The sensible Muslims are out there, especially here in the USA. The problem is that they are vastly outnumbered by the crazypants Muslims. It's not hard to find a peaceful freedom-loving American Muslim, if you look for him, but they don't tend to make the news, and they don't have very much influence over the crazy ones.
I hope it takes less than a millennium to get almost everybody on the same page with atheism. It won't stop all the fighting but it will help.
The worst unfair business practice was charging hardware manufacturers for a copy of Windows for every machine shipped even if it didn't actually have Windows on it. That one contract clause indirectly put human computer development back twenty years.
Science has nothing to say about "God", so long as nobody can say anything about God. But if God has any properties or takes any actions or in any way affects the universe, then science can detect it. Religious people need to decide whether God is any different from -- um -- well, any different from nothing, and if it is, then science has something to say about it.
I don't dismiss people who might think it did as complete crackpots
You should start. It will save you from dealing with a huge amount of bullshit.
Look up skepticism. The gist is that you accept ideas (n.b.: not 'believe' them) when there is compelling evidence for them, and reject them (not 'disbelieve' them) otherwise. Thus, you should reject magical nonsense, because there is no evidence for magical nonsense. [To be clear, "God" is magic, because "God" is capable of breaking natural laws.]
Also, evolution is "circumstantial" in the way that everything is circumstantial. Evolution is literally the best-ever supported scientific theory, with hundreds of millions of pieces of evidence. It is stupid to sit around wondering if maybe hundreds of millions of pieces of evidence are all part of a cosmic deistic ruse.
They are religious zealots that view anything that contradicts their world view as a threat.
Yes, and they are correct: science is a threat to their world view and their entire religion. Yes, there is a conspiracy of scientists and like-minded people to promote naturalism at the expense of traditional beliefs. That's all true, it's just not bad. It's good.
Is that Minchin? I recognize your quote there, but not your sig quote. Minchin is amazing. My favorite, from that same 'song', is "every mystery ever solved has turned out to be NOT MAGIC".
Well, you're wrong about the context thing, but you are right about not respecting nonsense stories people tell one another to make themselves feel special. Who would respect that?
I think Colin's point was that "to sue" someone means "to file a lawsuit against" someone. Even if a judge rules for the government on the basis of sovereign immunity, that still means a judge is making a decision, which means the case is already in court, which means somebody has already filed a lawsuit against the government, which means somebody "has sued" the government. If it were true, as you said, that "you cannot sue the government without their permission", that would mean that the filing clerk would deny your filing.
Ha! You said Visual Studio is "good". I can only imagine someone saying that if they have never in their lives used any other IDE, and if that person has absolutely no imagination whatsoever. VS is not nearly as good as any of the open-source IDEs I've ever used. VS daily makes me want to stab myself in the eyeball with a dull pencil.
I suspect that your post was flamebait in that regards; your main point, though, is correct: the OP untenably equated VS dev with Windows dev.
This is the obvious answer. I hardly think he was doing it for the money. He was doing it to get away with it, because he felt a compulsion to do it. Alas, in our civil society, we expect people to overcome their compulsions.
Well, yes, it is true that the demand for gas changes little with price -- that is called price inelasticity, as you say. But still, "supply and demand" is the same as "the market will bear".
I don't actually have a strong opinion about it. I'm not one to rant against government regulations or involvement with markets. In this case, a government is making a domestic product unnaturally inexpensive. Is that good or bad? Well, we Americans get cheap solar panels (probably good) but we also lose our own domestic solar panel industry (probably bad). Also, since China owns American debt, I'd say that Americans are signing up to pay full price for those panels at a later time, plus interest (probably bad). Nevertheless, as you point out, the panels will help marginally decrease our oil usage (probably good). It's a mix. I don't have a strong preference in this case, nor do I criticize yours.
My original point was a small point: these aren't actually cheap panels, they're just being sold for a loss. Well, maybe it's both.
Thank you. Yes. People say "free market" but mean something else. They aren't saying what they mean, because they don't know what a free market actually is. That's political ignorance.
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Almost all (but not quite all) free-market proponents are politically ignorant of what they are actually promoting.
"Business governed by the laws of supply and demand, not restrained by government interference, regulation or subsidy."
I didn't read past your first sentence, because as a rule I don't argue against people who can't be bothered to know what they are arguing about. Suffice it to say, if you advocate for "free markets" but don't want "markets with zero regulations or taxes", then you are a stooge being used by people who actually do want markets with zero regulations or taxes. What you probably want is a regulated market, perhaps one less regulated than the one the USA has today. That's fine, but it's not a free market.
Thank you for trying to educate me. You are still totally wrong, but I do appreciate being tipped to the subtlety of the story. Having dug into it, the best I can determine is that the GE tax is "small" -- that's the last word from GE, having realized how bad an idea it was for them to announce that they paid billions less than zero. Since GE refuses to be more specific, I think it is fair to assume that "small" is within rounding distance of zero. Since I paid more than zero, I stand by my assertion that I paid more than GE, but if you want me to be 100% literal about it, then I didn't pay more than GE by billions of dollars.
Slashdot Mirror
The sensible Muslims are out there, especially here in the USA. The problem is that they are vastly outnumbered by the crazypants Muslims. It's not hard to find a peaceful freedom-loving American Muslim, if you look for him, but they don't tend to make the news, and they don't have very much influence over the crazy ones.
I hope it takes less than a millennium to get almost everybody on the same page with atheism. It won't stop all the fighting but it will help.
Here's my take on blasphemy:
:-) <- not Muhammad
:-) <- Muhammad
The worst unfair business practice was charging hardware manufacturers for a copy of Windows for every machine shipped even if it didn't actually have Windows on it. That one contract clause indirectly put human computer development back twenty years.
Was he fired? I accepted the public story: he cashed out.
Science has nothing to say about "God", so long as nobody can say anything about God. But if God has any properties or takes any actions or in any way affects the universe, then science can detect it. Religious people need to decide whether God is any different from -- um -- well, any different from nothing, and if it is, then science has something to say about it.
The flaw leads to the failure of the argument -- or, symbolically, its death.
fatal/ftl/
Adjective:
1. Causing death.
2. Leading to failure or disaster.
I don't dismiss people who might think it did as complete crackpots
You should start. It will save you from dealing with a huge amount of bullshit.
Look up skepticism. The gist is that you accept ideas (n.b.: not 'believe' them) when there is compelling evidence for them, and reject them (not 'disbelieve' them) otherwise. Thus, you should reject magical nonsense, because there is no evidence for magical nonsense. [To be clear, "God" is magic, because "God" is capable of breaking natural laws.]
Also, evolution is "circumstantial" in the way that everything is circumstantial. Evolution is literally the best-ever supported scientific theory, with hundreds of millions of pieces of evidence. It is stupid to sit around wondering if maybe hundreds of millions of pieces of evidence are all part of a cosmic deistic ruse.
They are religious zealots that view anything that contradicts their world view as a threat.
Yes, and they are correct: science is a threat to their world view and their entire religion. Yes, there is a conspiracy of scientists and like-minded people to promote naturalism at the expense of traditional beliefs. That's all true, it's just not bad. It's good.
Is that Minchin? I recognize your quote there, but not your sig quote. Minchin is amazing. My favorite, from that same 'song', is "every mystery ever solved has turned out to be NOT MAGIC".
Well, you're wrong about the context thing, but you are right about not respecting nonsense stories people tell one another to make themselves feel special. Who would respect that?
Do you mean magical free will, or nonmagical free will?
I suspect you mean magical free will, but that does not exist, because there's no such thing as magic.
I think Colin's point was that "to sue" someone means "to file a lawsuit against" someone. Even if a judge rules for the government on the basis of sovereign immunity, that still means a judge is making a decision, which means the case is already in court, which means somebody has already filed a lawsuit against the government, which means somebody "has sued" the government. If it were true, as you said, that "you cannot sue the government without their permission", that would mean that the filing clerk would deny your filing.
Ha! You said Visual Studio is "good". I can only imagine someone saying that if they have never in their lives used any other IDE, and if that person has absolutely no imagination whatsoever. VS is not nearly as good as any of the open-source IDEs I've ever used. VS daily makes me want to stab myself in the eyeball with a dull pencil.
I suspect that your post was flamebait in that regards; your main point, though, is correct: the OP untenably equated VS dev with Windows dev.
This is the obvious answer. I hardly think he was doing it for the money. He was doing it to get away with it, because he felt a compulsion to do it. Alas, in our civil society, we expect people to overcome their compulsions.
Perhaps. Or perhaps that store owner crunched the numbers and determined it was cheaper to deal with the loss, than to slow down the lines.
Mmm hmm. Yeah, it's not the rise, it's the rate. Same for temperatures.
that would be hyperopic
Well, yes, it is true that the demand for gas changes little with price -- that is called price inelasticity, as you say. But still, "supply and demand" is the same as "the market will bear".
I agree with what you said, and I don't think it contradicts anything I said.
"Gasoline is not priced by supply and demand, it is priced by what the market will bear."
Isn't that the same?
Seriously, my eye skipped right over that. It looks like keming (bad kerning).
I don't actually have a strong opinion about it. I'm not one to rant against government regulations or involvement with markets. In this case, a government is making a domestic product unnaturally inexpensive. Is that good or bad? Well, we Americans get cheap solar panels (probably good) but we also lose our own domestic solar panel industry (probably bad). Also, since China owns American debt, I'd say that Americans are signing up to pay full price for those panels at a later time, plus interest (probably bad). Nevertheless, as you point out, the panels will help marginally decrease our oil usage (probably good). It's a mix. I don't have a strong preference in this case, nor do I criticize yours.
My original point was a small point: these aren't actually cheap panels, they're just being sold for a loss. Well, maybe it's both.
Thank you. Yes. People say "free market" but mean something else. They aren't saying what they mean, because they don't know what a free market actually is. That's political ignorance.
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Almost all (but not quite all) free-market proponents are politically ignorant of what they are actually promoting.
It's literally the definition of a free market. Literally. The definition.
http://www.investorwords.com/2086/free_market.html
"Business governed by the laws of supply and demand, not restrained by government interference, regulation or subsidy."
I didn't read past your first sentence, because as a rule I don't argue against people who can't be bothered to know what they are arguing about. Suffice it to say, if you advocate for "free markets" but don't want "markets with zero regulations or taxes", then you are a stooge being used by people who actually do want markets with zero regulations or taxes. What you probably want is a regulated market, perhaps one less regulated than the one the USA has today. That's fine, but it's not a free market.
Thank you for trying to educate me. You are still totally wrong, but I do appreciate being tipped to the subtlety of the story. Having dug into it, the best I can determine is that the GE tax is "small" -- that's the last word from GE, having realized how bad an idea it was for them to announce that they paid billions less than zero. Since GE refuses to be more specific, I think it is fair to assume that "small" is within rounding distance of zero. Since I paid more than zero, I stand by my assertion that I paid more than GE, but if you want me to be 100% literal about it, then I didn't pay more than GE by billions of dollars.
Forbes says billions in tax benefits in 2009
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes.html
Business Insider say GE is "full of crap"
http://www.businessinsider.com/ge-taxes-2010
CNN Money reports $0 in taxes
http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/news/companies/ge_7000_tax_returns/
Washington Post, deep down on the second page, reports a "small" tax liability, but GE won't specify; note that "zero" is the smallest number of all
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-truth-about-ges-tax-bill/2011/04/05/AFZm0L9C_story_1.html