That's right. Uranium ore is radioactive, but it's not especially dangerous. You don't even really need protective gear to handle the fuel before it goes into the reactor, unless it's your job and you're doing it regularly
Afterward, however, the spent fuel contains isotopes much more radioactive than U-235/238, as well as transuranic elements, making it about the most lethal stuff around.
While I broadly agree with you, I have to pick up on a few points:
Vice versa:)
1. Copyright and fair use are in fact granted; in the absence of copyright law, neither of these would exist.
2. It is wider than the US. However, as a US citizen, I'm only qualified to comment on the rights I have as an American.
Also, the US is currently leading the way in the creation of laws extending copyright, and it's US companies leading the way in the creation of access control technologies. If it can be stopped here, it will make it less likely that they'll be implemented elsewhere.
3. They're entitled to, and it's certainly legal, but measures aimed at restricting fair use are, at the least, ethically dubious. Since most of these technologies are about access control more than copy protection, fair use/first sale is what they're aimed at.
How does Fair Use apply? Does it let you copy one track from a CD for a friend? No. Let the friend borrow the CD and if they like it enough, they can buy their own. Does it apply to software? Most software agreements allow you one archive copy. If you're making multiple copies for your friends, then it's not Fair Use.
And back to SDMI. Currently there's so many problems with it that it's more of a joke then anything else. Is it a problem? Not unless you feel the need to have umpteen backup copies of your favorite game (just in case your hard drive formats itself umpteen-1 times, I'm sure).
Fact: fair use allows me the right to make backup copies.
Fact: SDMI will not allow me to make those backup copies at all.
In addition, it will prevent me from copying to a different media to play in my car (fair use), cutting out passages for criticism of a song (fair use), or creating parodies (fair use).
Therefore, SDMI will interfere with my fair use rights. What part of this do you not understand?
As for making a ton of backup copies, until they're distributed, they're not illegal. Just because you don't have any reason for multiple backup copies doesn't mean other people don't, and it doesn't make it copyright infringement.
So what if they're aimed at me and you.... am I supposed to be automatically paranoid because the "man" is somehow out to get me through SDMI, CSS, KFC, or whatever TLA/FLA comes along?
If they're aimed at you and me, then it's not paranoia to assume they're out to get you.
IMAO, a large portion of the/. community needs to grow up and realize that it isn't personal.
*snicker* "Grow up?" Ah yes, of course. Maturity will henceforth be defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as agreement with Kierthos.
Wake the fuck up. Just because someone has priorities different from yours doesn't make them immature. As a matter of fact, accepting that values different from your own may be equally valid is generally considered part of maturity. So maybe you're the one who needs to do some growing up, hmmmm?
I don't know about you, when someone tries to take away my rights without my consent, I take it personally. But being "grown up", I'm sure you don't give a damn about your rights. I don't *care* if it isn't personal; the fact that they're trying to take away everyone's rights as well as mine does not make it acceptable. Do you believe it would somehow be OK to cut out the tongues of political dissidents, as long as they did it to everyone else, too? If that's you're idea of "maturity", I'll stick with being an infant, thanks.
They are trying to solve what they perceive as a legitimate problem with their business model.
Legitimate response to a problem with a business model: find a better business model.
Non-legitimate response to a problem with a business model: Buy laws and create technologies that attempt to prevent the exercise of the legally granted rights of American citizens.
The GPL is not a licence that cares about the freedom of the source code. In fact its is more demanding than any closed source licence. It not only tries to control your use of the product that is licenced but any future product based on it.
That's bullshit, and you know it. Unlike any closed source license around, it doesn't limit your use of the program at all, either of the program or its derivatives. It only controls your distribution of the program. Given closed source licenses don't allow redistribution at all, redistribution under pretty damn reasonable conditions is FAR more free.
Because of this control of the whole line of decendants the GPL limits innovation nearly as much as closed source. It prohibits any author that does not agree with the GPL from using the code in any way. This is all fine for your "club of likeminded developers" but if you are truely shooting for freedom and want to spur innovation you would use a truely free licence.
Again, that's bull. It prevents a licensee who does not agree with the GPL from redistribution under a license other than the GPL. The author can do anything he likes. The licensee can also do anything he likes with the code, he just can't redistribute changes in a non-free form. How does this restrict innovation?
Something that required that your name be included in the documentation of any derivative document and would require that your source be made available upon request.
And the GPL doesn't even require the first one, just the second. That makes the GPL more free than your proposed license. So how does the GPL restrict innovation more than your proposed license would?
I'm all for the creators of software controling what happens with it but the GPL rubs me the wrong way when it seeks to control other works that the original author did not create.
It doesn't, and any claim that it does is pure rhetoric. The GPL controls what you can do with my work. If you are not using my code, you can do what you like. But if you ARE using my code, you have no right to expect me not to put conditions on it. If you don't like the conditions, stop whining and write it yourself.
Nope. I don't believe that. Being censored does not mean you've lost the right to free speech, it just means that someone is violating that right. The same principle applies here. The copyright owner still has the right to control distribution, within limitations. Violating that right doesn't take it away.
In addition, being able "distribute the software the way he wants" does not equate to absolute control over distribution. First sale and fair use both limit that control, as does the AHRA under certain circumstances.
OFFTOPIC: Does anyone else think they should just get rid of "Underrated" and "Overrated"? I've only seen "Underrated" used by trolls to mod up other trolls, and "Overrated" is only used by idiots who aren't bright enough to come up with an actual rebuttal to a post they disagree with.
WELL. I mean shit, why should we put our bags on the belt and walk through metal detectors at the airport because *some* people use bombs to blow up airplanes? They're stomping all over my right to privacy! Just because the FAA, the airlines, and the airports are losing money doesn't mean they can restrict MY rights in any way.
Well, ya see, I voluntarily accept those invasions of my privacy because they kinda like help keep me from getting blown up. Not that the risk is real high, but I kinda like keeping it that way.
Regardless of what you may think or what blind eye you choose to turn to the situation, the RIAA isn't going to pounce on something with no justification
Did you actually manage to type that with a straight face?
Why not? You write a book and decide to sell it for $12.95. I steal the manuscript from your desk, make a shitload of photocopies, and give them away. Are you as an author not going to attempt to regulate that?
You're damn right I would. However, I'd do it by suing you, not Xerox.
Oh, I see. So they're perfectly within their freedom to protect themselves, just so long as it doesn't inconvenience you, right? Because all of the 'rights' you are arguing about aren't rights.
Bullshit. Fair use. First sale. Oh, and privacy, free speech, and freedom of association are all constitutionally protected. You may argue they don't apply, but claiming they're not rights is bullshit.
You're merely pandering to popular opinion hoping to score a bit of brownie points.
And all you're doing is whoring for karma by posting something against the Slashdot consensus so that idiots with mod points will try to demonstrate how openminded they are by modding you up.
If AOL owns the copyright, they can do anything they'd like with it, regardless of the license they release it to others under.
If AOL does not own the source for a GPL'd app, then they have to comply with the GPL. In fact, there's no difference under the law between AOL and some third party. If you're just talking about using the output from one program as the input to another, then I don't believe that not releasing the AOL interface as GPL'd software would be a GPL violation. If they couple the two programs more tightly (for example, as in this case, making Gecko a library AOL required to function correctly), then not GPLing the whole mess probably would be a GPL violation.
If AOL does not own the copyright to GPL'd code, then the answer to your first question is probably yes. The answer to the second question would depend on how the extension was distributed. If it was distributed as a plugin, then I don't believe that would violate the GPL. However, if they were distributing a version of the proprietary app modified by GPL'd code, then they would have to release the whole mess under the GPL.
Vidomi most likely is violating the GPL. At runtime, it's not a matter of piping output from one to the other. They're distributing VirtualDub as a library, so VirtualDub becomes a part of Vidomi's executable code at runtime. And it's not simply a plugin to extend functionality, whatever they claim. That's a legal dodge, and an extremely transparent one. VirtualDub isn't a plugin to Vidomi; if anything, it's the other way around. And that makes Vidomi a derivative work, and thus bound by the terms of the GPL.
Bullshit. The commercial software licenses the FSF is opposed to take away rights that copyright law grants the user. The GPL grants rights to the user that the user would not normally have in law, but only if the user agrees to play by the GPL's rules. If they don't, they can still use the program, modify it, profit by it, do whatever the want with it--except distribute it. Find me one single proprietary software license that gives the user that much freedom even if they don't agree to the license.
Mozilla isn't licensed under the GPL; it's MPL/NPL.
Even if it were, AOL owns the copyright, so they can distribute Mozilla in any way they damn well want. The only license terms they'd need to worry about violating are the terms under which MS licensed IE to them.
Not sure about the 3rd party; I don't recall which rights the MPL gives licensees offhand.
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Re:Commercial software: A drain on the world econo
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Mundie Responds
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And the fact that you fail to understand that there is a lot more to a microchip that instruction flow makes yours equally valueless. This valuelessness is only increased by the fact that you are unable to comprehend that disagreeing with your simpleminded blather does not constitute fanaticism.
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Re:Commercial software: A drain on the world econo
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Mundie Responds
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The whole point of all of this is that the world needs software development, and that software helps industry and the world run more effectively
And why does this equate to needing bloated monopolistic mass-market software companies? Are you mentally incompetant enough to believe that only Microsoft and other huge companies can write software?
The OSS zealots insist that despite the intrinsic value of that software, it should be free. Sure software developers are responsible for helping grow more crops, build more cars, and mine more metals, but who cares?
First off, software has zero intrinsic value. Zip. Zilch. Nada. All software is is a bunch of bits on a hard drive. The only value it has is in what it enables its user to do. In addition, the applications you listed are all niche applications, most likely written in-house, which even the FSF does not believe need to be Free. Try again.
Despite the rantings of paranoid fools like you, I have yet to meet the person who believes that every piece of software ever written should be distributed on the internet. What we believe is that no software vendor should be able to *hold us hostage.* I know it's hard for you to understand, but there is a difference.
Software should be free for all and software developers apparently should live off the crumbs of charity thrown their way.
That is not what we believe, and you know it. Stop lying.
We believe sofware developers should be paid by the companies who provide support for software, or for writing the in-house applications that employ the vast majority of programmers today. Microsoft and the other mass-market-only software shops employ a very small percentage of the developers working today.
Then again the Nazi movement lined up supporters too.
So not only are we communists, we're Nazis too. You really don't have any arguments, do you?
This whole arrogant rant of yours also failed to address his point, which was that markets change. We should not be expected to feel sympathy for companies that go out of business because they couldn't keep up with market conditions. Nor are we under any obligation to support a failing business model. It is the company's obligation to make a profit, not ours to give them one. If they cannot do that without obscene invasions of the freedoms of ordinary citizens, then they damn well deserve to go out of business.
The only people who fail to see the value of software, and the IP protection required to ensure it isn't stolen from them (because most people, when given the choice between doing the right thing and looking out for only themselves, will look out for only themselves), are fanatics who aren't benefitting and they despise those who are benefitting.
Another blatant lie. You're forgetting those of us who DO support copyrights, patents, and trademarks. However, we recognize that they are NOT property; there is no *right* to them. They are social compacts only.
What we are opposed to is draconian laws bought by the software manufacturers from corrupt politicians who ignore the responsibility they have to the people who elected them. There is no need for the DMCA, for UCITA, for copyrights that will never expire. They are, in fact, completely unconstitutional, as well as damaging to the free market system. Anyone who supports capitalism and the American way of life should oppose these laws.
I think the ultimate irony, which is brought up again and again, is that Linus happily takes paycheques from a company that is developing a chip that would be ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS without IP protection. The silicon is worth about $0.02, but put the design they created on it and suddenly it's worth hundreds. I respect that Linus works for Transmeta, and personally I think he's very respectable (and not nearly the zealot as most of those clowns), but this hypocrisy is just so glaring, and it's amazing how no one bothers following up.
Yeah, you Microsoft astroturfers keep spouting this, no matter how many times we point out that it's crap. The Open Source movement has no problem whatsoever with hardware patents. The issues are with software patents, and with the laws which have extended copyright *far* beyond what the Founding Fathers intended. The Open Source movement *supports* copyright, patents, and trademarks. No matter how many times you and Mundie repeat the blatant, bald faced lie that we don't, you won't make it true.
yes, buts its done for `ethical' reasons. Most businesses don't share or care bour the FSF ethics. Open Source promotes Open Source because, on an engineeering levels, it is often *better*. Quality matters. Ethics don't.
And that makes the FSF anti-business exactly how? Being completely indifferent to the concerns of business does not make you anti-business.
The FSF dissapproving of closed an Open source software interoperting sucks and is not realistic. Most businesses will continue to use what's best, whether that be Apache or MS Word, because it (in their minds) is the bets for the job they are doing. Open Source interoperating with closed is an important part of this. Haven't you ever used Samba?
You still haven't answered him: When did the FSF ever say they disapproved? Ever heard of a straw-man argument?
Agreed more than 110% about the use of commerical. You seem to be repeating what I said, but anyway. `Followers' should actually be more specific - `official web site' is a good replacement.
No, he wasn't. He was pointing out that once again, you're putting words in the FSF's mouth. The FSF itself has never claimed--on its web site or anywhere else--that 'corporate interests and Free Software are mutually exclusive.' What people unaffiliated with the FSF have to say has no reflection whatsoever on the FSF, no matter how much you want to believe it does.
If this is sad, then refute me. You haven't yet.
Yes, he did. You're just too stupid to figure it out.
Furthermore, you haven't come anywhere near proving your point, was that the FSF is anti-business. Half your arguments don't relate to your point, and the other half are completely false.
Try again.
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Re:Doesn't Anyone Actually *Read* The GPL
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Sony Violating GPL?
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Isn't that a GPL violation in and of itself? Doesn't the GPL say that derivative programs can't be distributed under any terms more restrictive than the GPL?
As you know perfectly well, that's a load of crap. Stop twisting other people's words around.
First off, the GPL is designed to preserve *user* freedom, not *distributor* freedom. You've been trolling Slashdot long enough to know that.
Second, the fact that something is not completely about freedom does not mean that it's "not about freedom at all". To make that claim is sheer intellectual dishonesty.
"Ad hominem" means "to the man" -- attacking the messenger instead of the message, which I did not do.
Funny, that snide little "Have your atheist card? cause you spout the party line pretty good" sure as hell didn't look like any kind of attack on my message to me.
Whoa. Let's leave the goalposts in one place, shall we? We can't blame atheism for Stalin just because Stalin was atheist; however, World War II was all the pope's fault just because Hitler was Catholic. Yup -- works for me. Not.
Cute. Quoting me out of context. Here, let me quote the next part of that:
"As for the Holocaust, Hitler was Catholic (thus had been taught by church leaders for years that the Jews were evil), "
The fact that he was Catholic means that his church had been teaching him for years that the Jews were evil. See how that works? Hitler's being Catholic actually has, like, relevance, ya know what I mean?
Additionally, I never said that the Pope was responsible for World War II. (Though his extensive support of of the Nazi and Fascist regimes didn't exactly prevent it.) What I said was that Catholicism was one of the main instigators of the attempted extermination of the Jews. Try responding to what I actually said, OK?
Well, which is it? "Killed in the name of religion" is a fairly clear target, but "a result of religious teachings" is way too self-servingly
ambiguous to be of practical use, as you proceed to demonstrate.
Really? I'd say it's pretty obvious. When an organized religion (Catholicism, for example) goes out of its way to prevent the dissemination
of information and proceeds to spread false information in its place, then I'd have to say that that religion is at fault for any deaths caused by this. I'd also have to say that when a religion says that an act is EVIL and should be punishable by death (homosexuality, for example), and then, following that teaching, someone (a group of rednecks with a pickup, say, or maybe a short guy with a bad mustache) proceeds to do what they've been told by their religious leaders, then maybe their religion is responsible?
It's actually pretty damn obvious (at least to people who don't practice fuzzy thinking, and aren't trying to confuse the issue) when religious
teachings caused death.
It is true that nearly six million Jews were exterminated during the Holocaust. It is equally true that more than five million non-Jews lost
their lives. The man who, on August 22, 1939, mustered his stormtroopers to kill "without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent" was a racist, not a religious bigot.
Uh, dude? Being a racist doesn't mean you're not a religious bigot. Hitler was both.
And yes, somewhat less than half the Holocaust's victims were non-Jews. However, somewhat more than half *were* Jews, and Jews did not make up anywhere near half of the population of the areas the Nazis deported people from. Instead, they were *singled out because of their religion* for
extermination. Homosexuals were singled out because they offended Hitler's religious sensibilities. The rest offended Hitler politically, or were unfortunate enough to be of the wrong race.
Numbers for the two world wars are easy enough to come by: the Great War, 8.5 million military and perhaps 6 million civilian; the Second, 55 million; if you throw in the 26 million who died in the Spanish Flu epidemic (which I'm sure you'll think of some way to blame on religion) that swept the world in the aftermath of WWI, the total stands in the vicinity 96 million.
As for the Crusades, numbers are nearly impossible to guess, but the great British historian Wertham estimates the casualties at approximately 1 million. Pitirim Sorokin, on the other hand, estimated that Europeans lost some 435,000 men on all battlefields between 900 and 1450.
Even if we accept Wertham's higher numbers for the Crusades, still the two world wars did not simply kill more people than the Crusades, they exceeded the Crusades by nearly two full orders of magnitude.
Congratulations on one of the most impressive pieces of intellectual dishonesty I've seen lately! One the one hand, you're including military and civilian casualties from all sides of the wars, as well as the people killed by a plague whose severity was made worse by a war. On the other side, you're including ONLY military casualties from ONE side of the war. Man, if there was an award, you'd be up for it.
Since I can't find any information on civilian casualties during the Crusades, let's compare military casualties.
WWI military casualties: 8.5 million
WWII military casualties: Approximately 18 million Crusades military casulaties: Let's double your low-end one-side figure and go with 900,000.
So, yes, I was wrong. However, it's not even CLOSE to your alleged "couple orders of magnitude."
And as to the "Inquisition", if we presume you mean the Spanish Inquisition (which is the one most of those who don't know any better have
in mind), Juan Antonio Llorente, General Secretary of the Inquisition from 1789 to 1801, estimated that 31,912 people were executed between 1480-1808. Historian Will Durant, on the other hand, lends his weight to much lower numbers, in the vicinity of 2,000 burned between 1480 and 1504, and another 2,000 between 1504 and 1758, for a total of 4,000 burnings during the
254-year span of the Spanish Inquisition, or a rate of less than two a month.
First off, as a matter of fact, I'm talking about ALL the inquisitions carried out in Europe, Western and Eastern, by Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox. Might try leaving out some of the unwarranted assumptions you've been making here. Second, the Inquisition didn't just confine itself to burning people to death (which is what Llorente's figure actually was as well; the number of burnings, not the number of deaths). A LOT of people died under torture, or were executed in other ways. Finally, by 1808 the Inquisition was no longer in such wonderful repute, and it would be in their best interests to fudge the numbers downwards. In short, you've misinterpreted both sources, and I don't trust one.
In addition, the Spanish Inquisition was active well before 1480.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to dig up aggregate number I trust; everything I found was biased in one direction or the other. They ranged between 20 and 68 million. (Highball estimate was on a fundie christian website, incidentally. So you can skip your beloved "athiest fanatic" accusations on this one.)
I begin to wonder if you even know the meaning of the word "cause".
Well whaddya know! Another contentless ad hominem attack!
Yes, "how many" and "how much", indeed. Tell you what -- when you can provide me with something more than the idle machinations of an overactive imagination, we'll talk. Until then, all you've managed to do is bandy about some wild, half-baked speculations without attempting even a modicum of factual support. As you said yourself, simply saying something don't make it true.
Uh, dude? That, like, wasn't the point here. You're pointing out things which you believe are unrelated to religion. I'm pointing out that religious teachings CAN AND HAVE made them worse than they would would have been without organized religion spewing crap, and that they are, therefore, at least as closely connected to religion as the Spanish Flu was to WWI. Exactly how much worse? Well, given that my alternate-dimension teleporter's on the fritz today, I really don't know.
Any chance you've got an American Atheists card stuffed in your back pocket somewhere? 'cause you spout the party line pretty good. But this line was tired when Ms. O'Hair (wherever she's got to) started spouting it thirty years ago. It's just as meaningless today.
Nice little ad hominem attack there. And just because it's you're tired of hearing it doesn't make it false.
First, of course, is the problem of definition. What do you mean by "religion"? Just the "organized" religions? Any quasi-religious belief system? Throw in theosophy, Bertrand Russell and Ayn Rand? And what do you mean by "caused"? Direct causation? Contributing factor? Or just "hanging about in the general vicinity"? And what do you mean by "anything else"? Do you really mean anything else?!
In the twentieth century alone, one might argue that Stalinism (which, last I checked was atheist) has been the one of the leading causes of violent death -- Stalin's purges alone account for at least 20 million bodies, though no one really knows for sure. Throw in Hitler's six million Jews (plus an equal number of other "undesirables"), and the all and sundry other deaths from the two World Wars, and I'm afraid religion has a long way to hoe just to heave itself into the top ten.
I'm talking about organized religion, as you know perfectly well.
As far as causation, I mean people who were killed in the name of religion, or whose deaths were a result of religious teachings. Applying the same standard to atheism, most of Stalin's 20 million were not killed because of atheism; simply having an atheist instigate it is not enough. The current Chinese persecutions of religious people ARE caused by atheism.
The two world wars put together still killed less people than the various Crusades did, IIRC.
As for the Holocaust, Hitler was Catholic (thus had been taught by church leaders for years that the Jews were evil), and the Pope didn't exactly condemn the early persecutions. Furthermore, the Holocaust had its roots in the 1500 year history of persecution of and hatred towards the Jews by the Christians. Finally, how can you claim murdering people based on their religion can be lodged at any door other than religion?
And if you really mean anything else, well, we might start comparing deaths from religion (once, that is, we've agreed on definitions; see above) with, say, deaths from cancer, or STDs, or alcohol, or famine and plague.
And how many of those deaths was religion a contributing cause of? How many people have died because of religious opposition to research into the treatment of various STDs? How many people died of plagues in Europe because of the Church suppression of knowledge? (Example: Cats were agents of the devil and were spreading the plague, so they were killed en masse across Europe, instead of being kept around to kill the rats who actually were spreading the plague.) How much of the famine over the years has been due to religious opposition to birth control, and encouragement of out-of-control breeding?
Are you sure you want to play this game?
Why yes, as a matter of fact, I am.
Unless you want to beg the question by defining "civilized world" as "that part of the world which is moving away from religion", I'm afraid this assertion doesn't bear close examination, either.
*shrug* Ok, you're right; "civilized" was the wrong word there. Chalk it up to the standard Americentric upbringing. How about "post-industrial" instead?
Islam continues to be the dominant and unifying factor in the Middle East and throughout large segments of southeast Asia.
Islam a unifying factor? Ever heard of Sunni/Shiite violence? How about the various wars and terrorism directed against Isreal? (Israel happens to be part of the Middle East too, you know.) How about Hindu/Muslim violence? Unifying my ass.
I'll take your word for the situation in Asia.
Yep, and we will finally be able to breathe a sigh of relief when we're free of the Salvation Armies, the Red Crosses, the Mother Teresas, and the soup kitchens and drop-in shelters those damnable religious zealots keep trying to foist on us.
Ah yes, every possible good in the world is the result of religion, no atheist has ever had a charitable thought.
Sounds like you're as fanatically closed-minded as you want to pretend I am.
Guess the answer is no. You don't have any evidence of anyone except fundie christian prolifers killing abortionists.
And as for rudeness, you made a large number of unsupported allegations there, because your prejudices don't allow you to accept that yes, the people who are killing abortionists are, in fact, fundie christian prolifers; or that the people killing abortion doctors are not, in fact, the pro-choice people you hate and disagree with. Or that having an abortion does not, in fact, cause massive mental trauma sufficient to inspire murder. I'm sorry, but that kind of head-in-the-sand stupidity deserves nothing but rudeness.
Then along comes the Supreme Court, they pull a "right to privacy" out of their asses (it sure didn't come from the Constitution)
Ummm... Yes, it did. First off, it's a logical extension of the 4th, 5th, and 1st amendments. Second, look up the 9th Amendment. Just because a right isn't spelled out in the Bill of Rights doesn't mean we don't have it.
overrule the >50% percent judgment of the people from coast to coast.
Bzzzzt. The majority of the population of the US supports legal abortions, and has for decades. Since about 1960, IIRC. That's why abortion was ALREADY LEGAL in the majority of states. All Roe vs Wade did was overturn laws which the SC found to be against the Constitution. Which is the SC's responsibility.
Uh... No. What he's saying is that free speech should be restricted so that people can, like, not get killed.
A pleasant trip to school may not be a right, but wouldn't you say an 8 year old has a right to go to school without someone screaming at them that their daddy is a murderer and they're going to hell? Wouldn't you say people should have a right to send their kids to school without having to be afraid that some religious nut is going to kidnap and kill them as "justice?" Because the doctors' childrens' names, photos, schools, schedules, etc. were part of what was on that website. (Along with, of course, the same information about the doctors themselves.)
Try actually reading what he's saying next time, instead of what you want him to be saying.
This idea used to be shot down by the theory that we evolve in the womb.
Now we know that all of the necessary genetic information that makes you "you" and me "me" is present and complete when the sperm enters the egg.
Uh... When? We've kinda known that for, like, a century now.
Nice strawman argument, though.
(didja ever notice that planned parenthood never mentions the idea of 'baby' when they run their ads? Their latest campaign only mentions 'choice' and 'rights.' They don't want to mention 'baby' because it undermines their position to acknowledge the personhood of the one being sucked into a sink.)
Didja ever notice that the pro-lifers never mention the idea of 'choice' or 'rights' when they run their ads, only 'baby'? They don't want to mention 'choice' or 'rights' because in undermines their position to acknowledge that women have the right to control their own bodies. And since they don't have any rational arguments, they have to use emotional trigger words like 'baby'.
Abortion is killing of developing humans.
Developing humans. Potential humans. As such, they do not merit the same protections that real humans do. I'm sorry, but a microscopic blob of cells is not and cannot be considered a human being.
Excuse me, but do you have one single reference for ANY of that load of shit you just spewed? ONE case where ONE of you're "I wouldn't be surprised" scenarios actually happened?
If not, fuck off. Because we've got PLENTY of cases where fundie christian pro-lifers killed abortion providers because they provided abortions.
There were dozens, scattered across Europe and through the centuries and the body count of even the most widespread of them pales next to that of, say, American fast food.
Ah, but you really can't say fast food ever killed anyone. It's only been *one* of the causes in all the deaths attributable to it. You can't say that about someone who's been racked to death.
Furthermore, unlike American fast food, the inquistions were localized. Let's compare the death toll of the inquisitions in western Europe in, say, the 14th century with the number of people in the 20th century where American fast food was one of the first couple factors in their death. Which do YOU think is gonna be bigger? And the fast food today has a much larger number of people to act on.
Do you REALLY want to compare the number of deaths caused or excused by religion worldwide throughout history, or even in the last couple centuries, to the deaths attributable to some other factor?
Religion has caused more deaths than anything else in the entire history of the world. Thankfully, most of the rest of the civilized world is moving away from it. It's just the fucking Jesus freaks in the US who can't get over it. Someday, with any luck, humanity will be free from its plague.
Slashdot Mirror
That's right. Uranium ore is radioactive, but it's not especially dangerous. You don't even really need protective gear to handle the fuel before it goes into the reactor, unless it's your job and you're doing it regularly
Afterward, however, the spent fuel contains isotopes much more radioactive than U-235/238, as well as transuranic elements, making it about the most lethal stuff around.
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While I broadly agree with you, I have to pick up on a few points:
:)
Vice versa
1. Copyright and fair use are in fact granted; in the absence of copyright law, neither of these would exist.
2. It is wider than the US. However, as a US citizen, I'm only qualified to comment on the rights I have as an American.
Also, the US is currently leading the way in the creation of laws extending copyright, and it's US companies leading the way in the creation of access control technologies. If it can be stopped here, it will make it less likely that they'll be implemented elsewhere.
3. They're entitled to, and it's certainly legal, but measures aimed at restricting fair use are, at the least, ethically dubious. Since most of these technologies are about access control more than copy protection, fair use/first sale is what they're aimed at.
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How does Fair Use apply? Does it let you copy one track from a CD for a friend? No. Let the friend borrow the CD and if they like it enough, they can buy their own. Does it apply to software? Most software agreements allow you one archive copy. If you're making multiple copies for your friends, then it's not Fair Use.
/. community needs to grow up and realize that it isn't personal.
And back to SDMI. Currently there's so many problems with it that it's more of a joke then anything else. Is it a problem? Not unless you feel the need to have umpteen backup copies of your favorite game (just in case your hard drive formats itself umpteen-1 times, I'm sure).
Fact: fair use allows me the right to make backup copies.
Fact: SDMI will not allow me to make those backup copies at all.
In addition, it will prevent me from copying to a different media to play in my car (fair use), cutting out passages for criticism of a song (fair use), or creating parodies (fair use).
Therefore, SDMI will interfere with my fair use rights. What part of this do you not understand?
As for making a ton of backup copies, until they're distributed, they're not illegal. Just because you don't have any reason for multiple backup copies doesn't mean other people don't, and it doesn't make it copyright infringement.
So what if they're aimed at me and you.... am I supposed to be automatically paranoid because the "man" is somehow out to get me through SDMI, CSS, KFC, or whatever TLA/FLA comes along?
If they're aimed at you and me, then it's not paranoia to assume they're out to get you.
IMAO, a large portion of the
*snicker* "Grow up?" Ah yes, of course. Maturity will henceforth be defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as agreement with Kierthos.
Wake the fuck up. Just because someone has priorities different from yours doesn't make them immature. As a matter of fact, accepting that values different from your own may be equally valid is generally considered part of maturity. So maybe you're the one who needs to do some growing up, hmmmm?
I don't know about you, when someone tries to take away my rights without my consent, I take it personally. But being "grown up", I'm sure you don't give a damn about your rights. I don't *care* if it isn't personal; the fact that they're trying to take away everyone's rights as well as mine does not make it acceptable. Do you believe it would somehow be OK to cut out the tongues of political dissidents, as long as they did it to everyone else, too? If that's you're idea of "maturity", I'll stick with being an infant, thanks.
They are trying to solve what they perceive as a legitimate problem with their business model.
Legitimate response to a problem with a business model: find a better business model.
Non-legitimate response to a problem with a business model: Buy laws and create technologies that attempt to prevent the exercise of the legally granted rights of American citizens.
Which are the media conglomerates doing?
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The GPL is not a licence that cares about the freedom of the source code. In fact its is more demanding than any closed source licence. It not only tries to control your use of the product that is licenced but any future product based on it.
That's bullshit, and you know it. Unlike any closed source license around, it doesn't limit your use of the program at all, either of the program or its derivatives. It only controls your distribution of the program. Given closed source licenses don't allow redistribution at all, redistribution under pretty damn reasonable conditions is FAR more free.
Because of this control of the whole line of decendants the GPL limits innovation nearly as much as closed source. It prohibits any author that does not agree with the GPL from using the code in any way. This is all fine for your "club of likeminded developers" but if you are truely shooting for freedom and want to spur innovation you would use a truely free licence.
Again, that's bull. It prevents a licensee who does not agree with the GPL from redistribution under a license other than the GPL. The author can do anything he likes. The licensee can also do anything he likes with the code, he just can't redistribute changes in a non-free form. How does this restrict innovation?
Something that required that your name be included in the documentation of any derivative document and would require that your source be made available upon request.
And the GPL doesn't even require the first one, just the second. That makes the GPL more free than your proposed license. So how does the GPL restrict innovation more than your proposed license would?
I'm all for the creators of software controling what happens with it but the GPL rubs me the wrong way when it seeks to control other works that the original author did not create.
It doesn't, and any claim that it does is pure rhetoric. The GPL controls what you can do with my work. If you are not using my code, you can do what you like. But if you ARE using my code, you have no right to expect me not to put conditions on it. If you don't like the conditions, stop whining and write it yourself.
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Nope. I don't believe that. Being censored does not mean you've lost the right to free speech, it just means that someone is violating that right. The same principle applies here. The copyright owner still has the right to control distribution, within limitations. Violating that right doesn't take it away.
In addition, being able "distribute the software the way he wants" does not equate to absolute control over distribution. First sale and fair use both limit that control, as does the AHRA under certain circumstances.
OFFTOPIC: Does anyone else think they should just get rid of "Underrated" and "Overrated"? I've only seen "Underrated" used by trolls to mod up other trolls, and "Overrated" is only used by idiots who aren't bright enough to come up with an actual rebuttal to a post they disagree with.
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WELL. I mean shit, why should we put our bags on the belt and walk through metal detectors at the airport because *some* people use bombs to blow up airplanes? They're stomping all over my right to privacy! Just because the FAA, the airlines, and the airports are losing money doesn't mean they can restrict MY rights in any way.
Well, ya see, I voluntarily accept those invasions of my privacy because they kinda like help keep me from getting blown up. Not that the risk is real high, but I kinda like keeping it that way.
Regardless of what you may think or what blind eye you choose to turn to the situation, the RIAA isn't going to pounce on something with no justification
Did you actually manage to type that with a straight face?
Why not? You write a book and decide to sell it for $12.95. I steal the manuscript from your desk, make a shitload of photocopies, and give them away. Are you as an author not going to attempt to regulate that?
You're damn right I would. However, I'd do it by suing you, not Xerox.
Oh, I see. So they're perfectly within their freedom to protect themselves, just so long as it doesn't inconvenience you, right? Because all of the 'rights' you are arguing about aren't rights.
Bullshit. Fair use. First sale. Oh, and privacy, free speech, and freedom of association are all constitutionally protected. You may argue they don't apply, but claiming they're not rights is bullshit.
You're merely pandering to popular opinion hoping to score a bit of brownie points.
And all you're doing is whoring for karma by posting something against the Slashdot consensus so that idiots with mod points will try to demonstrate how openminded they are by modding you up.
Aren't ad hominem attacks fun?
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If AOL owns the copyright, they can do anything they'd like with it, regardless of the license they release it to others under.
If AOL does not own the source for a GPL'd app, then they have to comply with the GPL. In fact, there's no difference under the law between AOL and some third party. If you're just talking about using the output from one program as the input to another, then I don't believe that not releasing the AOL interface as GPL'd software would be a GPL violation. If they couple the two programs more tightly (for example, as in this case, making Gecko a library AOL required to function correctly), then not GPLing the whole mess probably would be a GPL violation.
If AOL does not own the copyright to GPL'd code, then the answer to your first question is probably yes. The answer to the second question would depend on how the extension was distributed. If it was distributed as a plugin, then I don't believe that would violate the GPL. However, if they were distributing a version of the proprietary app modified by GPL'd code, then they would have to release the whole mess under the GPL.
Vidomi most likely is violating the GPL. At runtime, it's not a matter of piping output from one to the other. They're distributing VirtualDub as a library, so VirtualDub becomes a part of Vidomi's executable code at runtime. And it's not simply a plugin to extend functionality, whatever they claim. That's a legal dodge, and an extremely transparent one. VirtualDub isn't a plugin to Vidomi; if anything, it's the other way around. And that makes Vidomi a derivative work, and thus bound by the terms of the GPL.
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Bullshit. The commercial software licenses the FSF is opposed to take away rights that copyright law grants the user. The GPL grants rights to the user that the user would not normally have in law, but only if the user agrees to play by the GPL's rules. If they don't, they can still use the program, modify it, profit by it, do whatever the want with it--except distribute it. Find me one single proprietary software license that gives the user that much freedom even if they don't agree to the license.
The GPL doesn't force you into anything.
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Mozilla isn't licensed under the GPL; it's MPL/NPL.
Even if it were, AOL owns the copyright, so they can distribute Mozilla in any way they damn well want. The only license terms they'd need to worry about violating are the terms under which MS licensed IE to them.
Not sure about the 3rd party; I don't recall which rights the MPL gives licensees offhand.
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And the fact that you fail to understand that there is a lot more to a microchip that instruction flow makes yours equally valueless. This valuelessness is only increased by the fact that you are unable to comprehend that disagreeing with your simpleminded blather does not constitute fanaticism.
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The whole point of all of this is that the world needs software development, and that software helps industry and the world run more effectively
And why does this equate to needing bloated monopolistic mass-market software companies? Are you mentally incompetant enough to believe that only Microsoft and other huge companies can write software?
The OSS zealots insist that despite the intrinsic value of that software, it should be free. Sure software developers are responsible for helping grow more crops, build more cars, and mine more metals, but who cares?
First off, software has zero intrinsic value. Zip. Zilch. Nada. All software is is a bunch of bits on a hard drive. The only value it has is in what it enables its user to do. In addition, the applications you listed are all niche applications, most likely written in-house, which even the FSF does not believe need to be Free. Try again.
Despite the rantings of paranoid fools like you, I have yet to meet the person who believes that every piece of software ever written should be distributed on the internet. What we believe is that no software vendor should be able to *hold us hostage.* I know it's hard for you to understand, but there is a difference.
Software should be free for all and software developers apparently should live off the crumbs of charity thrown their way.
That is not what we believe, and you know it. Stop lying.
We believe sofware developers should be paid by the companies who provide support for software, or for writing the in-house applications that employ the vast majority of programmers today. Microsoft and the other mass-market-only software shops employ a very small percentage of the developers working today.
Then again the Nazi movement lined up supporters too.
So not only are we communists, we're Nazis too. You really don't have any arguments, do you?
This whole arrogant rant of yours also failed to address his point, which was that markets change. We should not be expected to feel sympathy for companies that go out of business because they couldn't keep up with market conditions. Nor are we under any obligation to support a failing business model. It is the company's obligation to make a profit, not ours to give them one. If they cannot do that without obscene invasions of the freedoms of ordinary citizens, then they damn well deserve to go out of business.
The only people who fail to see the value of software, and the IP protection required to ensure it isn't stolen from them (because most people, when given the choice between doing the right thing and looking out for only themselves, will look out for only themselves), are fanatics who aren't benefitting and they despise those who are benefitting.
Another blatant lie. You're forgetting those of us who DO support copyrights, patents, and trademarks. However, we recognize that they are NOT property; there is no *right* to them. They are social compacts only.
What we are opposed to is draconian laws bought by the software manufacturers from corrupt politicians who ignore the responsibility they have to the people who elected them. There is no need for the DMCA, for UCITA, for copyrights that will never expire. They are, in fact, completely unconstitutional, as well as damaging to the free market system. Anyone who supports capitalism and the American way of life should oppose these laws.
I think the ultimate irony, which is brought up again and again, is that Linus happily takes paycheques from a company that is developing a chip that would be ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS without IP protection. The silicon is worth about $0.02, but put the design they created on it and suddenly it's worth hundreds. I respect that Linus works for Transmeta, and personally I think he's very respectable (and not nearly the zealot as most of those clowns), but this hypocrisy is just so glaring, and it's amazing how no one bothers following up.
Yeah, you Microsoft astroturfers keep spouting this, no matter how many times we point out that it's crap. The Open Source movement has no problem whatsoever with hardware patents. The issues are with software patents, and with the laws which have extended copyright *far* beyond what the Founding Fathers intended. The Open Source movement *supports* copyright, patents, and trademarks. No matter how many times you and Mundie repeat the blatant, bald faced lie that we don't, you won't make it true.
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yes, buts its done for `ethical' reasons. Most businesses don't share or care bour the FSF ethics. Open Source promotes Open Source because, on an engineeering levels, it is often *better*. Quality matters. Ethics don't.
And that makes the FSF anti-business exactly how? Being completely indifferent to the concerns of business does not make you anti-business.
The FSF dissapproving of closed an Open source software interoperting sucks and is not realistic. Most businesses will continue to use what's best, whether that be Apache or MS Word, because it (in their minds) is the bets for the job they are doing. Open Source interoperating with closed is an important part of this. Haven't you ever used Samba?
You still haven't answered him: When did the FSF ever say they disapproved? Ever heard of a straw-man argument?
Agreed more than 110% about the use of commerical. You seem to be repeating what I said, but anyway. `Followers' should actually be more specific - `official web site' is a good replacement.
No, he wasn't. He was pointing out that once again, you're putting words in the FSF's mouth. The FSF itself has never claimed--on its web site or anywhere else--that 'corporate interests and Free Software are mutually exclusive.' What people unaffiliated with the FSF have to say has no reflection whatsoever on the FSF, no matter how much you want to believe it does.
If this is sad, then refute me. You haven't yet.
Yes, he did. You're just too stupid to figure it out.
Furthermore, you haven't come anywhere near proving your point, was that the FSF is anti-business. Half your arguments don't relate to your point, and the other half are completely false.
Try again.
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Isn't that a GPL violation in and of itself? Doesn't the GPL say that derivative programs can't be distributed under any terms more restrictive than the GPL?
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As you know perfectly well, that's a load of crap. Stop twisting other people's words around.
First off, the GPL is designed to preserve *user* freedom, not *distributor* freedom. You've been trolling Slashdot long enough to know that.
Second, the fact that something is not completely about freedom does not mean that it's "not about freedom at all". To make that claim is sheer intellectual dishonesty.
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Of course, there is the minor detail that the group that determined this was headed by Newton...
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"Ad hominem" means "to the man" -- attacking the messenger instead of the message, which I did not do.
Funny, that snide little "Have your atheist card? cause you spout the party line pretty good" sure as hell didn't look like any kind of attack on my message to me.
Whoa. Let's leave the goalposts in one place, shall we? We can't blame atheism for Stalin just because Stalin was atheist; however, World War II was all the pope's fault just because Hitler was Catholic. Yup -- works for me. Not.
Cute. Quoting me out of context. Here, let me quote the next part of that:
"As for the Holocaust, Hitler was Catholic (thus had been taught by church leaders for years that the Jews were evil), "
The fact that he was Catholic means that his church had been teaching him for years that the Jews were evil. See how that works? Hitler's being Catholic actually has, like, relevance, ya know what I mean?
Additionally, I never said that the Pope was responsible for World War II. (Though his extensive support of of the Nazi and Fascist regimes didn't exactly prevent it.) What I said was that Catholicism was one of the main instigators of the attempted extermination of the Jews. Try responding to what I actually said, OK?
Well, which is it? "Killed in the name of religion" is a fairly clear target, but "a result of religious teachings" is way too self-servingly
ambiguous to be of practical use, as you proceed to demonstrate.
Really? I'd say it's pretty obvious. When an organized religion (Catholicism, for example) goes out of its way to prevent the dissemination
of information and proceeds to spread false information in its place, then I'd have to say that that religion is at fault for any deaths caused by this. I'd also have to say that when a religion says that an act is EVIL and should be punishable by death (homosexuality, for example), and then, following that teaching, someone (a group of rednecks with a pickup, say, or maybe a short guy with a bad mustache) proceeds to do what they've been told by their religious leaders, then maybe their religion is responsible?
It's actually pretty damn obvious (at least to people who don't practice fuzzy thinking, and aren't trying to confuse the issue) when religious
teachings caused death.
It is true that nearly six million Jews were exterminated during the Holocaust. It is equally true that more than five million non-Jews lost
their lives. The man who, on August 22, 1939, mustered his stormtroopers to kill "without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent" was a racist, not a religious bigot.
Uh, dude? Being a racist doesn't mean you're not a religious bigot. Hitler was both.
And yes, somewhat less than half the Holocaust's victims were non-Jews. However, somewhat more than half *were* Jews, and Jews did not make up anywhere near half of the population of the areas the Nazis deported people from. Instead, they were *singled out because of their religion* for
extermination. Homosexuals were singled out because they offended Hitler's religious sensibilities. The rest offended Hitler politically, or were unfortunate enough to be of the wrong race.
Numbers for the two world wars are easy enough to come by: the Great War, 8.5 million military and perhaps 6 million civilian; the Second, 55 million; if you throw in the 26 million who died in the Spanish Flu epidemic (which I'm sure you'll think of some way to blame on religion) that swept the world in the aftermath of WWI, the total stands in the vicinity 96 million.
As for the Crusades, numbers are nearly impossible to guess, but the great British historian Wertham estimates the casualties at approximately 1 million. Pitirim Sorokin, on the other hand, estimated that Europeans lost some 435,000 men on all battlefields between 900 and 1450.
Even if we accept Wertham's higher numbers for the Crusades, still the two world wars did not simply kill more people than the Crusades, they exceeded the Crusades by nearly two full orders of magnitude.
Congratulations on one of the most impressive pieces of intellectual dishonesty I've seen lately! One the one hand, you're including military and civilian casualties from all sides of the wars, as well as the people killed by a plague whose severity was made worse by a war. On the other side, you're including ONLY military casualties from ONE side of the war. Man, if there was an award, you'd be up for it.
Since I can't find any information on civilian casualties during the Crusades, let's compare military casualties.
WWI military casualties: 8.5 million
WWII military casualties: Approximately 18 million
Crusades military casulaties: Let's double your low-end one-side figure and go with 900,000.
So, yes, I was wrong. However, it's not even CLOSE to your alleged "couple orders of magnitude."
And as to the "Inquisition", if we presume you mean the Spanish Inquisition (which is the one most of those who don't know any better have
in mind), Juan Antonio Llorente, General Secretary of the Inquisition from 1789 to 1801, estimated that 31,912 people were executed between 1480-1808. Historian Will Durant, on the other hand, lends his weight to much lower numbers, in the vicinity of 2,000 burned between 1480 and 1504, and another 2,000 between 1504 and 1758, for a total of 4,000 burnings during the
254-year span of the Spanish Inquisition, or a rate of less than two a month.
First off, as a matter of fact, I'm talking about ALL the inquisitions carried out in Europe, Western and Eastern, by Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox. Might try leaving out some of the unwarranted assumptions you've been making here. Second, the Inquisition didn't just confine itself to burning people to death (which is what Llorente's figure actually was as well; the number of burnings, not the number of deaths). A LOT of people died under torture, or were executed in other ways. Finally, by 1808 the Inquisition was no longer in such wonderful repute, and it would be in their best interests to fudge the numbers downwards. In short, you've misinterpreted both sources, and I don't trust one.
In addition, the Spanish Inquisition was active well before 1480.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to dig up aggregate number I trust; everything I found was biased in one direction or the other. They ranged between 20 and 68 million. (Highball estimate was on a fundie christian website, incidentally. So you can skip your beloved "athiest fanatic" accusations on this one.)
I begin to wonder if you even know the meaning of the word "cause".
Well whaddya know! Another contentless ad hominem attack!
Yes, "how many" and "how much", indeed. Tell you what -- when you can provide me with something more than the idle machinations of an overactive imagination, we'll talk. Until then, all you've managed to do is bandy about some wild, half-baked speculations without attempting even a modicum of factual support. As you said yourself, simply saying something don't make it true.
Uh, dude? That, like, wasn't the point here. You're pointing out things which you believe are unrelated to religion. I'm pointing out that religious teachings CAN AND HAVE made them worse than they would would have been without organized religion spewing crap, and that they are, therefore, at least as closely connected to religion as the Spanish Flu was to WWI. Exactly how much worse? Well, given that my alternate-dimension teleporter's on the fritz today, I really don't know.
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Funny, I thought we'd known that for years.
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Any chance you've got an American Atheists card stuffed in your back pocket somewhere? 'cause you spout the party line pretty good. But this line was tired when Ms. O'Hair (wherever she's got to) started spouting it thirty years ago. It's just as meaningless today.
Nice little ad hominem attack there. And just because it's you're tired of hearing it doesn't make it false.
First, of course, is the problem of definition. What do you mean by "religion"? Just the "organized" religions? Any quasi-religious belief system? Throw in theosophy, Bertrand Russell and Ayn Rand? And what do you mean by "caused"? Direct causation? Contributing factor? Or just "hanging about in the general vicinity"? And what do you mean by "anything else"? Do you really mean anything else?!
In the twentieth century alone, one might argue that Stalinism (which, last I checked was atheist) has been the one of the leading causes of violent death -- Stalin's purges alone account for at least 20 million bodies, though no one really knows for sure. Throw in Hitler's six million Jews (plus an equal number of other "undesirables"), and the all and sundry other deaths from the two World Wars, and I'm afraid religion has a long way to hoe just to heave itself into the top ten.
I'm talking about organized religion, as you know perfectly well.
As far as causation, I mean people who were killed in the name of religion, or whose deaths were a result of religious teachings. Applying the same standard to atheism, most of Stalin's 20 million were not killed because of atheism; simply having an atheist instigate it is not enough. The current Chinese persecutions of religious people ARE caused by atheism.
The two world wars put together still killed less people than the various Crusades did, IIRC.
As for the Holocaust, Hitler was Catholic (thus had been taught by church leaders for years that the Jews were evil), and the Pope didn't exactly condemn the early persecutions. Furthermore, the Holocaust had its roots in the 1500 year history of persecution of and hatred towards the Jews by the Christians. Finally, how can you claim murdering people based on their religion can be lodged at any door other than religion?
And if you really mean anything else, well, we might start comparing deaths from religion (once, that is, we've agreed on definitions; see above) with, say, deaths from cancer, or STDs, or alcohol, or famine and plague.
And how many of those deaths was religion a contributing cause of? How many people have died because of religious opposition to research into the treatment of various STDs? How many people died of plagues in Europe because of the Church suppression of knowledge? (Example: Cats were agents of the devil and were spreading the plague, so they were killed en masse across Europe, instead of being kept around to kill the rats who actually were spreading the plague.) How much of the famine over the years has been due to religious opposition to birth control, and encouragement of out-of-control breeding?
Are you sure you want to play this game?
Why yes, as a matter of fact, I am.
Unless you want to beg the question by defining "civilized world" as "that part of the world which is moving away from religion", I'm afraid this assertion doesn't bear close examination, either.
*shrug* Ok, you're right; "civilized" was the wrong word there. Chalk it up to the standard Americentric upbringing. How about "post-industrial" instead?
Islam continues to be the dominant and unifying factor in the Middle East and throughout large segments of southeast Asia.
Islam a unifying factor? Ever heard of Sunni/Shiite violence? How about the various wars and terrorism directed against Isreal? (Israel happens to be part of the Middle East too, you know.) How about Hindu/Muslim violence? Unifying my ass.
I'll take your word for the situation in Asia.
Yep, and we will finally be able to breathe a sigh of relief when we're free of the Salvation Armies, the Red Crosses, the Mother Teresas, and the soup kitchens and drop-in shelters those damnable religious zealots keep trying to foist on us.
Ah yes, every possible good in the world is the result of religion, no atheist has ever had a charitable thought.
Sounds like you're as fanatically closed-minded as you want to pretend I am.
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Guess the answer is no. You don't have any evidence of anyone except fundie christian prolifers killing abortionists.
And as for rudeness, you made a large number of unsupported allegations there, because your prejudices don't allow you to accept that yes, the people who are killing abortionists are, in fact, fundie christian prolifers; or that the people killing abortion doctors are not, in fact, the pro-choice people you hate and disagree with. Or that having an abortion does not, in fact, cause massive mental trauma sufficient to inspire murder. I'm sorry, but that kind of head-in-the-sand stupidity deserves nothing but rudeness.
Until you have some evidence, I repeat: fuck off.
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Then along comes the Supreme Court, they pull a "right to privacy" out of their asses (it sure didn't come from the Constitution)
Ummm... Yes, it did. First off, it's a logical extension of the 4th, 5th, and 1st amendments. Second, look up the 9th Amendment. Just because a right isn't spelled out in the Bill of Rights doesn't mean we don't have it.
overrule the >50% percent judgment of the people from coast to coast.
Bzzzzt. The majority of the population of the US supports legal abortions, and has for decades. Since about 1960, IIRC. That's why abortion was ALREADY LEGAL in the majority of states. All Roe vs Wade did was overturn laws which the SC found to be against the Constitution. Which is the SC's responsibility.
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Look up the 10th Amendment sometime.
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Uh... No. What he's saying is that free speech should be restricted so that people can, like, not get killed.
A pleasant trip to school may not be a right, but wouldn't you say an 8 year old has a right to go to school without someone screaming at them that their daddy is a murderer and they're going to hell? Wouldn't you say people should have a right to send their kids to school without having to be afraid that some religious nut is going to kidnap and kill them as "justice?" Because the doctors' childrens' names, photos, schools, schedules, etc. were part of what was on that website. (Along with, of course, the same information about the doctors themselves.)
Try actually reading what he's saying next time, instead of what you want him to be saying.
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This idea used to be shot down by the theory that we evolve in the womb.
Now we know that all of the necessary genetic information that makes you "you" and me "me" is present and complete when the sperm enters the egg.
Uh... When? We've kinda known that for, like, a century now.
Nice strawman argument, though.
(didja ever notice that planned parenthood never mentions the idea of 'baby' when they run their ads? Their latest campaign only mentions 'choice' and 'rights.' They don't want to mention 'baby' because it undermines their position to acknowledge the personhood of the one being sucked into a sink.)
Didja ever notice that the pro-lifers never mention the idea of 'choice' or 'rights' when they run their ads, only 'baby'? They don't want to mention 'choice' or 'rights' because in undermines their position to acknowledge that women have the right to control their own bodies. And since they don't have any rational arguments, they have to use emotional trigger words like 'baby'.
Abortion is killing of developing humans.
Developing humans. Potential humans. As such, they do not merit the same protections that real humans do. I'm sorry, but a microscopic blob of cells is not and cannot be considered a human being.
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Huh?
Excuse me, but do you have one single reference for ANY of that load of shit you just spewed? ONE case where ONE of you're "I wouldn't be surprised" scenarios actually happened?
If not, fuck off. Because we've got PLENTY of cases where fundie christian pro-lifers killed abortion providers because they provided abortions.
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There were dozens, scattered across Europe and through the centuries and the body count of even the most widespread of them pales next to that of, say, American fast food.
Ah, but you really can't say fast food ever killed anyone. It's only been *one* of the causes in all the deaths attributable to it. You can't say that about someone who's been racked to death.
Furthermore, unlike American fast food, the inquistions were localized. Let's compare the death toll of the inquisitions in western Europe in, say, the 14th century with the number of people in the 20th century where American fast food was one of the first couple factors in their death. Which do YOU think is gonna be bigger? And the fast food today has a much larger number of people to act on.
Do you REALLY want to compare the number of deaths caused or excused by religion worldwide throughout history, or even in the last couple centuries, to the deaths attributable to some other factor?
Religion has caused more deaths than anything else in the entire history of the world. Thankfully, most of the rest of the civilized world is moving away from it. It's just the fucking Jesus freaks in the US who can't get over it. Someday, with any luck, humanity will be free from its plague.
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