That statement is demonstrably wrong unless you want to add a clause specifying a district. Do you specifically mean the district where this incident occurred?
NYC's crime rates have plummeted over my lifetime (I'm 32). I don't know when these draconian firearms laws went into effect, but it shouldn't be hard to show correlation between draconian gun laws and decreasing crime rates.
Me? I support gun ownership. I own one (locked, unloaded, impractical) gun. But I don't support it because it reduces crime -- I don't think that's true in reality. I support gun ownership for other reasons.
That those hunters dislike being filmed shooting birds doesn't mean they are being 'harassed'"
Well, yeah okay, but neither does it mean they weren't being harassed. Filming a person can certainly be harassment, and often is. Whether or not the film operator was on public property is germane, but is also not an absolute defense: a person can harass another person, when the first person on public property films the second person on private property.
Your point (4) is interesting. I've only read this one (extremely biased and incomplete) article, but these were hunters out to shoot at pigeons, right? Pigeons which fly in the air? And this helicopter was in the air? And the activists knew all these details, thus knowing bullets would be flying through the air? And yet they put their device into harm's way? I'd have to hear oral arguments at trial, but it's not at all a foregone conclusion that the hunters did anything wrong. To get a judgement against a hunter, you would have to give legally valid and compelling evidence that an individual hunter intentionally shot the helicopter. That certainly seems likely, but a valid defense would be "Your honor, there was a pigeon in that general direction. The helicopter was an unfortunate secondary target, but I didn't put the helicopter there."
You make a good point that "the issue of flying that drone over a public road is an issue between the authorities and those activists". Likewise, the issue of shooting toward a highway is an issue between the authorities and those hunters.
My final point is that this Slashdot discussion is based on this article, and this article is plainly propaganda. That's fair enough, but we need to keep the propaganda context in mind.
I'm sure you are making that up, because no grammar teacher would ever say something so absolutely untrue. Some parts of English grammar are ambiguous (commas, notably), but hyphenation is not.
Oh, I thought it was obvious. As punctuated, the word "controlled" is an orphan. Instead of inserting the missing hyphen, my brain got stuck on the eventual missing preposition after "controlled". The missing preposition would be "by". But then, why would radio be controlled by toy tractors? So I had to go back and re-read the sentence, to figure out what the error was. What is missing? Some punctuation, or a word? If the hyphen were there, my brain would have understood without having to re-read. So the reason it is important to hyphenate adjective phrases, is so that people can understand sentences on the first try.
I don't understand the principle behind this sentiment. Taken to the extreme, that sentiment would preclude any marriages, and almost any relationships. ("Never split the cost of a tank of gas! What if you break up during the drive?") So, then, how do you (you yourself, LoudNoiseElitist) decide WHAT to combine and WHAT not to? Do you buy two copies of DVDs? Do you use two different SVN instances for your ~username backups? Do you have two separate websites announcing your wedding?
Wow that is a horrible thing to say. You should be ashamed. Not only do you lack sufficient information to make such a statement, but it isn't even valid: nobody ever said he 'destroyed his individuality', or combined 'all' these things. He combined some things, as do all couples, and now has to separate them, as all divorcees. Using the word "maybe" does not shield you from the blame you deserve for being so callous.
When you say "you cannot patent life", do you mean "you should not be able to patent life"? My understanding is that you can, in fact, patent life other than a fully-formed human being -- all other life forms are patentable. But perhaps I am happily incorrect.
Indeed. As a moderate, I see the debt as the biggest threat to this democracy, even bigger than the threats of political extremism, gridlock, entitlement mentality, and even the rejection of reality (by which I mean stuff like climate denial).
If all you want is "wrestle the debt down a bit", then Obama's current budget might satisfy you. Not me, though. I don't want to wrestle it down a bit, I want to wrestle it down a lot! I'm not a balanced-budget ideologue at all, and I'm also not a small-government ideologue, but I accept the conventional wisdom that in general the government should pay its bills, every time, on time, year in and year out, without resorting to debt except in extremely rare circumstances. I'll keep dreaming.
You linked to information about the debt, which is not germane to the question. Do you have any links for the size of government (which is to say, total expenditures)?
Make sure to watch the inflation-adjusted trend line, in purple.
From this, it looks like you might be able to claim that Nixon made an infinitesimal trim to the budget in 1969, or perhaps Reagan in 1987. Maybe, but neither of them cut the budget over the course of their term in office (which is what I said).
And if you have to go back to Eisenhower, then thank you, that is definitive evidence of my claim: for the entire lifetime of most living Americans, Republicans have been blowhard lying fake populists who bloviate about how government is too big, and then grow it faster than Democrats.
I didn't spell this out previously, but my underlying claim is if you want smaller government, but vote for Republicans, you are an easily fooled stooge. My point is not that government shouldn't be smaller, nor that Democrats are great stewards of the budget; my point is that in any fair comparison, no reasonable person can credit Republicans with having shrunk the budget, since before almost any of us were born.
Ha ha, no dude, it is apparently you who is unaware that the budget originates in the White House, under the laws of the United States. That process was established by law a heck of a long time ago, and has been pretty consistent since Nixon or so. Actually my guess is that you are aware of that, but that you ignored it in order to try to make a point. But, alas, the fact of the matter is that the budget starts and ends with the President, and has for the lifetimes of almost all Americans, so your point doesn't stand.
There is a reason Presidents accept credit and take blame for the budget: because that is reasonable under the reality of the budget process.
Yeah, only "some", such as 100% of Republicans ever elected to office.
I dare you -- dare you -- to tell me the last Republican President who cut the budget during his term in office. I dare you.
Republicans always, always grow the budget faster than Democrats. Always. Not just do they grow the government, they always grow it faster than Democrats.
But hey, you know, after 75 years of being lied to, maybe THIS TIME Republicans will pick a President who won't be a gigantic hypocrite. I doubt it, but hey, anything is possible.
Perhaps, but I'd say it is equally valid that he did not make a joke. He said something that is wrong, which is commonly held, and made no indication that his statement was not to be taken as commonly held. To make a joke, he would have to somehow distinguish himself from that common sentiment.
In any case, I'm glad that he doesn't defend the actual words he wrote. Whether it was a joke, or whether he realized how fucking stupid a thing it is to say, the result is that he disclaims the statement, which is satisfactory.
That's cute, but it literally cannot exist in the physical universe. You might want to consider the ramifications of subscribing to an ideology which is physically impossible.
I mean, seriously, "not one iota of my labor goes to subsidize the choices you or anyone else makes"? So, no taxes, no government, no markets, no working for an employer, no buying or selling goods, no having children, no speaking to or interacting with your fellow man? Please forgive the rest of us for rejecting that as nonsense.
But that's a non-sequitur, because it seems that you have backed down from your assertion that people who think universal telephone access is a good policy, necessarily consider universal telephone access to be a "right", which was my original beef. You have backed down from that, so you have satisfied that concern, thank you.
I dunno, I think the problem is a Rick Santorum's Problem. It's because of Rick Santorum's obsession with gay people and banning gay sex. Maybe Rick Santorum should get off his soap box. And since Rick Santorum is against gay marriage obviously those people are going to be active against him along with others that fear is rise to power.
It's been a few years since "Taliban" has been used synecdochally to mean a group of people with deep, disgusting, violent, and hateful religious beliefs. I don't think it's usually used to mean "very bad group of people" in the general sense, the way Nazi is used, although there is some obvious overlap.
a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
Probably not. Savage can probably be described as "obstinately devoted to his opinions", but that's a rather incomplete definition of the word, which would apply to almost all people. The rest of the definition, which twice uses the word "intolerant", does not describe Savage, who is not intolerant. You will know Dan Savage has become intolerant when he calls for heterosexuals to be denied civil rights, which would be quite a turnaround for him.
You should look up the word, because you obviously don't understand what it means. To tolerate something, by definition, means you don't agree with it. If you agree with it, then you support it.
People who say what you say, are attempting to use language in such a way to validate hateful and wrong opinions. By telling you so, I am expressing my opposition to your very bad mental acrobatics, which have led to your ethically bankrupt conclusion. Now, if I stop here, after telling you that you are a douchebag, then that is tolerance. If I come arrest you, or deny you civil rights, or try to exclude you from society, then that is not tolerance. Luckily, I tolerate douchebags like you.
Slashdot Mirror
For fuck's sake, you asshole, why did you bring reason to an emotion fight? Now we all have to shut down this thread, because you won it.
That statement is demonstrably wrong unless you want to add a clause specifying a district. Do you specifically mean the district where this incident occurred?
NYC's crime rates have plummeted over my lifetime (I'm 32). I don't know when these draconian firearms laws went into effect, but it shouldn't be hard to show correlation between draconian gun laws and decreasing crime rates.
Me? I support gun ownership. I own one (locked, unloaded, impractical) gun. But I don't support it because it reduces crime -- I don't think that's true in reality. I support gun ownership for other reasons.
That those hunters dislike being filmed shooting birds doesn't mean they are being 'harassed'"
Well, yeah okay, but neither does it mean they weren't being harassed. Filming a person can certainly be harassment, and often is. Whether or not the film operator was on public property is germane, but is also not an absolute defense: a person can harass another person, when the first person on public property films the second person on private property.
Your point (4) is interesting. I've only read this one (extremely biased and incomplete) article, but these were hunters out to shoot at pigeons, right? Pigeons which fly in the air? And this helicopter was in the air? And the activists knew all these details, thus knowing bullets would be flying through the air? And yet they put their device into harm's way? I'd have to hear oral arguments at trial, but it's not at all a foregone conclusion that the hunters did anything wrong. To get a judgement against a hunter, you would have to give legally valid and compelling evidence that an individual hunter intentionally shot the helicopter. That certainly seems likely, but a valid defense would be "Your honor, there was a pigeon in that general direction. The helicopter was an unfortunate secondary target, but I didn't put the helicopter there."
You make a good point that "the issue of flying that drone over a public road is an issue between the authorities and those activists". Likewise, the issue of shooting toward a highway is an issue between the authorities and those hunters.
My final point is that this Slashdot discussion is based on this article, and this article is plainly propaganda. That's fair enough, but we need to keep the propaganda context in mind.
I'm not clear why you ignored this:
"It was filming events on private property"
when I'm pretty sure that's the crux of the matter. I don't think you can dismiss that.
I'm sure you are making that up, because no grammar teacher would ever say something so absolutely untrue. Some parts of English grammar are ambiguous (commas, notably), but hyphenation is not.
Oh, I thought it was obvious. As punctuated, the word "controlled" is an orphan. Instead of inserting the missing hyphen, my brain got stuck on the eventual missing preposition after "controlled". The missing preposition would be "by". But then, why would radio be controlled by toy tractors? So I had to go back and re-read the sentence, to figure out what the error was. What is missing? Some punctuation, or a word? If the hyphen were there, my brain would have understood without having to re-read. So the reason it is important to hyphenate adjective phrases, is so that people can understand sentences on the first try.
Sorry for the late reply.
The headline of this article is a good example of why it is important to hyphenate adjective phrases.
Sincerely,
Your Third Grade Teacher
I don't understand the principle behind this sentiment. Taken to the extreme, that sentiment would preclude any marriages, and almost any relationships. ("Never split the cost of a tank of gas! What if you break up during the drive?") So, then, how do you (you yourself, LoudNoiseElitist) decide WHAT to combine and WHAT not to?
Do you buy two copies of DVDs? Do you use two different SVN instances for your ~username backups? Do you have two separate websites announcing your wedding?
"my wife uses yahoo"
That's as good a reason as any for a divorce.
No, he doesn't know. It's called "the arrogance of ignorance".
"Shared assets like domains would be split based on the separation agreement, no?"
Yes. And his question is how to make such an agreement.
Wow that is a horrible thing to say. You should be ashamed. Not only do you lack sufficient information to make such a statement, but it isn't even valid: nobody ever said he 'destroyed his individuality', or combined 'all' these things. He combined some things, as do all couples, and now has to separate them, as all divorcees. Using the word "maybe" does not shield you from the blame you deserve for being so callous.
When you say "you cannot patent life", do you mean "you should not be able to patent life"? My understanding is that you can, in fact, patent life other than a fully-formed human being -- all other life forms are patentable. But perhaps I am happily incorrect.
Indeed. As a moderate, I see the debt as the biggest threat to this democracy, even bigger than the threats of political extremism, gridlock, entitlement mentality, and even the rejection of reality (by which I mean stuff like climate denial).
If all you want is "wrestle the debt down a bit", then Obama's current budget might satisfy you. Not me, though. I don't want to wrestle it down a bit, I want to wrestle it down a lot! I'm not a balanced-budget ideologue at all, and I'm also not a small-government ideologue, but I accept the conventional wisdom that in general the government should pay its bills, every time, on time, year in and year out, without resorting to debt except in extremely rare circumstances. I'll keep dreaming.
You linked to information about the debt, which is not germane to the question. Do you have any links for the size of government (which is to say, total expenditures)?
Oh, heck, I'll look it up for you. Here it is
http://www.supportingevidence.com/Government/fed_budget_over_time.html
Make sure to watch the inflation-adjusted trend line, in purple.
From this, it looks like you might be able to claim that Nixon made an infinitesimal trim to the budget in 1969, or perhaps Reagan in 1987. Maybe, but neither of them cut the budget over the course of their term in office (which is what I said).
And if you have to go back to Eisenhower, then thank you, that is definitive evidence of my claim: for the entire lifetime of most living Americans, Republicans have been blowhard lying fake populists who bloviate about how government is too big, and then grow it faster than Democrats.
I didn't spell this out previously, but my underlying claim is if you want smaller government, but vote for Republicans, you are an easily fooled stooge. My point is not that government shouldn't be smaller, nor that Democrats are great stewards of the budget; my point is that in any fair comparison, no reasonable person can credit Republicans with having shrunk the budget, since before almost any of us were born.
Ha ha, no dude, it is apparently you who is unaware that the budget originates in the White House, under the laws of the United States. That process was established by law a heck of a long time ago, and has been pretty consistent since Nixon or so. Actually my guess is that you are aware of that, but that you ignored it in order to try to make a point. But, alas, the fact of the matter is that the budget starts and ends with the President, and has for the lifetimes of almost all Americans, so your point doesn't stand.
There is a reason Presidents accept credit and take blame for the budget: because that is reasonable under the reality of the budget process.
Just in case you actually don't know that, here's some starter reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Management_and_Budget
Yeah, only "some", such as 100% of Republicans ever elected to office.
I dare you -- dare you -- to tell me the last Republican President who cut the budget during his term in office. I dare you.
Republicans always, always grow the budget faster than Democrats. Always. Not just do they grow the government, they always grow it faster than Democrats.
But hey, you know, after 75 years of being lied to, maybe THIS TIME Republicans will pick a President who won't be a gigantic hypocrite. I doubt it, but hey, anything is possible.
Perhaps, but I'd say it is equally valid that he did not make a joke. He said something that is wrong, which is commonly held, and made no indication that his statement was not to be taken as commonly held. To make a joke, he would have to somehow distinguish himself from that common sentiment.
In any case, I'm glad that he doesn't defend the actual words he wrote. Whether it was a joke, or whether he realized how fucking stupid a thing it is to say, the result is that he disclaims the statement, which is satisfactory.
That's cute, but it literally cannot exist in the physical universe. You might want to consider the ramifications of subscribing to an ideology which is physically impossible.
I mean, seriously, "not one iota of my labor goes to subsidize the choices you or anyone else makes"? So, no taxes, no government, no markets, no working for an employer, no buying or selling goods, no having children, no speaking to or interacting with your fellow man? Please forgive the rest of us for rejecting that as nonsense.
But that's a non-sequitur, because it seems that you have backed down from your assertion that people who think universal telephone access is a good policy, necessarily consider universal telephone access to be a "right", which was my original beef. You have backed down from that, so you have satisfied that concern, thank you.
I dunno, I think the problem is a Rick Santorum's Problem. It's because of Rick Santorum's obsession with gay people and banning gay sex. Maybe Rick Santorum should get off his soap box. And since Rick Santorum is against gay marriage obviously those people are going to be active against him along with others that fear is rise to power.
All you are doing is (ahem) spreading "santorum".
"If someone had done the same thing to 'obama,' would Google's stance be the same?"
Yes.
It would be a quite significant feat for a person to be successful with that re-definition, much more than for santorum.
It's been a few years since "Taliban" has been used synecdochally to mean a group of people with deep, disgusting, violent, and hateful religious beliefs. I don't think it's usually used to mean "very bad group of people" in the general sense, the way Nazi is used, although there is some obvious overlap.
a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
Probably not. Savage can probably be described as "obstinately devoted to his opinions", but that's a rather incomplete definition of the word, which would apply to almost all people. The rest of the definition, which twice uses the word "intolerant", does not describe Savage, who is not intolerant. You will know Dan Savage has become intolerant when he calls for heterosexuals to be denied civil rights, which would be quite a turnaround for him.
You should look up the word, because you obviously don't understand what it means. To tolerate something, by definition, means you don't agree with it. If you agree with it, then you support it.
People who say what you say, are attempting to use language in such a way to validate hateful and wrong opinions. By telling you so, I am expressing my opposition to your very bad mental acrobatics, which have led to your ethically bankrupt conclusion. Now, if I stop here, after telling you that you are a douchebag, then that is tolerance. If I come arrest you, or deny you civil rights, or try to exclude you from society, then that is not tolerance. Luckily, I tolerate douchebags like you.