Also, never use the word "proven" when referring to science. It only shows that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the scientific method works or even what science sets out to do. Science sets out to gather data upon which conclusions regarding the validity of a hypothesis can be made. "Proof" only exists in math and formal logic. Not science.
Who was Al Gore supporting when he said "The debate is over?"
doing no real damage except to expose a politicians improper use of private email channels for to violate public transparency laws.
Nice revisionist history there. Palin didn't use this e-mail for state business. The hacker was the son of a Democrat congressman, so he had an incentive to find anything possibly incriminating, and there wasn't anything. Others have speculated that she used a different e-mail, but that was only after they didn't find any dirt in this one. But thanks for spreading the lie.
The joke is that the woman who he "said should be stoned" said that no British politician should be able to complain about stoning in Muslim countries, because Muslim culture allows for stoning.
He then "said she should be stoned."
The implication here is that she has no right to complain about him wanting to have someone stoned.
I would argue that the reason men form governments (thus allowing for citizenship) is to protect the rights that everyone is born/Endowed by their Creator with, and thus they shouldn't have to give up those rights to be citizens.
I'd also argue that the next Briton who accuses the US of being "less free" than Europe must be stoned.*
*Not must "must be" in the sense of "somebody should go out and make sure that..." but more in the sense of "It's obvious that... is already..."
How about the individual mandate? In a free society such as ours, it is a violation of liberty for the government to require an individual to purchase something from a private company as a cost of living.
Fungible means "can easily be replaced by a competitor, which is exactly the same." Gasoline, for example, is a fungible good. To the extent that Zuckerberg isn't lying, he's not treating them as fungible. If he was, he would get cheap replacement workers and not these guys who already had jobs.
EVERY console takes a loss per console sold. The Xbox 360 division is profitable because of selling licensing rights to games and its online service that gamers are willing to pay $60.00 a year for.
The merging of entertainment and "mobile devices" was to make mobile devices more profitable, not the Xbox. What mobile devices makes Microsoft money? The Kin?
Office and Server are pretty much the only thing keeping Microsoft solvent, as those three divisions' continuing success mainly hinges on the applied wisdom of decision making by the heads of educational, corporate and government institutions regarding technical matters (or rather the complete lack thereof)
Their entertainment division (mainly because of the Xbox, although other things (like Zune) get run out of there) is profitable and doesn't rely in institutional purchasers at all.
I recognized that you were trying to be even-handed, which is why I didn't fly into a trolling rage over it. I have my biases too, and they compel me to point out that Franken does it in Lies (and also in his other books, for that matter.)
I don't recognize the story from Big Fat Idiot but it's been awhile since I read that one, so I could be wrong.
One, the tactics that you say are "especially associated with Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity" are "associated with them" by people (such as Franken) using THOSE VERY TACTICS against them. But you may have known that.
Two, that story, whatever its truth value is (and I had never heard it before) is not in Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.
Why do you think I was talking about Israel?... look with how many other places you are allied there (hell, Egypt gets practically the same amount of aid as Israel) Or in other areas - destabilizing South America wasn't that many years ago.
OK, so are any of our other allies trying to "drive a people into the sea?" I'd love to hear about this, actually.
WMDs in Iraq were also "facts" in all the news, across the spectrum (seriously, you don't see any similarities?).
WMDs in Iraq were never presented as "fact" in the American media. The outlets that support conservatives generally were not skeptical of the government's claims, and the ones that support liberals generally were skeptical. This is a problem with the American media, sure, but the liberal faction in the media buys its side's lies too. When both "sides" in the media agree on something of this magnitude, they're generally on to something.
If it were something even remotely solid, you can be pretty damn sure it would surface in a much more serious way
What do you mean by that? Iranian trained operatives have been captured by the US military in Iraq conducting insurgent operations. What would you consider "remotely solid proof?"
- if only because Iran wants to play a major role in its region, and ruling castes of some other places there (basically similar / still, our allies, w00t!) ultimately want to have a say in that. They would be very interested in Iran also destabilizing their regimes, in practice.
Yeah. Iran wants to play a major role in that region by expanding their subjugation to their neighbors and destabilizing them. This is why we need to spy on them.
Accidentally, I'm on the East side of Prime Meridian... still, we're in the same boat (generally, I don't like West/East terms, too simplistic; even if there's nothing much better... and it's beside the point anyway)
If your country has (or is developing) nuclear weapons, the US should spy on that operation. And you complained about east/west terms, not me.
And you do remember why they took power / from a puppet regime installed by whom, right?
Because they were threatening our allies?
"Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" - you really want to tell me you haven't heard how we justify torturing people now?! (NVM purposely keeping them in legal limbo)
Iran does way more torture than the United States. It's more widespread, it occurs for more trifling offenses, and the actual torture is worse. It doesn't make it OK for America to do, but if you're against American torture, you should be ABSOLUTELY against Iranian torture.
Please explain how they treat us like enemies.
They're developing nuclear weapons to attack our allies?
Heck, did they at least invade somebody? (violating good diplomatic customs... borderline at best)
Holding innocent people, who were captured in an office (as opposed to on a battlefield), as hostages for almost 500 days is a little worse than bad manners.
BTW, who shot down their airliner?
Terrible accident, and we paid reparations for it.
Who supported another nasty/nastier regime in a war with them?
We supported our ally (1980s-era Iraq) in a war against our enemy. When that ally started threatening its peaceful neighbors, we tried to rein them in peacefully, and with force when that failed.
Sure, it's all a clusterf**k of a mess out there, we must ultimately do certain things (some not), but at least don't sing all the praises you should, all the condemnations you should... and that's it (at least the smallest bit of cynicism, for example)
"Wants"? Follow more closely what your leaders want sometimes...and most importantly what some of our "allies" want.
Neither the US nor Israel want to destroy a population because they want to practice a religion peacefully. It's when they want to use religion to subjugate others where we step in.
Also, we can be pretty sure that proofs of funding (if such widespread, surely there) would be very useful - and indeed most likely already used.
For the record, I read about the fact that Iran was funding insurgents and terrorists generally in news sources from all over the political spectrum. AP, CNN, Fox, you name it, they reported on it. (But I'm not going to do a Google search for someone who's just arguing to take a contrary position.) Also, the proof of Iran funding terrorists would be used for what, exactly? To justify spying on them? That's probably one of the ways they justify it, yeah, but they don't make that part of the CIA's budget public.
Recollect also what was the conduct of the "West" (for lack of a better term)
Seriously? The West "for lack of a better term?" The Prime Meridian is the deliminator line for East/West. Iran is on the east side of it. The US is on the west side of it. We are, in fact, west of them.
on their soil, before the breach of diplomatic standards / "invasion" that you mention.
Well given how they've been acting since they took power, we were right to want to get rid of them, weren't we?
Human rights issue stands on a very, very shaky legs. We don't have problems with supporting such regimes (most of the region is like that, also our "allies") as long as they are "on our side" - hence we ourselves demonstrate it's not much of a factor at all, just a rhetoric.
You're right. Maybe "it's cool that you oppress women, gays, and political enemies so long as you don't threaten to nuke our allies" isn't the best human rights policy. But it's a hell of a lot better than Iran's human rights policy of oppressing women, gays, and political enemies. Again, I defy you to point to something the US is doing in this arena that Iran isn't a million times worse at.
Even if watching somebody closely is a good idea, that does not automatically make them an "enemy" - so again, why? Is it already decided / I didn't get the memo and now we just have to again find ways to actually treat them like ones treats an enemy?
We treat them like our enemies because they treat both us and our allies like enemies. And we spy on everyone, enemies or not.
Their leader wants to drive our allies "into the sea," for one thing. They fund terrorist attacks on American civilians worldwide and insurgent attacks on the American military. Their government has invaded US soil and held Americans hostage.
Maybe you're one of those goofy liberal types that can't see exactly what the problem with all this is. (Note: Not all liberals fall into this category. Most real life ones don't.) Surely you can see something to dislike in their human rights record. Whether it's how they treat women, or gays, or non-Muslims, or political dissidents, or whoever, there's something for everyone to disagree with. No matter what human rights issue you pick to criticize the US for, Iran is a million times worse. Do you really want them to be able to enforce their views on the way things ought to be via nuclear weapons?
Even if you still can't tell that they don't like us, it's probably a bad idea to trust anyone except our allies with nuclear weapons, like they're trying to obtain. Anybody looking for nukes who we aren't explicitly friends with should be monitored by our intelligence services. That's what they're there for.
With all the spying the government does on Americans, they'd damn well better be spying on our enemies. Isn't this EXACTLY what the CIA and friends are for?
Fun fact: Of the countries on the North American continent, only ONE uses a form of the word American in their name. By contrast, there are two countries in North America that call themselves the United States. The real name of Mexico (in English) is "The United Mexican States."
Wow, you completely missed what I was getting at. Your initial post seems to be arguing that "group think" can be differentiated from "group of people all crying out against the same problem... based on their personal experiences; and not because a lot of their peers also have that opinion."
My argument is that the reason most of Slashdot agrees on most things is because "a lot of their peers also have that opinion," which is your definition of group think. In order for your post comparing about group think, non-group think, Slashdot, and FreeRepublic to make sense, given that Slashdot has group think, FreeRepublic must NOT have group think. That's clearly not true, hence my post.
What gay people do in their own homes doesn't affect me. I don't care about that. Idiots on slashdot DO affect me, and since we're nominally talking about useless fourm posts (such as morons asserting that "HURF DURF IT'S NOT GROUP THINK IF THEY AGREE WITH ME) that's what my post was about.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, never use the word "proven" when referring to science. It only shows that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the scientific method works or even what science sets out to do. Science sets out to gather data upon which conclusions regarding the validity of a hypothesis can be made. "Proof" only exists in math and formal logic. Not science.
Who was Al Gore supporting when he said "The debate is over?"
No. He's implying that Iran is warmongering, and the US is disregarding the advice of its allies/"allies" about the matter.
doing no real damage except to expose a politicians improper use of private email channels for to violate public transparency laws.
Nice revisionist history there. Palin didn't use this e-mail for state business. The hacker was the son of a Democrat congressman, so he had an incentive to find anything possibly incriminating, and there wasn't anything. Others have speculated that she used a different e-mail, but that was only after they didn't find any dirt in this one. But thanks for spreading the lie.
The joke is that the woman who he "said should be stoned" said that no British politician should be able to complain about stoning in Muslim countries, because Muslim culture allows for stoning.
He then "said she should be stoned."
The implication here is that she has no right to complain about him wanting to have someone stoned.
I'd also argue that the next Briton who accuses the US of being "less free" than Europe must be stoned.*
*Not must "must be" in the sense of "somebody should go out and make sure that..." but more in the sense of "It's obvious that... is already..."
I'd take the risk. Once. Of course, this precludes letting them get on a return flight.
I'd take that risk too.
(* unless you count abstinence; screw that, if you'll excuse the choice of words)
There was one time abstinence failed...
How about the individual mandate? In a free society such as ours, it is a violation of liberty for the government to require an individual to purchase something from a private company as a cost of living.
Fungible means "can easily be replaced by a competitor, which is exactly the same." Gasoline, for example, is a fungible good. To the extent that Zuckerberg isn't lying, he's not treating them as fungible. If he was, he would get cheap replacement workers and not these guys who already had jobs.
DAs far as I am concerned, this planet may not be habitable after an asteroid hits until it gets tested.
Um... it was asteroid tested.
Sincerely,
A Tyrannosaurus Rex
EVERY console takes a loss per console sold. The Xbox 360 division is profitable because of selling licensing rights to games and its online service that gamers are willing to pay $60.00 a year for.
The merging of entertainment and "mobile devices" was to make mobile devices more profitable, not the Xbox. What mobile devices makes Microsoft money? The Kin?
Office and Server are pretty much the only thing keeping Microsoft solvent, as those three divisions' continuing success mainly hinges on the applied wisdom of decision making by the heads of educational, corporate and government institutions regarding technical matters (or rather the complete lack thereof)
Their entertainment division (mainly because of the Xbox, although other things (like Zune) get run out of there) is profitable and doesn't rely in institutional purchasers at all.
I recognized that you were trying to be even-handed, which is why I didn't fly into a trolling rage over it. I have my biases too, and they compel me to point out that Franken does it in Lies (and also in his other books, for that matter.)
I don't recognize the story from Big Fat Idiot but it's been awhile since I read that one, so I could be wrong.
One, the tactics that you say are "especially associated with Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity" are "associated with them" by people (such as Franken) using THOSE VERY TACTICS against them. But you may have known that.
Two, that story, whatever its truth value is (and I had never heard it before) is not in Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.
We don't want the docking port to be open. That would let the air out.
I spend just as much time on Farmville as I do on my actual farm. None. I have neither a farm nor Farmville. I'd wager that's true of most people.
That's not what the sin( function does?
So do they?
Why do you think I was talking about Israel?... look with how many other places you are allied there (hell, Egypt gets practically the same amount of aid as Israel) Or in other areas - destabilizing South America wasn't that many years ago.
OK, so are any of our other allies trying to "drive a people into the sea?" I'd love to hear about this, actually.
WMDs in Iraq were also "facts" in all the news, across the spectrum (seriously, you don't see any similarities?).
WMDs in Iraq were never presented as "fact" in the American media. The outlets that support conservatives generally were not skeptical of the government's claims, and the ones that support liberals generally were skeptical. This is a problem with the American media, sure, but the liberal faction in the media buys its side's lies too. When both "sides" in the media agree on something of this magnitude, they're generally on to something.
If it were something even remotely solid, you can be pretty damn sure it would surface in a much more serious way
What do you mean by that? Iranian trained operatives have been captured by the US military in Iraq conducting insurgent operations. What would you consider "remotely solid proof?"
- if only because Iran wants to play a major role in its region, and ruling castes of some other places there (basically similar / still, our allies, w00t!) ultimately want to have a say in that. They would be very interested in Iran also destabilizing their regimes, in practice.
Yeah. Iran wants to play a major role in that region by expanding their subjugation to their neighbors and destabilizing them. This is why we need to spy on them.
Accidentally, I'm on the East side of Prime Meridian... still, we're in the same boat (generally, I don't like West/East terms, too simplistic; even if there's nothing much better... and it's beside the point anyway)
If your country has (or is developing) nuclear weapons, the US should spy on that operation. And you complained about east/west terms, not me.
And you do remember why they took power / from a puppet regime installed by whom, right?
Because they were threatening our allies?
"Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" - you really want to tell me you haven't heard how we justify torturing people now?! (NVM purposely keeping them in legal limbo)
Iran does way more torture than the United States. It's more widespread, it occurs for more trifling offenses, and the actual torture is worse. It doesn't make it OK for America to do, but if you're against American torture, you should be ABSOLUTELY against Iranian torture.
Please explain how they treat us like enemies.
They're developing nuclear weapons to attack our allies?
Heck, did they at least invade somebody? (violating good diplomatic customs... borderline at best)
Holding innocent people, who were captured in an office (as opposed to on a battlefield), as hostages for almost 500 days is a little worse than bad manners.
BTW, who shot down their airliner?
Terrible accident, and we paid reparations for it.
Who supported another nasty/nastier regime in a war with them?
We supported our ally (1980s-era Iraq) in a war against our enemy. When that ally started threatening its peaceful neighbors, we tried to rein them in peacefully, and with force when that failed.
Sure, it's all a clusterf**k of a mess out there, we must ultimately do certain things (some not), but at least don't sing all the praises you should, all the condemnations you should... and that's it (at least the smallest bit of cynicism, for example)
I can't understand what you m
"Wants"? Follow more closely what your leaders want sometimes...and most importantly what some of our "allies" want.
Neither the US nor Israel want to destroy a population because they want to practice a religion peacefully. It's when they want to use religion to subjugate others where we step in.
Also, we can be pretty sure that proofs of funding (if such widespread, surely there) would be very useful - and indeed most likely already used.
For the record, I read about the fact that Iran was funding insurgents and terrorists generally in news sources from all over the political spectrum. AP, CNN, Fox, you name it, they reported on it. (But I'm not going to do a Google search for someone who's just arguing to take a contrary position.) Also, the proof of Iran funding terrorists would be used for what, exactly? To justify spying on them? That's probably one of the ways they justify it, yeah, but they don't make that part of the CIA's budget public.
Recollect also what was the conduct of the "West" (for lack of a better term)
Seriously? The West "for lack of a better term?" The Prime Meridian is the deliminator line for East/West. Iran is on the east side of it. The US is on the west side of it. We are, in fact, west of them.
on their soil, before the breach of diplomatic standards / "invasion" that you mention.
Well given how they've been acting since they took power, we were right to want to get rid of them, weren't we?
Human rights issue stands on a very, very shaky legs. We don't have problems with supporting such regimes (most of the region is like that, also our "allies") as long as they are "on our side" - hence we ourselves demonstrate it's not much of a factor at all, just a rhetoric.
You're right. Maybe "it's cool that you oppress women, gays, and political enemies so long as you don't threaten to nuke our allies" isn't the best human rights policy. But it's a hell of a lot better than Iran's human rights policy of oppressing women, gays, and political enemies. Again, I defy you to point to something the US is doing in this arena that Iran isn't a million times worse at.
Even if watching somebody closely is a good idea, that does not automatically make them an "enemy" - so again, why? Is it already decided / I didn't get the memo and now we just have to again find ways to actually treat them like ones treats an enemy?
We treat them like our enemies because they treat both us and our allies like enemies. And we spy on everyone, enemies or not.
Their leader wants to drive our allies "into the sea," for one thing. They fund terrorist attacks on American civilians worldwide and insurgent attacks on the American military. Their government has invaded US soil and held Americans hostage.
Maybe you're one of those goofy liberal types that can't see exactly what the problem with all this is. (Note: Not all liberals fall into this category. Most real life ones don't.) Surely you can see something to dislike in their human rights record. Whether it's how they treat women, or gays, or non-Muslims, or political dissidents, or whoever, there's something for everyone to disagree with. No matter what human rights issue you pick to criticize the US for, Iran is a million times worse. Do you really want them to be able to enforce their views on the way things ought to be via nuclear weapons?
Even if you still can't tell that they don't like us, it's probably a bad idea to trust anyone except our allies with nuclear weapons, like they're trying to obtain. Anybody looking for nukes who we aren't explicitly friends with should be monitored by our intelligence services. That's what they're there for.
Iran? Absolutely.
With all the spying the government does on Americans, they'd damn well better be spying on our enemies. Isn't this EXACTLY what the CIA and friends are for?
Fun fact: Of the countries on the North American continent, only ONE uses a form of the word American in their name. By contrast, there are two countries in North America that call themselves the United States. The real name of Mexico (in English) is "The United Mexican States."
Wow, you completely missed what I was getting at. Your initial post seems to be arguing that "group think" can be differentiated from "group of people all crying out against the same problem... based on their personal experiences; and not because a lot of their peers also have that opinion."
My argument is that the reason most of Slashdot agrees on most things is because "a lot of their peers also have that opinion," which is your definition of group think. In order for your post comparing about group think, non-group think, Slashdot, and FreeRepublic to make sense, given that Slashdot has group think, FreeRepublic must NOT have group think. That's clearly not true, hence my post.
What gay people do in their own homes doesn't affect me. I don't care about that. Idiots on slashdot DO affect me, and since we're nominally talking about useless fourm posts (such as morons asserting that "HURF DURF IT'S NOT GROUP THINK IF THEY AGREE WITH ME) that's what my post was about.