, rather than manufactured.
I do find it odd you mention the speed of light slowing down over time, because this has actually been observed, and a report here on Slashdot not long ago was the subject of much debate.
Cite, please? The only discussions I've seen had to do with the speed of light in different materials.
You also fail to mention Einstein. In very rudimentary terms (rudimentary by the way I will describe it, not the way he stated it, he states that the universe expands...during this expansion, time is expanded too, not just space.
Light is affected as well. This expansion could account for the millions of light-years between the plantes, even though the center of the universe may have only been around for 1000 years.
Yes, I picked 1000 years out of my head...it's just a number...plug in any number you want, 1, 10, 100, 5000000. I don't care...it doesn't matter.
By what mechanism? Furthermore, the "expansion" of time is universal. It may have only been 1000 years, or 1000 seconds, or 1000 trillion years to an outside observer, but the universe and the earth have experienced billions of years, not six thousand. In case you've forgotten, distance between stars and planets is not exactly the only evidence that supports the fact that the universe is billions of years old. Furthermore, it was Edwin Hubble who came up with the theory of universal expansion, though he based it on general relativity.
I strongly suggest you don't try to bring up theories you obviously don't understand.
I prefer listening to music, rather than arguing Ceationism Vs Evolutionism because people don't like to admit they are wrong. If one believes in evolution, most of the time he is automatically biased against Creationism.
Actually, I'm biased against people who assert facts without evidence. It would be nice if there was a God (someone to blame, if nothing else), but the fact remains that there's no evidence that one exists. Belief without evidence is stupid and illogical, and I don't choose to indulge. I believe that evolution occurs through the process of natural selection as there is vast amounts of objective evidence to support it. If the creationists ever come up with objective, non-disprovable evidence that their mythology is actually true, I'm willing to change my beliefs. However, until then, I'll treat them as the laughingstock, annoyance, or threat that they've proved themselves to be at various times.
Science with all of it's claims of unbiased interpretation of the facts completely shuts down when it comes to the possible existence of a creator.
Scientists doesn't have anything to say one way or the other about a creator. Science doesn't care. The possibility of an intelligent creator is the domain of theology, not the physical sciences, until someone comes up with a way of objectively testing the existence of that creator. Until then, scientific principles don't have anything to say about it one way or the other.
Isn't it possible there are facts waiting to be found that prove the existence of a creator? Why are proponents of evoltuion so closed-minded to this possibility?
It's possible. However, theists have had centuries to come up with that evidence, and have failed to do so. Science is based on facts, not wishes. If objective irrefutable evidence of a creator is brought forward, then science will expand to encompass the fact of the existance of a creator. Until then, it's not closedminded to say that wishful thinking doesn't constitute objective irrefutable evidence.
Science is always open to remote possibilities. However, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, and when a claim is repeated over and over for years without any proof whatsoever, scientists tend to dismiss it in order to concentrate on things that actually have support.
Contrary to the belief of theists who want to pretend they're persecuted, science isn't out to get you. Science doesn't care about you one way or the other, except when you start insisting that mythological concepts be treated and taught as scientific fact.
That's right. So the fact that the right to privacy isn't mentioned in the Constitution doesn't mean that it doesn't exist in our relationship with employers either. By your own argument, your claim that "There is no such thing as a "right to privacy" in the United States. Check out the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. You won't find find it..." is completely invalid. Furthermore, more than one law and court decision quoted elsewhere in this story have restricted our employers' right to monitor our activities at work using company property. These laws and decisions were based on a human right to privacy. Therefore, legally, in the US, the right to privacy exists and is not automatically surrendered by the use of company equipment. The only claim you can make is that this monitoring isn't an illegal invasion of the right to privacy and privacy laws, and that's for the courts to decide.
Stop lying. Speed limits in the US are set absurdly low, at least 10-15 MPH under a safe speed, and significantly more than that for a competent driver in a well-maintained car in decent driving conditions. Driving over the posted speed limit is not unsafe and does not cause accidents. For that matter, if you drive at the speed limit YOU are putting people in danger, as it's been repeatedly proved that the safest speed is within 5 MPH of the flow of traffic, and traffic almost everywhere moves 10 MPH+ over the limit. Speed limits aren't set where they are for traffic safety, they're set there to guarantee police departments an income, and to guarantee that cops have a "valid" reason to stop anyone driving. Or hadn't you heard that in several states it is now considered valid probable cause of illegal activity to be obeying the speed limit?
Accidents aren't caused by speeding, unless the speed is so high as to constitute reckless driving. Accidents are caused by tailgating, cutting people off, weaving through traffic, blowing stop signs and traffic signals, not paying attention to driving, unsafe vehicles, hitting your brakes when you're being tailgated, refusing to move right for faster traffic and forcing someone to pass on the right, and things like that. Speeding makes accidents caused by stupid behaviors more severe, but it doesn't cause accidents in and of itself.
You do realize that the Egyptian AC would have been on the US side, right? I mean, it's not real likely that the 82nd would have been helping Iraqi allies, is it? You do realize that the governments of many of the Arab and Persian states sent both troops and money to aid the US war against Iraq, right?
Nope, it's still what creationists claim is "micro-evolution". Of course, macro- and micro-evolution are both pseudoscientific weasel words that the creationist nutjobs use to avoid having to admit that they're wrong, but that's pretty much beside the point. They've made up "micro-evolution" to describe the changes within species that they can no longer deny, and "macro-evolution" to describe speciation. 200 years ago, the creationist mantra was "everything that ever lived is alive today, unchanged." The mounting archaeological evidence forced them to change that to, "Species can become extinct, but they don't come about on their own, and they don't change." Today, the evidence has forced them to say "OK, we were wrong again, and species do change significantly in response to their environment, but these changes still don't cause speciation!"
:)
Hmmm... The evolution of the creationist?
There's no debate among biologists over whether speciation happens. Creationists try to create the impression that it does in order to decieve the generally scientifically illiterate population into believing that creationism is a scientifically valid alternative to biological evolution. However, it's nothing but intellectual dishonesty. The debate among biologists is how it happens, not whether. The only people who claim it doesn't are religious zealots who insist on believing that their mythology constitutes scientific evidence and that it's a literal and accurate account of the "creation of the world." Now they do include scientists among them, but if you actually track down the "scientist" who made whatever quote they're quoting, you invariably find his credentials are in a completely different discipline than the one they're quoting him on.
This really isn't revolutionary evidence of anything, it's news because it fills out our understanding of how we evolved. It's interesting, and it does further our understanding of our history, but it's not really revolutionary.
So, because the ACLU doesn't defend *one* Constitutional right, they're not worth helping. They've spent a century protecting your rights, they're probably the number one reason we're not living in a *complete* police state today, but that doesn't count for anything since they don't spend their time and money supporting the *one* Constitutional right that already has millions of dollars and millions of fanatical supporters? Dude, the ACLU has about half the NRA's funding, and nine times the number of Amendments to defend. Given that the NRA's got the Second Amendment adequately defended, doesn't it make more sense for the ACLU to spend its limited time and resources working on the others?
RTFA. The plaintiff's seeking to decrypt and publish block lists, in order to have evidence against censorware and mandatory censorware laws. He doesn't work for the censorware companies.
Yes, the story submission was poorly phrased. This is one of the reasons to actually read articles before posting.
Yes. CNN, like the majority of corporate-owned news sources, is center-right in bias. The reason you feel it's left-biased is due to mainly to a twenty-year shift to the right in US political attitudes, and to a fifty-year Republican propoganda campaign. On pure social issues such as abortion and gay rights, a soft liberal bias isn't uncommon. Social issues aren't a threat to the profits of the 6 multinational corporations that control 90% of the media in the US. On economic issues, however, the corporate media has a strong neoliberal bias. Consider CNN reporting that tear gas wasn't being used in Seattle, until internet reports got to enough people to force them to retract their lies. Consider the way issues such as DeCSS are reported. Consider the way the East Timor genocide wasn't reported for twenty years. Consider the complicity of the media in presenting a president such as Bill Clinton, who took positions to the right of those of Richard Nixon on labor, the environment, taxes, workplace safety, and practically every other issue other than abortion and his gay-rights waffling, as solidly left wing. Or portraying Bob Dole and Dubya as moderates. When was the last time CNN reported the way the WTO has been set up as a completely undemocratic supergovernmental authority? The World Bank? The times NAFTA's been used to prevent enforcement of US environmental laws?
One of the claims I'm absolutely certain you're going to bring up is how the majority of the commentators describe themselves as liberal. While many may be soft liberals, there are practically no solid left-wingers who ever appear on the national media. The right, however, is more than adequately represented. When was the last time Noam Chomsky was invited on TV to balance George Will? How often does Michael Moore balance Pat Buchanan? Instead, it's an airhead soft liberal like Elanor Clift or an incoherent authoritarian like Jesse Jackson who supposedly represents the left.
The corporate media is not in any way left wing. They range from CNN's neoliberal economic/social soft liberal presentations to Fox News' neoliberal economic/social conservative. But if you want reporting without a neoliberal bias, you have to look beyond ABC, CNN, or Fox.
If I hide all my illegally gotten money in off-shore accounts, the US government can still come and take that money away, even if what I did was legal there, etc.
Yeah, but they can't send an infiltration team to break into the bank and clean out your accounts. The point is that the method used by the Italian police to remove the content may well be illegal in the place it was committed. For that matter, it may well be illegal under international law.
The police had the (legal, not moral) right to remove the content from the US webservers. However, they must do so in a manner that obeys the law. They may well not have done so.
No arguments there. But I don't see why we shouldn't send exploratory missions to Mars while we're working on the Moon colony. The better Mars is explored before we start planning the colony, the better chance it'll have. And the longer the period we have good data for, the better we can predict changes that might affect a human colony.
See, here's the deal. See that big yellow light bulb in the big room with the blue ceiling? We know, sooner or later, that that light's going to burn out. We also know that, before it does, it'll get real big. If we're not off Earth by the time it happens, there won't be any people left. And that's assuming we don't manage to render ourselves extinct by any of the other ways we're doing our best to kill ourselves off with. Either way, the space program is our only means of assuring that the human race goes on without Earth. Maybe it doesn't benefit you directly, but your heirs will benefit. It assures that you will have heirs, period.
Yeah, maybe it's military applications that get the funding. But that's no reason to throw them out, when they can be used for good for a change.
Probably Mars colonization will never benefit people like you and me. But how about colonization of the asteroid belt? Lessons learned in Mars investigation could apply just as well. And if you're too short-sighted to see the benefits to you and me in mining the asteroids (how does "ridiculously large supply of raw materials" sound), I suggest you visit your opthamologist today.
Why do you care if some people believe that God created the world in a certain way? They have free speech, they don't seem to be here bothering you.
If that were true, we wouldn't care. The problem is with people who insist on passing laws that utterly unscientific myths, unsupported by the slightest objective evidence, should be taught in science classes as valid scientific theories. They're neither valid nor scientific. Science classes should teach science. We object to kids having their heads filled with nonsense, is what we object to. As long as creationist zealots insist on peddling their mythology as science, I'll keep objecting.
I don't have any problem with the view you stated. (That an intelligent "God" chose to use evolution by natural selection to create life as we know it today.) It's a religious question, not a scientific one; it's unprovable either way. My problem is with people who insist that science is flawed because it can't answer religious questions, or that religious myth is evidence to disprove scientific conclusions, or that science is a religion. These people are religious zealots, plain and simple. The fact that they are doesn't mean that everyone with religious beliefs is a zealot. It's just the the zealots are loudmouthed and annoying enough, as well as common enough in the US, to cause serious problems for people who prefer to know things, based on observational evidence, rather than to believe in them based on faith.
Closed source has a large advantage in this area, since it is harder to find bugs by trial and error than by reviewing the source.
Actually, they both have an advantage in that area. Security flaws in closed source are less likely to be discovered by an attacker, but with fewer people looking at the code, they're also less likely to be discovered by someone who can actually fix them. Access to the code is an advantage to both sides, not just to the attacker. If it's ten times easier to find flaws to exploit them, there's also ten times as many people looking for flaws to fix them, which means the flaws get found and fixed ten times faster.
Your second "fault" is really your first repeated; i.e., it's easier to find flaws when you have the source than by trial and error.
Basically, the tradeoff is that exploits are less likely to happen with closed source, but when they do, they're more likely to remain unpatched for a longer period of time since it takes longer for both sides to find the flaws.
Not really. It's more accurate to say that there are more, smaller windows of exposure.
The time to discover a security hole in OSS is smaller for both black hats and the "good guys". A black hat is more likely to discover a flaw and exploit it quickly, but someone's also more likely to quickly find and fix the same flaw. There's going to be more holes exploited, but the same holes are also likely to be found and fixed much more quickly.
With closed source, it's harder for the black hat to find an exploit, so there won't be as many found. However, there are fewer people who can find and fix the same exploits, so a hole discovered by a black hat is likely to remain unpatched for a longer period.
OSS is likely to generate more frequent exploits, while closed source is likely to generate more dangerous exploits. (I'm defining "dangerous" as a combination of the severity of the exploit and the time it remains unpatched.) It's a tradeoff, but I'd prefer to deal with 100 exploits that I know about in a week and can patch in 72 hours, rather than 10 exploits that I don't know about for three months and can't patch for another month after that.
Actually, I feel the exact opposite. Their "monopoly" on RDRAM is due to their patents, and I don't see that their RDRAM patents are suspicious. I feel that their RDRAM-specific patents are perfectly valid. Whether RDRAM's actually any better than the alternatives is a different story, as is whether SLDRAM (more or less killed by RDRAM) would have actually been a significant improvement. However, I don't think there's anything wrong with Rambus' actions in regards to RDRAM.
Their SDRAM patents, however, are a different story. Patenting other peoples' work, submarine patents, contract violations... I have problems with these things.
Uh, no. It says, It says this in the first of several dozen paragraphs, and doesn't mention it or anything similar afterward. The entire rest of the article is used to substantively debunk the original claims. It points out that the original source has a huge anti-government bias, that the original source provided zero documentation of its claims and that no one since has bothered to provide any documentation, that the claims are worded imprecisely, and any number of other issues with them.
You're right, we do need to get rid of the trash in Congress. However, repeating hysterical unsupported crap isn't the way to go about this. Name the Congressmen who were convicted of abusing their spouses so that their electorates can get them removed; don't just claim "29 members of congress were accused of spousal abuse." An accusation isn't even a charge, much less a conviction. I hereby accuse you of wifebeating! Are you now ineligible for Congress? Name the Congressmen who used Congressional immunity to get around parking tickets, make them talk about the circumstances, and allow their electorates to determine whether this use constitutes an abuse of power that they should be removed for.
Start giving people hard facts rather than wild-eyed frothing-at-the-mouth insubstantiated demogoguery, and we can start actually doing something about the slime in office. It's a hell of a lot more productive than spreading crap on Internet message boards to make libertarians feel good about themselves.
"Gnu Public License".
Actually, General Public License. That's why it's known as the GNU GPL.
See the FSF's website