Actually the overall numbers of polar bears have risen steadily over the past 30 years and only a few areas in Alaska are reporting higher death rates. Canada's population alone has risen by 25% in just the past 10 years. Only 2 of the main 13 polar bear populations there have shown any decrease in population and those are from areas where temperatures have actually decreased.
Most of the "polar bears are dying" hype is generated by the same "man-made warming" groups with little concern that when taking as a whole and not cherry picked the numbers do not support their theories.
Had a similar thing happen here at work. A co-workers spec document would crash Word or Wordpad on every attempt to open it so in an attempt to save about 2 weeks worth of work I downloaded OO and it opened just fine and re-saved with no problems. No loss of data and no further problem with opening in Word.
Re:Exit Polls are Inaccurate
on
Who won?
·
· Score: 1
I'm actually Canadian and am well aware of how socialized medicine works. In our case, because it is almost illegal for anyone to offer a health service for profit and for people to choose to spend money on their own health care we have wait times that are extremely long. It might be free but if you die before a treatment is made available to you your saved money does little good.
My neighbor was on a waiting list for knee surgery for over a year and in that time her other knee was damaged to such an extent that it also required surgery, all because of having to do the work of both legs. Her doctor outright told her that if she had the money she should run across the border to get the surgery because in Buffalo she could have it done by the end of the week.
The US may be expensive but at least service is available on demand. If they could ever properly regulate their HMO system they might even make things easier for people to receive the services their health insurance supposedly offers.
I actually would prefer a mixed systems in which for-profit clinics are permitted to exist on the basis that they would have to offer a set amount of free services. I.E. from 8am to 6pm they would be public clinics but after 6 they could charge. Of course there would be a requirement that the level of service and number of patients processed would have to be in line with any local hospital to ensure they don't short staff during the less profitable public hours. I believe many European coutries actually offer that alternative. By allowing for some paid medical services it helps remove some of the strain off the public system.
Of course the other issue is that it is much easier to offer socialized anything when your countries geographical size is less than that of many American States and/or your population is highly centralized. Offering equality of services to a population of 300,000,000 that is spread across 9,629,091 kms2 is not an easy task.
Re:Exit Polls are Inaccurate
on
Who won?
·
· Score: 1
There is plenty of information attacking both the methodology and assumptions made throughout the book at the link I provided above.
And as for no ill affects, I won't even go into detail about a certain German socialist party but have you seen the state of France lately? Even though it has stopped being reported the riots that began last year have pretty much continued in one form or another since then, though admittedly to a much smaller degree. There are entire areas of the country that have been declared official no-go zones for the police because they fear for their safety (the current list stands at approximately 751 recognizedZones Urbaines Sensibles) . Much of this is due to a socialist system that has created such a messed up employment system that employers cannot hire people to fill jobs because of legislation limiting their ability to fire anyone, as well as a large cultural divide between native French citizens and their immigrant population.
Since the 70's unemployment has remained in the double digits with only brief stints in the high singles (currently at 9%). That's in comparison The US has a current unemployment of just over 4%. And as for your other examples, Germany 9.6%, Spain 7.6% with Sweden being the best at a respectable 5.6%.
Re:Exit Polls are Inaccurate
on
Who won?
·
· Score: 1
And in the case of a book presenting itself as unbiased reporting on a Republican election victory the question is a valid one. It's like Rush Limbaugh writing a book on possible election gaming in the most recent Democratic victories and trying to present himself as an unbiased source.
Both are quite capable of writing books on the subject but they should openly admit any bias which may affect their assumptions and analysis.
Freeman makes the claim but his co-author is the editor of a progressive magazine started and still run by an admitted socialist with help of the likes of Noam Chomsky. Not necessarily your most unbiased source for analysis of a Republican election victory.
Re:Exit Polls are Inaccurate
on
Who won?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Exit polls within the US have had a shady history at best. The meme that it's only been the last two Presidential elections where discrepancies have appeared is a myth created by conspiracy nuts or people just looking to sell a few more papers. About the only thing at all consistent is the level of inaccuracy. For example Clinton's overestimation in 1992 exit polls was almost exactly the same as Kerry's in '04 but Clinton won so no one really cared that the raw polling data was off by almost 3%. There have also been significant problems with 1990, 1994 and 1998 numbers with regards to Senate and Gubernatorial races but once again, no one really cared at the time so those numbers, which were off 58% of the time (in both directions), were basically thrown down the memory hole.
Historically US exit polling results are all over the map and have only been getting worse. It also doesn't help that poor training leads to improper sampling or that laws in certain areas restrict pollers access to voters.
Outside of the US exit polls are much more accurate but that can be easily explained by differences in polling techniques and voter mentality.
A good source for a little less bias polling info is Pollster.com as opposed to a book co-written by an editor of an progressive magazine run by an admitted socialist.
I'm not a big fan of Blu-Ray (lack of standards is going to play havoc on first gen adopters) but if this was a fight about capacity HD-DVD would have been dead before it ever began. Capacity is about the only aspect of the next gen formats where there is a clear winner and it is not HD.
TDK was showcasing 100GB blu-ray discs almost two years ago and has recently shown off 200GB blu-ray discs. The problem is people are slow to adopt the use of next gen optical drives for performing important back ups and at present the excess capacity is next to useless for the movie industry.
This does help HD-DVD in that the increased capacity does help them match Blu-Rays superiority in the important TV DVD market. Previous to this you could fit an entire high def season on one BR disc but would be forced to use 2 or 3 HD discs. Now they can both meet the single disc hurdle.
I just hope someone wins this battle quickly and we'll get one standard for both PCs and movies or if not at least drives/players capable of reading both.
From a Canadian perspective, I have never, not once, seen a Wii on a shelf in any electronics/department store in town. They are usually sold straight out of the shipping boxes and they don't even require a sign, just simple word of mouth, to create a crowd.
The only place I know of that ever managed to get them to the shelves is small town about 50 minutes outside of Ottawa and even then they'd be gone by the end of the day. And now even their supplies are sold out before being unpacked.
I managed to get 2 before Christmas by waiting in line at the right places and the right times, but both times there were lines prior to the store opening. I know of 3 people right now who are still trying to get one and have been having no luck.
PS3's on the other hand are in stock in almost every store I've been too, and that trend started even before Christmas. I managed to get one about 1 week before heading to my parents for the Holidays and before I left I could have bought 5 more. When I went to return it just after Christmas (decided on a 360 instead) there were 4 in stock at the Wal-mart I was at and the Zellers (Canadian dept. store) below my office had 3.
Sony may put together the parts themselves but unless they're employing magic elves in their production facilities they have to get those parts from somewhere.
Most of the cost analysis comes from looking at the separate components, seagate HD, IBM processor, ATI processor, Samsung RAM, etc.. and looking at the associated costs with either purchasing the part or licensing the design, and even includes volume discounts. These costs are relatively stable and well known. The guesstimating comes in when trying to calculate the SONY only parts but even there they can use some similar items to come up with ball park figures. So while you can argue with a person who is claiming to know exactly what the system cost is, when the rough estimates puts the cost in the multiple hundreds above purchase price you can bet that they are not making up the difference with innovative production techniques.
As for historical trends, you could look at Business Week or Cnet or just google it but you've managed to answered your own question with your last statement, "why the Xbox division lost billions over the life of the original Xbox?". Simply put, they could not overcome their loss leading system prices with adequate games sales. Add to that the R&D costs and advertising and they created too much of a hole to dig themselves out of with a 4.75:1 game to system ratio (the last number I could find). If the systems had been making a profit from the get go they may still have lost money overall, but unless their R&D costs were in the double digit billions they would not come out as far behind as they did.
I merely stated that to the best of my knowledge, Nintendo is the only game manufacturer that makes a profit of their hardware from day 1 meaning that even though a lot of cash is changing hands Sony, and to a lesser extent Microsoft, have to wait to see the numbers on game sales before they become "fat and happy".
That doesn't make their system any more powerful or fun to play or even more profitable over it's lifetime, just that when comparing sales of new systems in the first year even with strong system sales Sony and Microsoft are not guaranteed profits.
That I'm responding to a AC troll is just a indicator of how bored I am at work today.
Of the big 3, generally only Nintendo actually makes a profit off their gaming systems in the first year of release.
By some estimates Sony is subsidizing the PS3 to the tune of $300/unit while Microsoft is probably just about breaking even on systems. The big money for Microsoft and Sony comes from game sales, and the only solid numbers I've seen in that category were for Zelda units for the Wii (400k+).
So on the money side Nintendo has made a hefty profit from their 1.1 million+ units sold, Microsoft, having learned their lesson the the original XBox is probably doing ok especially with their major head start in game sales, while Sony needs to get more of their systems into peoples homes to try and generate more disc sales. Sony's saving grace may be that they'll also get money from the boost in blu-ray movie sales.
Yeah I don't understand that at all. The Shop Channel is the only connection that doesn't do a pre-test so if it fails it will hang for eternity.
I found another weird issue with their connection software. I have 2 wireless connections set, one for my place and one for a friends. Apparently my friends was the default for the system and at my place I couldn't connect for the Shop Channel or check to see if the Forecast channel/News channels were working.
If I tested my connection through the Wii menu it would work fine and then I could tests the Forecast/News channels. The Shop Channel however would still not work until I finally set my home wireless connection to be the active one. So it seems that in some cases it uses whatever is the last used network connection while in other cases it will use whatever is set as the system default. The fact neither of us broadcast our SSIDs may also have something to do with it.
I was one step away from rearranging furniture to try an improve signal strength.
Mosts stores I know of in the area has said they expect Wii deliveries every week but won't even put estimates on PS3 delivery dates although Best Buy Canada is promising a new shipment on the 8th.
The big electronics stores, Future Shop and Best Buy, seem to get in between 25 and 50 Wii units per delivery per store. The department stores, like Zellers and Wal-Mart have been getting between 15 and 50 units a week. From what I've heard about PS3's, even those stores that are expecting a new shipment before the new year aren't expecting more than 5-15 additional units, and that includes the big chains.
To my knowledge only one of the major religions has at it's center the concept of "convert or die". Almost all other mainstream religions have a 'live and let live' philosophy. That doesn't mean they have to believe that you will have a pleasant after/next life but that they believe the decision is yours to make.
Now throughout history there have been people in control over particular branches of particular faiths who have used their power to try and force others to behave as they saw fit, usually in direct opposition to their very faiths teachings, but the same is true of non-religious organizations and so far the atrocities committed by non-religious groups make anything faith based seem minuscule in comparison.
All it takes is a few bad apples to spoil the whole bunch. Everyone seems to forget that the original Crusades were a response to wars of aggression declared by Muslims on, at the time, Christian nations and lands. A very large portion of the Middle East was Christian up until they were conquered and forcefully converted to Islam. The original goal of the crusades were to recapture these lands and prevent the further spread of Islam by force.
Of course the later Crusades were merely money/power grabs and operations for the settling of personal vendettas and even the original Crusaders did some pretty awful things, but "The Crusades" in general, were not as so many try to put forward, unsolicited attacks on helpless Muslims. There was more than enough blame to go around.
When you are trying to put down another faith based on your knowledge of their holy books you may just want to take the 5 seconds to research your argument on Google.
The "witch" line comes from Exodus and not from anything Jesus said while the "turn the other cheek" philosophy comes from the Sermon on the Mount and also the Sermon on the Plain; two of Jesus' more famous speeches.
It is also pretty clear by using the original texts and the definition of the term at the time that the 'witch' being referred to in the Exodus verse is not what we view as witches today. This was not meant to condemn wiccans or those of similar beliefs who pray to Mother Gaia or which ever power they believe in, to death, but a condemnation of those who would actively try and bring harm to others through the use of some powers or poisons.
So one statement has to do with a personal reaction to an affront or assault while the other has to do with how to deal with an ongoing attempt to bring harm to others. Since they do not even deal with the same circumstances they can be hardly contradictory.
I re-read your comment several times but have yet to find any actual defense of the BBC except that you don't like every other news source in Britian.
Do you have a counter to either story except your utter disdain for the linked sources?
Do you have links to the BBC denying that the leaked meeting happened or that they are not trying to prevent the report from becoming public? Of course not, you'd rather just attack the messenger and hope that no one notices your arguments have absolutely no substance except to portray your own prejudices.
I personally don't have a problem with people who watch the BBC as a source of news, I would just like people not to put blind faith in any one news agency to tell them the unbiased truth.
I can't comment on the Telegraph's bias, though it wouldn't surprise me that they're anti-BBC as they are competing news sources, but you don't have to share that bias to come to the same conclusions as the author of the linked article.
The report they are fighting in court to prevent from being made public was essentially commissioned to determine if they were in fact bias against Israel in their Middle East coverage. That they are doing everything in their power to prevent the conclusions of that report from getting out would seem to imply that the results were not complimentary to them.
BBC has about as much journalistic integrity as Entertainment Tonight, they just have better sounding accents.
Not to be too harsh but it just really gets me when people try to point to the BBC as a beacon of truth when by their own admission they pander to about every special interest group out there. They've also been fighting a freedom of information act request for the release of their own internal review of their Middle East coverage; most suspect because it implies that they have been highly biased against Israel.
It's never good to rely on one new source for your information.
Not sure if the differences that Thansal points out are worth the price jump or not but from the latest review I've seen the 20GB drive could be used up within about 6 games.
For once Sony seems to have done something about their historically horrendous load times and allowed for a pre-load option, at least one some games. This copies a lot of the game data to the system to cut down on Blu-Ray accesses. Choosing this option for the 3 games the reviewer was testing took up nearly half of the 20gb drive so unless you tend to play one game through before starting another or actually like to stare at the "loading level" message you'll want as much hard drive space as you can get.
If there's a way to install your own off the shelf drive into the system after the fact that may be the better option unless you simply can't live without a memory stick reader.
Wow, you take a hypothetical scenario meant to make a point and then without the slightest sense of irony draw in a sex scandal into a discussion about how the war has been waged to show how conservatives try and muddy the waters.
My earlier post was with regards to PIPA studies in general.
For this one in particular, it's relationship to a push poll is that it focuses mainly on topics that are considered liberal strong points (anti-war, UN) where conservatives are generally all over the map so that it can make a headline for itself. It is essentially asking people their own opinions and since they support a certain candidate most people generally assume that their candidate of choice agrees with them. Notice the strongest conservative question, on defense spending, went in favor of Bush supporters.
On a side note, 2 of the questions that they gave credit to Kerry supporters for, the ICC and Kyoto, he supports in principle but not necessarily in their current forms so in effect he both supports and doesn't at the same time meaning that if the numbers had been reversed they would have legitimately been able to swap what they considered the correct answer and been able to defend it.
Slashdot Mirror
This is my first mention of Polar bears so whoever else is talking about them it wasn't me.
Here's a few links:
- NCPA report which uses some of their own figures as well as references the WWF report that started it all.
- A article from The Scotsman quoting Canadian expert Mitch Taylor.
- Dr. Taylor's own article from the Toronto Star (The Star link no longer works but this site has the full article)
Actually the overall numbers of polar bears have risen steadily over the past 30 years and only a few areas in Alaska are reporting higher death rates. Canada's population alone has risen by 25% in just the past 10 years. Only 2 of the main 13 polar bear populations there have shown any decrease in population and those are from areas where temperatures have actually decreased.
Most of the "polar bears are dying" hype is generated by the same "man-made warming" groups with little concern that when taking as a whole and not cherry picked the numbers do not support their theories.
Had a similar thing happen here at work. A co-workers spec document would crash Word or Wordpad on every attempt to open it so in an attempt to save about 2 weeks worth of work I downloaded OO and it opened just fine and re-saved with no problems. No loss of data and no further problem with opening in Word.
I'm actually Canadian and am well aware of how socialized medicine works. In our case, because it is almost illegal for anyone to offer a health service for profit and for people to choose to spend money on their own health care we have wait times that are extremely long. It might be free but if you die before a treatment is made available to you your saved money does little good.
My neighbor was on a waiting list for knee surgery for over a year and in that time her other knee was damaged to such an extent that it also required surgery, all because of having to do the work of both legs. Her doctor outright told her that if she had the money she should run across the border to get the surgery because in Buffalo she could have it done by the end of the week.
The US may be expensive but at least service is available on demand. If they could ever properly regulate their HMO system they might even make things easier for people to receive the services their health insurance supposedly offers.
I actually would prefer a mixed systems in which for-profit clinics are permitted to exist on the basis that they would have to offer a set amount of free services. I.E. from 8am to 6pm they would be public clinics but after 6 they could charge. Of course there would be a requirement that the level of service and number of patients processed would have to be in line with any local hospital to ensure they don't short staff during the less profitable public hours. I believe many European coutries actually offer that alternative. By allowing for some paid medical services it helps remove some of the strain off the public system.
Of course the other issue is that it is much easier to offer socialized anything when your countries geographical size is less than that of many American States and/or your population is highly centralized. Offering equality of services to a population of 300,000,000 that is spread across 9,629,091 kms2 is not an easy task.
There is plenty of information attacking both the methodology and assumptions made throughout the book at the link I provided above.
And as for no ill affects, I won't even go into detail about a certain German socialist party but have you seen the state of France lately? Even though it has stopped being reported the riots that began last year have pretty much continued in one form or another since then, though admittedly to a much smaller degree. There are entire areas of the country that have been declared official no-go zones for the police because they fear for their safety (the current list stands at approximately 751 recognized Zones Urbaines Sensibles ) . Much of this is due to a socialist system that has created such a messed up employment system that employers cannot hire people to fill jobs because of legislation limiting their ability to fire anyone, as well as a large cultural divide between native French citizens and their immigrant population.
Since the 70's unemployment has remained in the double digits with only brief stints in the high singles (currently at 9%). That's in comparison The US has a current unemployment of just over 4%. And as for your other examples, Germany 9.6%, Spain 7.6% with Sweden being the best at a respectable 5.6%.
And in the case of a book presenting itself as unbiased reporting on a Republican election victory the question is a valid one. It's like Rush Limbaugh writing a book on possible election gaming in the most recent Democratic victories and trying to present himself as an unbiased source.
Both are quite capable of writing books on the subject but they should openly admit any bias which may affect their assumptions and analysis.
Freeman makes the claim but his co-author is the editor of a progressive magazine started and still run by an admitted socialist with help of the likes of Noam Chomsky. Not necessarily your most unbiased source for analysis of a Republican election victory.
Exit polls within the US have had a shady history at best. The meme that it's only been the last two Presidential elections where discrepancies have appeared is a myth created by conspiracy nuts or people just looking to sell a few more papers. About the only thing at all consistent is the level of inaccuracy. For example Clinton's overestimation in 1992 exit polls was almost exactly the same as Kerry's in '04 but Clinton won so no one really cared that the raw polling data was off by almost 3%. There have also been significant problems with 1990, 1994 and 1998 numbers with regards to Senate and Gubernatorial races but once again, no one really cared at the time so those numbers, which were off 58% of the time (in both directions), were basically thrown down the memory hole.
Historically US exit polling results are all over the map and have only been getting worse. It also doesn't help that poor training leads to improper sampling or that laws in certain areas restrict pollers access to voters.
Outside of the US exit polls are much more accurate but that can be easily explained by differences in polling techniques and voter mentality.
A good source for a little less bias polling info is Pollster.com as opposed to a book co-written by an editor of an progressive magazine run by an admitted socialist.
I'm not a big fan of Blu-Ray (lack of standards is going to play havoc on first gen adopters) but if this was a fight about capacity HD-DVD would have been dead before it ever began. Capacity is about the only aspect of the next gen formats where there is a clear winner and it is not HD.
TDK was showcasing 100GB blu-ray discs almost two years ago and has recently shown off 200GB blu-ray discs. The problem is people are slow to adopt the use of next gen optical drives for performing important back ups and at present the excess capacity is next to useless for the movie industry.
This does help HD-DVD in that the increased capacity does help them match Blu-Rays superiority in the important TV DVD market. Previous to this you could fit an entire high def season on one BR disc but would be forced to use 2 or 3 HD discs. Now they can both meet the single disc hurdle.
I just hope someone wins this battle quickly and we'll get one standard for both PCs and movies or if not at least drives/players capable of reading both.
From a Canadian perspective, I have never, not once, seen a Wii on a shelf in any electronics/department store in town. They are usually sold straight out of the shipping boxes and they don't even require a sign, just simple word of mouth, to create a crowd.
The only place I know of that ever managed to get them to the shelves is small town about 50 minutes outside of Ottawa and even then they'd be gone by the end of the day. And now even their supplies are sold out before being unpacked.
I managed to get 2 before Christmas by waiting in line at the right places and the right times, but both times there were lines prior to the store opening. I know of 3 people right now who are still trying to get one and have been having no luck.
PS3's on the other hand are in stock in almost every store I've been too, and that trend started even before Christmas. I managed to get one about 1 week before heading to my parents for the Holidays and before I left I could have bought 5 more. When I went to return it just after Christmas (decided on a 360 instead) there were 4 in stock at the Wal-mart I was at and the Zellers (Canadian dept. store) below my office had 3.
Sony may put together the parts themselves but unless they're employing magic elves in their production facilities they have to get those parts from somewhere.
Most of the cost analysis comes from looking at the separate components, seagate HD, IBM processor, ATI processor, Samsung RAM, etc.. and looking at the associated costs with either purchasing the part or licensing the design, and even includes volume discounts. These costs are relatively stable and well known. The guesstimating comes in when trying to calculate the SONY only parts but even there they can use some similar items to come up with ball park figures. So while you can argue with a person who is claiming to know exactly what the system cost is, when the rough estimates puts the cost in the multiple hundreds above purchase price you can bet that they are not making up the difference with innovative production techniques.
As for historical trends, you could look at Business Week or Cnet or just google it but you've managed to answered your own question with your last statement, "why the Xbox division lost billions over the life of the original Xbox?". Simply put, they could not overcome their loss leading system prices with adequate games sales. Add to that the R&D costs and advertising and they created too much of a hole to dig themselves out of with a 4.75:1 game to system ratio (the last number I could find). If the systems had been making a profit from the get go they may still have lost money overall, but unless their R&D costs were in the double digit billions they would not come out as far behind as they did.
Really, WTF?
Did I even mention which system I like the most?
I merely stated that to the best of my knowledge, Nintendo is the only game manufacturer that makes a profit of their hardware from day 1 meaning that even though a lot of cash is changing hands Sony, and to a lesser extent Microsoft, have to wait to see the numbers on game sales before they become "fat and happy".
That doesn't make their system any more powerful or fun to play or even more profitable over it's lifetime, just that when comparing sales of new systems in the first year even with strong system sales Sony and Microsoft are not guaranteed profits.
That I'm responding to a AC troll is just a indicator of how bored I am at work today.
Of the big 3, generally only Nintendo actually makes a profit off their gaming systems in the first year of release.
By some estimates Sony is subsidizing the PS3 to the tune of $300/unit while Microsoft is probably just about breaking even on systems. The big money for Microsoft and Sony comes from game sales, and the only solid numbers I've seen in that category were for Zelda units for the Wii (400k+).
So on the money side Nintendo has made a hefty profit from their 1.1 million+ units sold, Microsoft, having learned their lesson the the original XBox is probably doing ok especially with their major head start in game sales, while Sony needs to get more of their systems into peoples homes to try and generate more disc sales. Sony's saving grace may be that they'll also get money from the boost in blu-ray movie sales.
Yeah I don't understand that at all. The Shop Channel is the only connection that doesn't do a pre-test so if it fails it will hang for eternity.
I found another weird issue with their connection software. I have 2 wireless connections set, one for my place and one for a friends. Apparently my friends was the default for the system and at my place I couldn't connect for the Shop Channel or check to see if the Forecast channel/News channels were working.
If I tested my connection through the Wii menu it would work fine and then I could tests the Forecast/News channels. The Shop Channel however would still not work until I finally set my home wireless connection to be the active one. So it seems that in some cases it uses whatever is the last used network connection while in other cases it will use whatever is set as the system default. The fact neither of us broadcast our SSIDs may also have something to do with it.
I was one step away from rearranging furniture to try an improve signal strength.
Mosts stores I know of in the area has said they expect Wii deliveries every week but won't even put estimates on PS3 delivery dates although Best Buy Canada is promising a new shipment on the 8th.
The big electronics stores, Future Shop and Best Buy, seem to get in between 25 and 50 Wii units per delivery per store. The department stores, like Zellers and Wal-Mart have been getting between 15 and 50 units a week. From what I've heard about PS3's, even those stores that are expecting a new shipment before the new year aren't expecting more than 5-15 additional units, and that includes the big chains.
To my knowledge only one of the major religions has at it's center the concept of "convert or die". Almost all other mainstream religions have a 'live and let live' philosophy. That doesn't mean they have to believe that you will have a pleasant after/next life but that they believe the decision is yours to make.
Now throughout history there have been people in control over particular branches of particular faiths who have used their power to try and force others to behave as they saw fit, usually in direct opposition to their very faiths teachings, but the same is true of non-religious organizations and so far the atrocities committed by non-religious groups make anything faith based seem minuscule in comparison.
Well put, and me without my mod points.
I guess I'm not alone in trying to see how science enters in on the topic of a History teacher's ill-conceived rant in class.
All it takes is a few bad apples to spoil the whole bunch. Everyone seems to forget that the original Crusades were a response to wars of aggression declared by Muslims on, at the time, Christian nations and lands. A very large portion of the Middle East was Christian up until they were conquered and forcefully converted to Islam. The original goal of the crusades were to recapture these lands and prevent the further spread of Islam by force.
Of course the later Crusades were merely money/power grabs and operations for the settling of personal vendettas and even the original Crusaders did some pretty awful things, but "The Crusades" in general, were not as so many try to put forward, unsolicited attacks on helpless Muslims. There was more than enough blame to go around.
When you are trying to put down another faith based on your knowledge of their holy books you may just want to take the 5 seconds to research your argument on Google.
The "witch" line comes from Exodus and not from anything Jesus said while the "turn the other cheek" philosophy comes from the Sermon on the Mount and also the Sermon on the Plain; two of Jesus' more famous speeches.
It is also pretty clear by using the original texts and the definition of the term at the time that the 'witch' being referred to in the Exodus verse is not what we view as witches today. This was not meant to condemn wiccans or those of similar beliefs who pray to Mother Gaia or which ever power they believe in, to death, but a condemnation of those who would actively try and bring harm to others through the use of some powers or poisons.
So one statement has to do with a personal reaction to an affront or assault while the other has to do with how to deal with an ongoing attempt to bring harm to others. Since they do not even deal with the same circumstances they can be hardly contradictory.
I re-read your comment several times but have yet to find any actual defense of the BBC except that you don't like every other news source in Britian.
Do you have a counter to either story except your utter disdain for the linked sources?
Do you have links to the BBC denying that the leaked meeting happened or that they are not trying to prevent the report from becoming public? Of course not, you'd rather just attack the messenger and hope that no one notices your arguments have absolutely no substance except to portray your own prejudices.
I personally don't have a problem with people who watch the BBC as a source of news, I would just like people not to put blind faith in any one news agency to tell them the unbiased truth.
I can't comment on the Telegraph's bias, though it wouldn't surprise me that they're anti-BBC as they are competing news sources, but you don't have to share that bias to come to the same conclusions as the author of the linked article.
The report they are fighting in court to prevent from being made public was essentially commissioned to determine if they were in fact bias against Israel in their Middle East coverage. That they are doing everything in their power to prevent the conclusions of that report from getting out would seem to imply that the results were not complimentary to them.
BBC has about as much journalistic integrity as Entertainment Tonight, they just have better sounding accents.
Not to be too harsh but it just really gets me when people try to point to the BBC as a beacon of truth when by their own admission they pander to about every special interest group out there. They've also been fighting a freedom of information act request for the release of their own internal review of their Middle East coverage; most suspect because it implies that they have been highly biased against Israel.
It's never good to rely on one new source for your information.
Not sure if the differences that Thansal points out are worth the price jump or not but from the latest review I've seen the 20GB drive could be used up within about 6 games.
For once Sony seems to have done something about their historically horrendous load times and allowed for a pre-load option, at least one some games. This copies a lot of the game data to the system to cut down on Blu-Ray accesses. Choosing this option for the 3 games the reviewer was testing took up nearly half of the 20gb drive so unless you tend to play one game through before starting another or actually like to stare at the "loading level" message you'll want as much hard drive space as you can get.
If there's a way to install your own off the shelf drive into the system after the fact that may be the better option unless you simply can't live without a memory stick reader.
Wow, you take a hypothetical scenario meant to make a point and then without the slightest sense of irony draw in a sex scandal into a discussion about how the war has been waged to show how conservatives try and muddy the waters.
Pot meet Kettle.
My earlier post was with regards to PIPA studies in general.
For this one in particular, it's relationship to a push poll is that it focuses mainly on topics that are considered liberal strong points (anti-war, UN) where conservatives are generally all over the map so that it can make a headline for itself. It is essentially asking people their own opinions and since they support a certain candidate most people generally assume that their candidate of choice agrees with them. Notice the strongest conservative question, on defense spending, went in favor of Bush supporters.
On a side note, 2 of the questions that they gave credit to Kerry supporters for, the ICC and Kyoto, he supports in principle but not necessarily in their current forms so in effect he both supports and doesn't at the same time meaning that if the numbers had been reversed they would have legitimately been able to swap what they considered the correct answer and been able to defend it.