We're looking at classism and the fact that in America there are two systems of justice. The first is the gentle, nice, forgiving system of justice and its for straightlaced middle class people (being white helps seriously). The other system of justice is vindictive, mean, and harsh its for anyone who isn't at least middle class and doesn't try to match the Leave it to Beaver 1950's image.
As an interesting similar case, in 1997 in Amarillo TX Dustin Camp, a local jock with a clean cut look and upper middle class parents murdered a local punk, Brian Deneke. Ran over him with his car during a fight, and according to a friend riding in the passenger seat yelled "I'm a ninja in my caddie". During the trial the judge repeatedly referred to Camp as a "boy" or a "child", and expressed the opinion that it wouldn't be right to ruin "a boy's" life with a long sentence.
Basically, if you're middle class, white, and can look like you came off the set of Leave it to Beaver, you get the kid gloves. Any freak, non-white, or poor person, they get the harsh treatment.
As you observe, things have changed since 1790. To begin with, back then the only real difference between military weapons and civilian weapons was that the civilian weapons were generally higher quality.
My personal arsenal today consists of a.22 caliber rifle with a scope, one 12 magazine fed gauge shotgun, one 10 gauge break action single barrel shotgun, and one.32 caliber pistol. I have zero grenades, fully automatic weapons, squad weapons, mortars, armored vehicles, etc. I don't keep a stockpile of ammo, I buy what I need when I go out shooting, and as a result I have one 12 gauge shell and a partially empty box of.22 long rifle bullets. I have no body armor, no helmet.
You think I'm going to have a chance against the 101st airborne?
Guerrilla war can indeed be effective, but I notice that in Iraq the weapon of choice for the guerrilla is the improvised explosive device, not a gun of any sort. Maybe we should give up the NRA and start the National IED Association?
Nonsense. I'm a gun owner but the idea that the private ownership of firearms somehow protects us from our government is the biggest bunch of falsely puffed up ego stroking crap I've ever run into. The government has armies trained in cooperative tactics, armed with fully automatic weapons, squad support weapons, superior communications, tanks, the ability to call in air strikes and artillery, and you think you and I are going to do something about that with our handguns and semi-auto rifles?
And, more to the point, there's a realworld example of why the "guns protect freedom" argument is total nonsense. Iraq. During Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime an Iraqi could walk into a gun shop and buy an AK-47 with the full auto function enabled. By your argument, therefore, Iraq under Saddam should have been a very free place, but you'll note that it wasn't.
Guns are great, I like 'em. But I don't have the need to fool myself and think that somehow I'm a movie superhero boldly protecting freedom from the evil gubment.
What protects us is that the army is made up of citizens who (we hope) believe in freedom, democracy, and (hopefully) take their oath to uphold the Constitution [1] seriously. The army would mutiny if it were ordered to occupy, say, New York City and enforce blatantly anti-Constitutional laws. That is what protects freedom in America. Not my guns, not the promises of politicians, but the simple fact that our army is made up of us.
[1] Note, not to obey the President, but to uphold the Constitution.
I'm using a process called logical inference. At the time the law was passed there was only one city in Alaska that charged rape victims to investigate the crime: Wasilla. Let me repeat, there were exactly zero other municipalities, counties, or other government bodies that charged rape victims to investigate the crime other than Wasilla.
Since Wasilla was unique, and the state law affected only Wasilla, I don't think its a stretch to conclude that the law was passed specifically to make Sarah Palin stop her campaign against rape victims.
There have been at least two separate occasions where McCain voted to empower rapists. In 1994 McCain voted against letting the federal government investigate rapes on Indian reservations [1] and mandate that rape victims not be required to pay for rape kits. That appears, to my admittedly non-expert reading, to have been a special purpose bill. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=103&session=2&vote=00295 has the details on the bill.
In 2007 he also voted against HR 3093 (Title: "A bill making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, and Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes") which, as its name states was an appropriations bill for various agencies, and which contained a provision forbidding police from charging rape victims for rape kits. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00372
Additionally, its worth noting that McCain approved of a campaign ad castigating Obama for supporting a bill in Illinois that provided for age appropriate sex ed, claiming it was porn for kindergartners. In fact, it was the usual "good touch, bad touch" type education that, not surprisingly, has been shown to help protect children against child molesters.
It would appear, based on his voting record and campaign ads, that McCain is a champion of rapists and pedophiles.
[1] This requires some explaining: for the most part Indian reservations don't have the resources to do much investigating of any crimes and under current US law no other agency can do it for them. Rape is endemic on the reservations and its one of the few places where the majority of reports of rape involve a stranger (most rape victims know their attacker). What it boils down to is that for a certain group of truly evil people the Indian reservations are known to be a place where you can rape and get away with it.
The taxpayer pays for every other police procedure. If your house is burgled they take fingerprints, etc and they don't charge you for that. That's what the police are *FOR*. That's what we pay taxes *FOR*.
Think about that. Not one other police procedure involves the police saying to the victim "well, we can investigate, but it'll cost you". Not one. You get burgled, carjacked, mugged, assaulted, whatever and the police investigate and don't bill you a penny. What possible reason could there be for making rape the single exception to that rule?
I can think of two 1) those supporting this hate rape victims and want to make them suffer more than they already have, or 2) those supporting this want to make it even more difficult than it already is for women to report rapes and prosecutors to get convictions in rape cases.
McCain has voted against a federal bill mandating that rape exams be taxpayer funded (exactly like every other part of police work) every time the measure has come up. Under Palin Wasilla was the only city in Alaska to charge rape victims (but not the victims of any other type of crime) to investigate; the state of Alaska wound up passing a law banning the practice statewide for no reason but to force Palin to stop charging rape victims (but not the victims of any other crime) for the investigation.
But, before you go complaining about what a horrible thing it is to charge the taxpayers for rape investigations, remember that we charge the taxpayers for every other sort of investigation. Why would you get upset about the taxpayer footing the bill for rape investigation if you aren't similarly upset about the taxpayer footing the bill for murder investigation, or burglary investigation, or every other bit of work the police do?
Nvidia issues seems to be the general consensus, and of course I've got an nvidia card.
I'd be grumpier if it were Warhammer 4,000 Online, but to be honest I'm getting kind of bored with pseudo-medieval settings and while Warhammer preceded Warcraft (and obviously exerted a strong influence on Warcraft) the fact is that WoW has kinda driven the pseudo-medieval thing into the ground; for me anyway.
Warhammer Online sounds cool, and what little I've been able to play was fun enough, but it seems like a rehash (regardless of the fact that it came first) because so many MMO's are pseudo-medieval. So its annoying that the crappy client keeps crashing, but it doesn't really drive me up the wall because I'm getting a mite bored with the whole meta-setting.
If Warhammer 40,000 Online comes out (please, please, please) I'll be excited and doubtless be incandescent with rage if the client crashes, but boring pseudo-medieval Warhammer? Meh, if Mythic won't fix their client I'll live, I'll be more annoyed at the loss of $50 than at the loss of a chance to play yet another pseudo-medieval type setting.
I bought it, but I can't say I "play" because that would imply I use it more than 15 minutes before the damn thing crashes. I'm sure it'd be quite fun if it worked. But I've got the latest drivers for all my hardware, I'm within spec, and it crashes, and crashes, and crashes, and crashes.
Maybe in a few months they'll release something that isn't beta quality crapware and then I'll be able to play and enjoy my $50 purchase. I mean, hell, Dwarf frickin' Fortress, officially in "highly unstable alpha" doesn't crash as often as WAR.
One thing to remember about games from the 1980's is that the game mechanics were designed around one central principle: the player must lose, requiring them to insert another quarter, frequently; ideally gameplay would last no more than three to five minutes between the need to put in a new quarter.
Talk of "game mechanics" in those games that omits that, genuinely central game mechanic, is missing the point. The game didn't have to be able to hold your attention for more than a few minutes, and it really didn't *want* to hold your attention much longer. You die, the next person in line [1] plays, dies, and the cycle continues. After a few other people play you get your turn again.
Advances in gameplay weren't really possible until we moved away from the arcade paradigm and into the home console paradigm. On a home system the object is to produce a game that will hold the player's attention for hours, a game where winning is a genuine possibility, and storylines with some depth are possible.
Pac-Man is a game designed to make you lose in three to five minutes, and have a moderately enjoyable time during those three to five minutes. Its model is broken, in that sufficiently dedicated people can memorize patterns and play effectively indefinitely, but that's a bug not a feature. It's *purpose* was to make you lose quickly and pop in another quarter.
[1] Remember putting a quarter on the case to indicate that you had dibs?
Well, yes, but as you may have noticed they *don't* desire it. Which has some rather unpleasant implications, no?
More to the point, I'm aware of the argument that there is a Very Important distinction between the religion of Judaism, and the concept of Jewish people. It doesn't work, from my POV, because the immigration laws of Israel demonstrate that, for Israel, it is the religious component that is the more important one. The marriage laws simply drive the point home.
Again, I'm simply arguing that you can't mix religion and government "just a little" and expect to get good results. Any mixing, whatsoever, even if it's done with the excuse that it isn't really religion, its tribal identity, will inevitably and inexorably result in theocracy.
Well, thanks to Bush I can no longer point to my own nation as a shining beacon of human rights. Worse I think it's extremely likely that as our soldiers trained in torture return from Iraq they will (as returning soldiers so often do) get jobs in the prison industry and we'll see an upswing of torture on American soil [1]. Still, I think the fact that its openly admitted policy in Israel is somehow worse. I also doubt rather seriously that torture in Israel isn't migrating to Jews, once you unloose that sort of thing it has a way of making a place for itself everywhere. You can't strip away human rights in one area and expect that somehow they'll stay intact elsewhere. Which is yet another reason why I fear for my own country.
As far as the Haredim, and other examples of officially sanctioned Judaism, go I will freely admit that as a politically aware atheist I get very jumpy about church/state issues. Which is why I really don't like the idea of "a Jewish state" at all; not that I *particularly* oppose Jewish states, I simply oppose any religious state. All you have to do is look at Saudi Arabia or any other Muslim nation and you can see the sort of evil that religious states entail. I see no reason to believe that there is something special about Judaism that makes it immune to the problems of religious statehood. It failed in Europe, it failed in Asia, it is failing spectacularly in the modern middle east, it will fail in Israel.
The problem is that fundamentalists are generally respected by their moderate religious counterparts. This is quite true in America, the nuts like Pat Robertson are regarded as nuts, but simultaneously looked up to because of the intensity of their belief. Their religious faith is seen as more pure, more intense, and therefore excuses any number of shortcomings. If a random gang of secular thugs had been attacking women on the Jerusalem buses they'd have been captured, tried, and imprisoned. Since it was Haredim many of the man on the street quotes from the various news articles I read about the incidents went out of their way to put the blame on the women, to excuse both the Haredim for their actions and the police for not making arrests, etc. In other words it was apparently perceived by Joe Israeli as a problem caused by the women, not by the Haredim who attacked them.
To me that, the attitude of Joe Israeli, indicates a much deeper problem than a few thuggish Haredim. One has only to look at the history of Afghanistan and Iraq to see how theocracy has a way of creeping out of the woodwork and taking a nation by surprise. Afghanistan used to be a fairly modern nation, as recently as the 1960's women walked the streets of Kabul unveiled, even in miniskirts, they were educated, etc. Forty years later look at the place. Iraq, similarly, used to be semi-secular, women were treated almost like human beings, and in post-Bush Iraq we see that women are routinely assaulted, and sometimes killed, because (like the women on the Jerusalem buses) they weren't "modest" enough for the religious nuts.
I'm not an Israel expert, but I am a historian, and history shows over and over that you can't mix religion and government "a little". Israel may not, now, be a theocracy but it is coming unless the religious nuts are squashed and a secular Israel is founded. You argue that they'd be crazy to take over, that they depend on the secular Jews for a working economy, and you are doubtless correct, I'm sure you know more about Israel than I do. But look to the other places infested with officially sanctioned religious nuts, they *DID* destroy the economies of their nations to indulge their religious nuttery. The standard of living in Afghanistan has plummeted since the 1960's, they're all but stone age in many places now, and all its done is make the religious nuts even more insanely strict and powerful.
[1] Can't find the cite, but I remember one of the Abu Gharib guards saying something to the effect of "as a human I thought it was horrible, but as a prison guard I loved it!"
If you don't live there and weren't born there I'm puzzled as to how you can describe it as your homeland.
More to the point, Israel was actually doing a terrible job on freedom and security until this. Note, just to choose one example, that the Israeli police admit (and often seem fairly proud) that torture of suspects is a routine procedure. There's a *LOT* more to criticize about Israel than this one bill.
If you genuinely think Israel has a good record on human rights, I'd recommend you do a bit more research.
And let me bring up, yet again, the fact that Haredi men seem to be empowered to commit criminal assault on any woman who refuses to kowtow to their nutty fundamentalism. If you are female I'd stay as far from Israel as possible. The state pays Haredi men not to work. I think there's quite a bit to not like about a nation that explicitly privileges its most insane religious elements.
Actually, I think Zionism is relevant to the subject at hand. The concepts of "a Jewish State" and "a state with a majority population of Jews" are quite different, and Zionism explicitly endorses the former. That's theocracy right out of the gate, and I don't think its at all surprising that an explicitly non-secular state is going down the path of totalitarianism. It goes part and parcel with being a non-secular state.
When you take into account the fact that the founders of Israel didn't bother with any guarantees of rights, a constitution, or any of the other necessary components of a free nation, but did design a state that privileges one religion over others, again, I think a discussion of the basic goal is not completely tangential.
Yes, there do appear to be a large number of people jumping out and saying "hur hur, Jews just like the Nazis", but this is Slashdot, did you really expect civility? Also, given Israel's terrible record WRT human rights, freedom, etc its hardly strange that many people here would not at all approve of Israel.
I've always agreed with Isaac Asimov: Israel was a terrible idea, poorly executed, and all it can ever hope to be is the world's largest ghetto. That Israel is continuing its policy of completely disregarding the very concept of human rights is only to be expected from a proto-theocracy.
I can, sort of, understand why some people would find the idea of a Jewish state so appealing, and it's always hard to let a dream die. But in the end the only two choices are giving up the idea of Israel as a Jewish state or letting Israel slide into the same hellhole status that awaits any theocracy. I wouldn't live there if you paid me a million Euros a year.
Assault goes to a civil court if the police chose to make arrests, etc which hasn't happened in several instances of Haredi violence towards women.
The point is that crazy fundamentalist Jews are privileged over Reform or Conservative Jews, I'd imagine non-practicing Jews get an even crappier deal. Since Israel is explicitly formed without a separation of religion and government the descent into true theocracy is only a matter of time, and since Israel has nothing resembling a bill of rights the trip into police stateism has already begun.
It is possible to criticize the nation of Israel without being a Nazi troll. Admittedly there is a large degree of overlap, but let's not get carried away here.
Israel is a nation well on the way to becoming yet another theocratic police state just like Saudi Arabia. Recognizing that this is true does not require one to be an anti-Semite. As an atheist I hold Judaism in exactly the same degree of contempt that I hold all other religions, and I have nothing whatsoever against any Jews on the basis of their Jewishness.
That said, the nation of Israel is looking worse every day, and I think its no surprise at all that the USA has about as large a population of Jews as Israel does. Jews who aren't crazy fundamentalists realize that Israel is getting ever closer to becoming a genuine hellhole and they want nothing to do with it. Out of the worldwide Jewish population fully 60% have chosen *NOT* to live in Israel, and I think that shows a commendable degree of intelligence on their part.
What separation, exactly, exists between the state of Israel and the religion of Orthodox Judaism? You can't even get married there unless you qualify for an Orthodox marriage [1].
[1] Reform Jews, it should be noted, basically get bupkis out of Israel. Orthodox loonies get government subsidies so they can beat their wives and stay home reading the Torah all day instead of working.
I'm not an expert, but as a rule of thumb the answer to any question that begins "why don't they just..." is money.
Israel is not a particularly wealthy nation, it has no oil, and very little in the way of natural resources of any sort. All of the security theatre they indulge in takes an incredible amount of money, and of course, there's the cost of rebuilding all the damage done by the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has done (and continues to do) to Israel. Quite frankly, I'm surprised they have enough money in the treasury to pay Haredi men not to work, and to build special bus lines so that the Haredi can commit criminal assault on women who won't kowtow to their loony beliefs.
Like most nations falling into the trap of the police state, Israel spends all of its money on "defense" rather than on beneficial programs that could actually end the problems it faces.
You appear to have the fixed, an unjustified, idea that anonymity is a) a civil right, and b) essential for free speech. In a truly fascist state, such as the People's Republic of China, the idea that anonymity is essential for free political speech does appear to be correct.
However we aren't talking about political speech, and you seem to have confused "free speech" with "free from consequences speech". Actions have consequences, that's part of reality and all the wishing in the world won't make it different, nor should it be different. If a person chooses to be a complete asshole who thinks its funny to post personal information and rape/death threats about women online that is his right; free speech. What isn't his right is to do so in a vacuum, with no interaction between his actions and the real world. Law firms might, as is their right, choose not to employ such a person on the grounds that he is obnoxious and might cost them business.
Free speech != free from consequences speech. Your words define you, and people can choose to respond to your words. Maybe your words hurt you, in which case the fault lies with you and your words not with those who link you to your words.
Again, this argument necessarially fails in places (such as China, Korea or Saudi Arabia) where the government may execute, or imprison a person for certain words. The USA, however is not such a place, and the fact that certain political speech in one place is dangerous does not imply that non-political speech in other places must be treated in the same way.
That anonymity is essential to some sorts of speech in some areas does not make it essential to all speech in all areas.
And, finally, we come back again to the issue of your, and their, hypocrisy. They ripped away any anonymity that the women had, yet you insist that the women must respect the anonymity of those who denied it to them. If, as you say, it was fine for the women to be exposed, sans anonymity, to the world, why shouldn't they respond similarly? You seem to be demanding a double standard here.
Ummmm.... Nope, still not following. Person A completely wipes out any trace of anonymity for person B by posting their personal data online, accompanied by photos, stalker level details of schedules, and threats of violence. Note that *self*evidently* person A has no respect for the concept of anonymity because they've posted all the personal data they can get on person B.
It isn't a violation of free speech to retaliate by exposing person A's actual name. He's free to say whatever he wants, that's free speech. You want him to be free to post rape and death threats (a crime), accompanied by the violation of person B's anonymity (which you claim to worship) without anyone knowing what an asshole he is. That isn't free speech.
If anonymity is so all important in your world, why aren't you outraged that the people on AutoAdmit posted personal information about the women?
Your right to swing ends where my nose begins, right? Well, your right to be anonymous ends where violating anyone else's anonymity begins.
The entire issue was that the people at AutoAdmit had a strict policy of anonymity for their posters, and those posters used that anonymity to post photos, full names, phone numbers, etc accompanies by rape threats. They wanted anonymity for themselves while exposing their victims personal data, which seems a bit hypocritical you know?
Let's see if I can follow your logic here. Pseudo-Anonymous people on a blog post photos, home address, email addresses, telephone numbers, and full legal names, of women accompanied by death threats and rape threats. That's perfectly ok.
The women seek to have the identities of the people who posted their identities revealed, that's horrible and makes them asswipes?
Can you explain where you're coming from here, because honestly I'm not following you. Why is it ok for the "let's rape the bitches" crowd to post the names and other personal information of the women, but it isn't ok for us to know the identities of the people doing the posting?
Maybe. OTOH the original light cycles were cool and abused physics with those 90 degree turns, they looked nifty and shouted in all caps "this is not the world you're used to!". The new light cycles come to a stop (WTF?) and make boring real world type turns, for all you know they're just a bunch of twits in downtown LA with neon lights on their racing bikes.
The problems you list are very much real, but not quite so insurmountable as they might be.
The main problem is getting stuff out of Earth's gravity well, and that has various possible solutions. A magnetic catapult of only modest length (5km or so) could be constructed for only a few billion with off the shelf components and could be used to fling any non-delicate stuff you want into orbit. The only pollution involved there would be from generating the electricity to run the catapult. That alone could take care of the vast majority of what is needed for survival in space (food, air, water, most electronic and mechanical components, raw materials, etc).
The space plane option requires new tech, but new tech that is mostly a matter of engineering rather than breakthroughs, and would be quite handy for carrying delicate cargo (humans, for example).
The ESA has some hybrid plans for a scramjet based space plane launched from a lower acceleration catapult to get it up to the speed necessary for the scramjet to function.
More to the point, even if we just pushed the ISS out to a stable lunar orbit and had to leave it there for a few years (decades even) its a better plan than letting it crash into the Earth. We spent billions putting that stuff up there, the last thing we need to do is waste that effort by letting it fall down again.
A lunar orbiting ISS would, even if we can't use it today, be an investment in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
We're looking at classism and the fact that in America there are two systems of justice. The first is the gentle, nice, forgiving system of justice and its for straightlaced middle class people (being white helps seriously). The other system of justice is vindictive, mean, and harsh its for anyone who isn't at least middle class and doesn't try to match the Leave it to Beaver 1950's image.
As an interesting similar case, in 1997 in Amarillo TX Dustin Camp, a local jock with a clean cut look and upper middle class parents murdered a local punk, Brian Deneke. Ran over him with his car during a fight, and according to a friend riding in the passenger seat yelled "I'm a ninja in my caddie". During the trial the judge repeatedly referred to Camp as a "boy" or a "child", and expressed the opinion that it wouldn't be right to ruin "a boy's" life with a long sentence.
Basically, if you're middle class, white, and can look like you came off the set of Leave it to Beaver, you get the kid gloves. Any freak, non-white, or poor person, they get the harsh treatment.
As you observe, things have changed since 1790. To begin with, back then the only real difference between military weapons and civilian weapons was that the civilian weapons were generally higher quality.
My personal arsenal today consists of a .22 caliber rifle with a scope, one 12 magazine fed gauge shotgun, one 10 gauge break action single barrel shotgun, and one .32 caliber pistol. I have zero grenades, fully automatic weapons, squad weapons, mortars, armored vehicles, etc. I don't keep a stockpile of ammo, I buy what I need when I go out shooting, and as a result I have one 12 gauge shell and a partially empty box of .22 long rifle bullets. I have no body armor, no helmet.
You think I'm going to have a chance against the 101st airborne?
Guerrilla war can indeed be effective, but I notice that in Iraq the weapon of choice for the guerrilla is the improvised explosive device, not a gun of any sort. Maybe we should give up the NRA and start the National IED Association?
Nonsense. I'm a gun owner but the idea that the private ownership of firearms somehow protects us from our government is the biggest bunch of falsely puffed up ego stroking crap I've ever run into. The government has armies trained in cooperative tactics, armed with fully automatic weapons, squad support weapons, superior communications, tanks, the ability to call in air strikes and artillery, and you think you and I are going to do something about that with our handguns and semi-auto rifles?
And, more to the point, there's a realworld example of why the "guns protect freedom" argument is total nonsense. Iraq. During Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime an Iraqi could walk into a gun shop and buy an AK-47 with the full auto function enabled. By your argument, therefore, Iraq under Saddam should have been a very free place, but you'll note that it wasn't.
Guns are great, I like 'em. But I don't have the need to fool myself and think that somehow I'm a movie superhero boldly protecting freedom from the evil gubment.
What protects us is that the army is made up of citizens who (we hope) believe in freedom, democracy, and (hopefully) take their oath to uphold the Constitution [1] seriously. The army would mutiny if it were ordered to occupy, say, New York City and enforce blatantly anti-Constitutional laws. That is what protects freedom in America. Not my guns, not the promises of politicians, but the simple fact that our army is made up of us.
[1] Note, not to obey the President, but to uphold the Constitution.
I'm using a process called logical inference. At the time the law was passed there was only one city in Alaska that charged rape victims to investigate the crime: Wasilla. Let me repeat, there were exactly zero other municipalities, counties, or other government bodies that charged rape victims to investigate the crime other than Wasilla.
Since Wasilla was unique, and the state law affected only Wasilla, I don't think its a stretch to conclude that the law was passed specifically to make Sarah Palin stop her campaign against rape victims.
There have been at least two separate occasions where McCain voted to empower rapists. In 1994 McCain voted against letting the federal government investigate rapes on Indian reservations [1] and mandate that rape victims not be required to pay for rape kits. That appears, to my admittedly non-expert reading, to have been a special purpose bill. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=103&session=2&vote=00295 has the details on the bill.
In 2007 he also voted against HR 3093 (Title: "A bill making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, and Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes") which, as its name states was an appropriations bill for various agencies, and which contained a provision forbidding police from charging rape victims for rape kits. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00372
Additionally, its worth noting that McCain approved of a campaign ad castigating Obama for supporting a bill in Illinois that provided for age appropriate sex ed, claiming it was porn for kindergartners. In fact, it was the usual "good touch, bad touch" type education that, not surprisingly, has been shown to help protect children against child molesters.
It would appear, based on his voting record and campaign ads, that McCain is a champion of rapists and pedophiles.
[1] This requires some explaining: for the most part Indian reservations don't have the resources to do much investigating of any crimes and under current US law no other agency can do it for them. Rape is endemic on the reservations and its one of the few places where the majority of reports of rape involve a stranger (most rape victims know their attacker). What it boils down to is that for a certain group of truly evil people the Indian reservations are known to be a place where you can rape and get away with it.
That the rape kits included emergency contraception.
Like I said: "they hate rape victims and want them to suffer more."
The taxpayer pays for every other police procedure. If your house is burgled they take fingerprints, etc and they don't charge you for that. That's what the police are *FOR*. That's what we pay taxes *FOR*.
Think about that. Not one other police procedure involves the police saying to the victim "well, we can investigate, but it'll cost you". Not one. You get burgled, carjacked, mugged, assaulted, whatever and the police investigate and don't bill you a penny. What possible reason could there be for making rape the single exception to that rule?
I can think of two 1) those supporting this hate rape victims and want to make them suffer more than they already have, or 2) those supporting this want to make it even more difficult than it already is for women to report rapes and prosecutors to get convictions in rape cases.
McCain has voted against a federal bill mandating that rape exams be taxpayer funded (exactly like every other part of police work) every time the measure has come up. Under Palin Wasilla was the only city in Alaska to charge rape victims (but not the victims of any other type of crime) to investigate; the state of Alaska wound up passing a law banning the practice statewide for no reason but to force Palin to stop charging rape victims (but not the victims of any other crime) for the investigation.
But, before you go complaining about what a horrible thing it is to charge the taxpayers for rape investigations, remember that we charge the taxpayers for every other sort of investigation. Why would you get upset about the taxpayer footing the bill for rape investigation if you aren't similarly upset about the taxpayer footing the bill for murder investigation, or burglary investigation, or every other bit of work the police do?
Nvidia issues seems to be the general consensus, and of course I've got an nvidia card.
I'd be grumpier if it were Warhammer 4,000 Online, but to be honest I'm getting kind of bored with pseudo-medieval settings and while Warhammer preceded Warcraft (and obviously exerted a strong influence on Warcraft) the fact is that WoW has kinda driven the pseudo-medieval thing into the ground; for me anyway.
Warhammer Online sounds cool, and what little I've been able to play was fun enough, but it seems like a rehash (regardless of the fact that it came first) because so many MMO's are pseudo-medieval. So its annoying that the crappy client keeps crashing, but it doesn't really drive me up the wall because I'm getting a mite bored with the whole meta-setting.
If Warhammer 40,000 Online comes out (please, please, please) I'll be excited and doubtless be incandescent with rage if the client crashes, but boring pseudo-medieval Warhammer? Meh, if Mythic won't fix their client I'll live, I'll be more annoyed at the loss of $50 than at the loss of a chance to play yet another pseudo-medieval type setting.
I bought it, but I can't say I "play" because that would imply I use it more than 15 minutes before the damn thing crashes. I'm sure it'd be quite fun if it worked. But I've got the latest drivers for all my hardware, I'm within spec, and it crashes, and crashes, and crashes, and crashes.
Maybe in a few months they'll release something that isn't beta quality crapware and then I'll be able to play and enjoy my $50 purchase. I mean, hell, Dwarf frickin' Fortress, officially in "highly unstable alpha" doesn't crash as often as WAR.
One thing to remember about games from the 1980's is that the game mechanics were designed around one central principle: the player must lose, requiring them to insert another quarter, frequently; ideally gameplay would last no more than three to five minutes between the need to put in a new quarter.
Talk of "game mechanics" in those games that omits that, genuinely central game mechanic, is missing the point. The game didn't have to be able to hold your attention for more than a few minutes, and it really didn't *want* to hold your attention much longer. You die, the next person in line [1] plays, dies, and the cycle continues. After a few other people play you get your turn again.
Advances in gameplay weren't really possible until we moved away from the arcade paradigm and into the home console paradigm. On a home system the object is to produce a game that will hold the player's attention for hours, a game where winning is a genuine possibility, and storylines with some depth are possible.
Pac-Man is a game designed to make you lose in three to five minutes, and have a moderately enjoyable time during those three to five minutes. Its model is broken, in that sufficiently dedicated people can memorize patterns and play effectively indefinitely, but that's a bug not a feature. It's *purpose* was to make you lose quickly and pop in another quarter.
[1] Remember putting a quarter on the case to indicate that you had dibs?
While I don't have anything against Buckley personally, I think his comic was best summed up in this snide and nasty review.
Unfunny, copy/pasted, bad art, Mary Sueism, derivative, etc.
I often find comics I like in Your Webcomic is Bad and You Should Feel Bad's hit list, but his review of Buckley seemed spot on.
Well, yes, but as you may have noticed they *don't* desire it. Which has some rather unpleasant implications, no?
More to the point, I'm aware of the argument that there is a Very Important distinction between the religion of Judaism, and the concept of Jewish people. It doesn't work, from my POV, because the immigration laws of Israel demonstrate that, for Israel, it is the religious component that is the more important one. The marriage laws simply drive the point home.
Again, I'm simply arguing that you can't mix religion and government "just a little" and expect to get good results. Any mixing, whatsoever, even if it's done with the excuse that it isn't really religion, its tribal identity, will inevitably and inexorably result in theocracy.
Well, thanks to Bush I can no longer point to my own nation as a shining beacon of human rights. Worse I think it's extremely likely that as our soldiers trained in torture return from Iraq they will (as returning soldiers so often do) get jobs in the prison industry and we'll see an upswing of torture on American soil [1]. Still, I think the fact that its openly admitted policy in Israel is somehow worse. I also doubt rather seriously that torture in Israel isn't migrating to Jews, once you unloose that sort of thing it has a way of making a place for itself everywhere. You can't strip away human rights in one area and expect that somehow they'll stay intact elsewhere. Which is yet another reason why I fear for my own country.
As far as the Haredim, and other examples of officially sanctioned Judaism, go I will freely admit that as a politically aware atheist I get very jumpy about church/state issues. Which is why I really don't like the idea of "a Jewish state" at all; not that I *particularly* oppose Jewish states, I simply oppose any religious state. All you have to do is look at Saudi Arabia or any other Muslim nation and you can see the sort of evil that religious states entail. I see no reason to believe that there is something special about Judaism that makes it immune to the problems of religious statehood. It failed in Europe, it failed in Asia, it is failing spectacularly in the modern middle east, it will fail in Israel.
The problem is that fundamentalists are generally respected by their moderate religious counterparts. This is quite true in America, the nuts like Pat Robertson are regarded as nuts, but simultaneously looked up to because of the intensity of their belief. Their religious faith is seen as more pure, more intense, and therefore excuses any number of shortcomings. If a random gang of secular thugs had been attacking women on the Jerusalem buses they'd have been captured, tried, and imprisoned. Since it was Haredim many of the man on the street quotes from the various news articles I read about the incidents went out of their way to put the blame on the women, to excuse both the Haredim for their actions and the police for not making arrests, etc. In other words it was apparently perceived by Joe Israeli as a problem caused by the women, not by the Haredim who attacked them.
To me that, the attitude of Joe Israeli, indicates a much deeper problem than a few thuggish Haredim. One has only to look at the history of Afghanistan and Iraq to see how theocracy has a way of creeping out of the woodwork and taking a nation by surprise. Afghanistan used to be a fairly modern nation, as recently as the 1960's women walked the streets of Kabul unveiled, even in miniskirts, they were educated, etc. Forty years later look at the place. Iraq, similarly, used to be semi-secular, women were treated almost like human beings, and in post-Bush Iraq we see that women are routinely assaulted, and sometimes killed, because (like the women on the Jerusalem buses) they weren't "modest" enough for the religious nuts.
I'm not an Israel expert, but I am a historian, and history shows over and over that you can't mix religion and government "a little". Israel may not, now, be a theocracy but it is coming unless the religious nuts are squashed and a secular Israel is founded. You argue that they'd be crazy to take over, that they depend on the secular Jews for a working economy, and you are doubtless correct, I'm sure you know more about Israel than I do. But look to the other places infested with officially sanctioned religious nuts, they *DID* destroy the economies of their nations to indulge their religious nuttery. The standard of living in Afghanistan has plummeted since the 1960's, they're all but stone age in many places now, and all its done is make the religious nuts even more insanely strict and powerful.
[1] Can't find the cite, but I remember one of the Abu Gharib guards saying something to the effect of "as a human I thought it was horrible, but as a prison guard I loved it!"
If you don't live there and weren't born there I'm puzzled as to how you can describe it as your homeland.
More to the point, Israel was actually doing a terrible job on freedom and security until this. Note, just to choose one example, that the Israeli police admit (and often seem fairly proud) that torture of suspects is a routine procedure. There's a *LOT* more to criticize about Israel than this one bill.
If you genuinely think Israel has a good record on human rights, I'd recommend you do a bit more research.
And let me bring up, yet again, the fact that Haredi men seem to be empowered to commit criminal assault on any woman who refuses to kowtow to their nutty fundamentalism. If you are female I'd stay as far from Israel as possible. The state pays Haredi men not to work. I think there's quite a bit to not like about a nation that explicitly privileges its most insane religious elements.
Actually, I think Zionism is relevant to the subject at hand. The concepts of "a Jewish State" and "a state with a majority population of Jews" are quite different, and Zionism explicitly endorses the former. That's theocracy right out of the gate, and I don't think its at all surprising that an explicitly non-secular state is going down the path of totalitarianism. It goes part and parcel with being a non-secular state.
When you take into account the fact that the founders of Israel didn't bother with any guarantees of rights, a constitution, or any of the other necessary components of a free nation, but did design a state that privileges one religion over others, again, I think a discussion of the basic goal is not completely tangential.
Yes, there do appear to be a large number of people jumping out and saying "hur hur, Jews just like the Nazis", but this is Slashdot, did you really expect civility? Also, given Israel's terrible record WRT human rights, freedom, etc its hardly strange that many people here would not at all approve of Israel.
I've always agreed with Isaac Asimov: Israel was a terrible idea, poorly executed, and all it can ever hope to be is the world's largest ghetto. That Israel is continuing its policy of completely disregarding the very concept of human rights is only to be expected from a proto-theocracy.
I can, sort of, understand why some people would find the idea of a Jewish state so appealing, and it's always hard to let a dream die. But in the end the only two choices are giving up the idea of Israel as a Jewish state or letting Israel slide into the same hellhole status that awaits any theocracy. I wouldn't live there if you paid me a million Euros a year.
Assault goes to a civil court if the police chose to make arrests, etc which hasn't happened in several instances of Haredi violence towards women.
The point is that crazy fundamentalist Jews are privileged over Reform or Conservative Jews, I'd imagine non-practicing Jews get an even crappier deal. Since Israel is explicitly formed without a separation of religion and government the descent into true theocracy is only a matter of time, and since Israel has nothing resembling a bill of rights the trip into police stateism has already begun.
It is possible to criticize the nation of Israel without being a Nazi troll. Admittedly there is a large degree of overlap, but let's not get carried away here.
Israel is a nation well on the way to becoming yet another theocratic police state just like Saudi Arabia. Recognizing that this is true does not require one to be an anti-Semite. As an atheist I hold Judaism in exactly the same degree of contempt that I hold all other religions, and I have nothing whatsoever against any Jews on the basis of their Jewishness.
That said, the nation of Israel is looking worse every day, and I think its no surprise at all that the USA has about as large a population of Jews as Israel does. Jews who aren't crazy fundamentalists realize that Israel is getting ever closer to becoming a genuine hellhole and they want nothing to do with it. Out of the worldwide Jewish population fully 60% have chosen *NOT* to live in Israel, and I think that shows a commendable degree of intelligence on their part.
What separation, exactly, exists between the state of Israel and the religion of Orthodox Judaism? You can't even get married there unless you qualify for an Orthodox marriage [1].
[1] Reform Jews, it should be noted, basically get bupkis out of Israel. Orthodox loonies get government subsidies so they can beat their wives and stay home reading the Torah all day instead of working.
I'm not an expert, but as a rule of thumb the answer to any question that begins "why don't they just..." is money.
Israel is not a particularly wealthy nation, it has no oil, and very little in the way of natural resources of any sort. All of the security theatre they indulge in takes an incredible amount of money, and of course, there's the cost of rebuilding all the damage done by the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has done (and continues to do) to Israel. Quite frankly, I'm surprised they have enough money in the treasury to pay Haredi men not to work, and to build special bus lines so that the Haredi can commit criminal assault on women who won't kowtow to their loony beliefs.
Like most nations falling into the trap of the police state, Israel spends all of its money on "defense" rather than on beneficial programs that could actually end the problems it faces.
You appear to have the fixed, an unjustified, idea that anonymity is a) a civil right, and b) essential for free speech. In a truly fascist state, such as the People's Republic of China, the idea that anonymity is essential for free political speech does appear to be correct.
However we aren't talking about political speech, and you seem to have confused "free speech" with "free from consequences speech". Actions have consequences, that's part of reality and all the wishing in the world won't make it different, nor should it be different. If a person chooses to be a complete asshole who thinks its funny to post personal information and rape/death threats about women online that is his right; free speech. What isn't his right is to do so in a vacuum, with no interaction between his actions and the real world. Law firms might, as is their right, choose not to employ such a person on the grounds that he is obnoxious and might cost them business.
Free speech != free from consequences speech. Your words define you, and people can choose to respond to your words. Maybe your words hurt you, in which case the fault lies with you and your words not with those who link you to your words.
Again, this argument necessarially fails in places (such as China, Korea or Saudi Arabia) where the government may execute, or imprison a person for certain words. The USA, however is not such a place, and the fact that certain political speech in one place is dangerous does not imply that non-political speech in other places must be treated in the same way.
That anonymity is essential to some sorts of speech in some areas does not make it essential to all speech in all areas.
And, finally, we come back again to the issue of your, and their, hypocrisy. They ripped away any anonymity that the women had, yet you insist that the women must respect the anonymity of those who denied it to them. If, as you say, it was fine for the women to be exposed, sans anonymity, to the world, why shouldn't they respond similarly? You seem to be demanding a double standard here.
Ummmm.... Nope, still not following. Person A completely wipes out any trace of anonymity for person B by posting their personal data online, accompanied by photos, stalker level details of schedules, and threats of violence. Note that *self*evidently* person A has no respect for the concept of anonymity because they've posted all the personal data they can get on person B.
It isn't a violation of free speech to retaliate by exposing person A's actual name. He's free to say whatever he wants, that's free speech. You want him to be free to post rape and death threats (a crime), accompanied by the violation of person B's anonymity (which you claim to worship) without anyone knowing what an asshole he is. That isn't free speech.
If anonymity is so all important in your world, why aren't you outraged that the people on AutoAdmit posted personal information about the women?
Your right to swing ends where my nose begins, right? Well, your right to be anonymous ends where violating anyone else's anonymity begins.
Badly written article then.
The entire issue was that the people at AutoAdmit had a strict policy of anonymity for their posters, and those posters used that anonymity to post photos, full names, phone numbers, etc accompanies by rape threats. They wanted anonymity for themselves while exposing their victims personal data, which seems a bit hypocritical you know?
Let's see if I can follow your logic here. Pseudo-Anonymous people on a blog post photos, home address, email addresses, telephone numbers, and full legal names, of women accompanied by death threats and rape threats. That's perfectly ok.
The women seek to have the identities of the people who posted their identities revealed, that's horrible and makes them asswipes?
Can you explain where you're coming from here, because honestly I'm not following you. Why is it ok for the "let's rape the bitches" crowd to post the names and other personal information of the women, but it isn't ok for us to know the identities of the people doing the posting?
Maybe. OTOH the original light cycles were cool and abused physics with those 90 degree turns, they looked nifty and shouted in all caps "this is not the world you're used to!". The new light cycles come to a stop (WTF?) and make boring real world type turns, for all you know they're just a bunch of twits in downtown LA with neon lights on their racing bikes.
The problems you list are very much real, but not quite so insurmountable as they might be.
The main problem is getting stuff out of Earth's gravity well, and that has various possible solutions. A magnetic catapult of only modest length (5km or so) could be constructed for only a few billion with off the shelf components and could be used to fling any non-delicate stuff you want into orbit. The only pollution involved there would be from generating the electricity to run the catapult. That alone could take care of the vast majority of what is needed for survival in space (food, air, water, most electronic and mechanical components, raw materials, etc).
The space plane option requires new tech, but new tech that is mostly a matter of engineering rather than breakthroughs, and would be quite handy for carrying delicate cargo (humans, for example).
The ESA has some hybrid plans for a scramjet based space plane launched from a lower acceleration catapult to get it up to the speed necessary for the scramjet to function.
More to the point, even if we just pushed the ISS out to a stable lunar orbit and had to leave it there for a few years (decades even) its a better plan than letting it crash into the Earth. We spent billions putting that stuff up there, the last thing we need to do is waste that effort by letting it fall down again.
A lunar orbiting ISS would, even if we can't use it today, be an investment in the future.