Your knee-jerk liberal equivocating is as wrong as it is boring. In the USA you are very unlikely to encounter violence over strongly atheistic speech. You will get a vigorous response of (take a wild guess...) more speech -- in Texas I admit you may be yelled at, you may have some ladies tearfully tell you they'll pray for you, you may have a greasy haired evangelist do his best to save your soul, etc. However, you will not be shot or tased.
See, you're falling into a typical liberal fallacy -- "any speech that makes someone mad is hate speech and is the same thing as violence". In fact, so called hate speech that leads to more speech back and forth is an inescapable part of a healthy and diverse society.
So the real question is, who are these people making decisions, and why did they make those decisions? It's odd that you don't seem to recognize that.
"There is no god." "Mohammed was a false prophet." Either of those statements is sufficient for militant Islam to want to chop off my head, as I said either sooner or later as they see their way clear. It is the job of civilized governments to constrain and box in militant Islam so it can't expand and chop off heads and blow people up in any wider of a sphere than necessary. It is distinctly NOT the job of civilized governments to censor our lovable albeit loud mouthed atheists to make the Muslims happy.
Consequently, the question of why a particular militant Islamic group goes murder-crazy at a particular moment may in some cases be purely academic and moot for policy purposes.
Except, of course that there has been surveys done of French Moslems (by the Pew Research Institute if memory serves well), that tend to prove they are the least radicalized and best integrated of all European Moslem communities. You really have no idea what you are talking about, so please just STFU.
After rampant reports of burned cars and attacks on Jews in Paris, I'd really hate to see what poorly integrated Muslim populations looked like.
France participated in Operation Desert Storm aka "Operation_Daguet", which is probably reason enough for any jihadist. More recently with the large influx of North African Muslims there's been conflict with France's largely atheistic culture. See the Charlie Hebdo incident -- militant Islam lacks anything resembling either a sense of humor or respect for human rights.
To the point, militant Islam really, really wants to be in charge, which makes pretty much everyone in the world either an immediate target or a future target. It's odd that you don't seem to recognize that.
The project has already been stalled and deprioritised due to low oil prices, so Obama's advisers calculated that the economic pain of rejecting it now won't cause them too much trouble. They don't have to pretend to be still reviewing it while actually simply stonewalling it until it dies. A benefit is that they get to preach about the environment, even as oil gets transported by rail and truck instead, which of course generates a lot more carbon. But hey, at least Berkshire Hathaway owns the rail lines and is an ally of the Democrats.
Fortunately, Obama is a lame duck, and his corrupt, incompetent, and generally malfeasant administration will soon be ejected from DC.
There are several ways we can use technology to promote effective climate action:
First, we need to put an immediate stop to the UAH and RSS satellite measurements of surface temperature, or at least publication of the results. None of our models is able to explain why the temperatures haven't continued to rise as precipitously as we expected after the 90's. The pause is an embarrassment. Ergo, the pause doesn't exist, and we don't want to hear any more about it. The science is settled, OK?
Second, we need to deal once and for all with this weird thing called "the internet", where people apparently are free to say things that we disagree with. A good start would be criminal and civil lawsuits against individuals who express skepticism of our climate agenda. This is already underway, as Michael Mann is suing Mark Steyn for his aspersions about the hockey stick. And others have proposed using the RICO laws to shut down other speech that doesn't toe the line. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, if you please. We are all very serious scientists and public servants, and it's the other side who are corrupted by dirty money.
That's a generalization that is sometimes fair, sometimes not. Rich people occasionally throw their money at unprofitable things for principled reasons. Anyway, by making this bald generalization, you definitely have the class warfare/envy shtick down, so I guess thanks for illustrating my point.
I understand class warfare and envy, and how much it annoys people who sit around and watch TV that others have more money than they do. But serious, people, give it a rest. These people pay more in taxes than you do (loopholes notwithstanding), so if they decide to spend their money on social causes it needn't give people the involuntary wedgies.
I told my mom once about a recently deceased centenarian in the news who had boasted about eating chocolate every day. Mom retorted, "Well, if she didn't eat it, she might have lived even longer." Moral of the story: you can never win an argument with your mom.
Who is likely to live longer? A farmer who trudges out in the elements every day and works hard to keep his operation going, or a computer operator who sits in a chair and has so many things automated that there's almost nothing remaining that requires significant manual effort?
The way the summary is written shows some laughably naive understandings of human longevity. Farming is one of the most dangerous occupations, but I assure you that the aspects of hard work and being toughened by the elements are NOT bad for you, generally speaking.
You took the fact that you're not allowed to resell it as proof that you owned it?
Obvious troll is obvious.
are admirers of the illustrious Woz from days of yore
Yawn.
Woz today has many similarities to William Shatner. He's old, rich, and not doing anything that interesting anymore. So that's why I said "days of yore". Woz back then was not content to buy prepackaged electronics and use them as a consumer. He had to take things apart and make them do things they weren't supposed to do. He designed his own circuits and wrote his own software for his and Jobs' little startup. He was a phone phreaker, which while eyebrow raising, is definitely an epically geekish thing to have on his resume.
tl;dr version since you're so easily bored: If you find all of that yawn-worthy, I am putting you on notice that your geek card is in peril.
True, but it's still not lent, and the hardware does belong to me. I'm not sure that the "no resale" provision is enforceable, given the First Sale Doctrine. The software is an interesting case; there are legal cans of worms as yet unopened here
You say they didn't buy the device from Apple, which may be true if they got the unit from somebody else. However, I did win the Apple TV lottery and had to pay $1 plus tax, so you are mistaken about that part.
I won the Apple TV lottery and have a unit sitting here on my desk. I never saw terminology that indicated it was lent. And if you look at the terms from the Apple fanboi Daring Fireball blog, it says you can't "resell" it. So even though it only cost me a dollar plus tax, I still interpreted that as a purchase.
Of course iFixit's position appears legally indefensible, however for people who actually believe Jobs' famous "misfits/rebels" speech and are admirers of the illustrious Woz from days of yore, it's natural to take iFixit's side.
A question for you: Would America be stronger or weaker if we gained millions of immigrants speaking thousands of mutually unintelligible languages, but not including English? Wouldn't there be real difficulties with infrastructure, and simply with people interacting with each other? What you seem to have missed is that the problem with the languages can also apply to other cultural differences that lead to clashes. It is socially harmful to inject incompatible cultures en masse into a population, and much better for the host country to control/limit immigration to those who seem most ready and willing to assimilate. Diversity for its own sake is frequently NOT a net benefit. Now, don't get me wrong -- sub-cultures are perfectly fine, whether Italian Americans, Kurdish Americans, etc., but they do all need to be "Americans" and learn English in order for their presence to optimally benefit America.
Immigration is a positive net affect for a country the vast majority of the time.
Somebody else replied and called me a Nazi, so I feel compelled to point out that you mean "effect" above. Beyond that, this seems like a subjective opinion. In particular, tell that to all the African Americans who are being squeezed out of the job market by illegal aliens. Tell that to the European women who must "cover up" and can no longer go some places safely for fear of rape, or to pretty much any Jew in Paris...
Illegal immigration is a problem in the USA only because our politicians insist on keeping it that way. I've known people who where here in the USA for more than a dozen years legally trying to get permanent papers before finally getting it. If we killed the pointless war on drugs and simply issued social security numbers to those that asked in a timely manner illegal border crossings would be a thing of the past.
No, if we become (administratively speaking) friendlier to and more accepting of illegal aliens, then even larger masses of foreign citizens are likely to come over. Not sure why you would think otherwise. I'll leave the "legalizing drugs" thing alone, except to note that you may be smoking something potent if you think that's the way to make "illegal border crossings a thing of the past".
So we have to choose between open borders or the Third Reich. Definitely no shades of gray on this issue, just stark black and white? Somehow I am unconvinced.
It is not true that these are largely displaced Syrian families. Most of the migrants are young men and 4 out of 5 are not from Syria. In the highest traditions of Slashdot, I haven't read the article, but just from the summary I am not going to assume that this individual is a racist jerk.
If part of your basic assumptions include that every country (or region, like the EU) should have open borders, you should question that assumption. The same thought process applies on the USA's southern border. A constant stream of undocumented, unscreened, and (ahem) illegal immigrants is not healthy for a country for multiple reasons, and there's nothing wrong with decrying a leftist-enabled descent into greater levels of cultural and legal anarchy.
Slashdot Mirror
Your knee-jerk liberal equivocating is as wrong as it is boring. In the USA you are very unlikely to encounter violence over strongly atheistic speech. You will get a vigorous response of (take a wild guess...) more speech -- in Texas I admit you may be yelled at, you may have some ladies tearfully tell you they'll pray for you, you may have a greasy haired evangelist do his best to save your soul, etc. However, you will not be shot or tased.
See, you're falling into a typical liberal fallacy -- "any speech that makes someone mad is hate speech and is the same thing as violence". In fact, so called hate speech that leads to more speech back and forth is an inescapable part of a healthy and diverse society.
So the real question is, who are these people making decisions, and why did they make those decisions? It's odd that you don't seem to recognize that.
"There is no god." "Mohammed was a false prophet." Either of those statements is sufficient for militant Islam to want to chop off my head, as I said either sooner or later as they see their way clear. It is the job of civilized governments to constrain and box in militant Islam so it can't expand and chop off heads and blow people up in any wider of a sphere than necessary. It is distinctly NOT the job of civilized governments to censor our lovable albeit loud mouthed atheists to make the Muslims happy.
Consequently, the question of why a particular militant Islamic group goes murder-crazy at a particular moment may in some cases be purely academic and moot for policy purposes.
Except, of course that there has been surveys done of French Moslems (by the Pew Research Institute if memory serves well), that tend to prove they are the least radicalized and best integrated of all European Moslem communities. You really have no idea what you are talking about, so please just STFU.
After rampant reports of burned cars and attacks on Jews in Paris, I'd really hate to see what poorly integrated Muslim populations looked like.
France participated in Operation Desert Storm aka "Operation_Daguet", which is probably reason enough for any jihadist. More recently with the large influx of North African Muslims there's been conflict with France's largely atheistic culture. See the Charlie Hebdo incident -- militant Islam lacks anything resembling either a sense of humor or respect for human rights.
To the point, militant Islam really, really wants to be in charge, which makes pretty much everyone in the world either an immediate target or a future target. It's odd that you don't seem to recognize that.
The project has already been stalled and deprioritised due to low oil prices, so Obama's advisers calculated that the economic pain of rejecting it now won't cause them too much trouble. They don't have to pretend to be still reviewing it while actually simply stonewalling it until it dies. A benefit is that they get to preach about the environment, even as oil gets transported by rail and truck instead, which of course generates a lot more carbon. But hey, at least Berkshire Hathaway owns the rail lines and is an ally of the Democrats.
Fortunately, Obama is a lame duck, and his corrupt, incompetent, and generally malfeasant administration will soon be ejected from DC.
Or is it the money and your pension fund you're thinking of protecting?
lol wut
Seriously, what do you mean by that, my dear AC? If there's money in here for me, I would love to know about it.
There are several ways we can use technology to promote effective climate action:
First, we need to put an immediate stop to the UAH and RSS satellite measurements of surface temperature, or at least publication of the results. None of our models is able to explain why the temperatures haven't continued to rise as precipitously as we expected after the 90's. The pause is an embarrassment. Ergo, the pause doesn't exist, and we don't want to hear any more about it. The science is settled, OK?
Second, we need to deal once and for all with this weird thing called "the internet", where people apparently are free to say things that we disagree with. A good start would be criminal and civil lawsuits against individuals who express skepticism of our climate agenda. This is already underway, as Michael Mann is suing Mark Steyn for his aspersions about the hockey stick. And others have proposed using the RICO laws to shut down other speech that doesn't toe the line. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, if you please. We are all very serious scientists and public servants, and it's the other side who are corrupted by dirty money.
Now you have families where both parents work two or three jobs and still can't improve their economic outlook.
I'll grant that there are some families like that. Most in that situation shoot themselves in the foot by spending beyond their means.
You got me. I think such meddling was a mistake.
OK, but I'm not rich*. Just trying to be fair.
* At least, not for an American. Large-ish family, single income.
That's a generalization that is sometimes fair, sometimes not. Rich people occasionally throw their money at unprofitable things for principled reasons. Anyway, by making this bald generalization, you definitely have the class warfare/envy shtick down, so I guess thanks for illustrating my point.
I understand class warfare and envy, and how much it annoys people who sit around and watch TV that others have more money than they do. But serious, people, give it a rest. These people pay more in taxes than you do (loopholes notwithstanding), so if they decide to spend their money on social causes it needn't give people the involuntary wedgies.
I told my mom once about a recently deceased centenarian in the news who had boasted about eating chocolate every day. Mom retorted, "Well, if she didn't eat it, she might have lived even longer." Moral of the story: you can never win an argument with your mom.
I'm guessing farmers who can afford water level sensors can also afford wading boots.
Good on your dad for his initiative, and boo to overzealous bureaucrats.
Who is likely to live longer? A farmer who trudges out in the elements every day and works hard to keep his operation going, or a computer operator who sits in a chair and has so many things automated that there's almost nothing remaining that requires significant manual effort?
The way the summary is written shows some laughably naive understandings of human longevity. Farming is one of the most dangerous occupations, but I assure you that the aspects of hard work and being toughened by the elements are NOT bad for you, generally speaking.
You took the fact that you're not allowed to resell it as proof that you owned it?
Obvious troll is obvious.
are admirers of the illustrious Woz from days of yore
Yawn.
Woz today has many similarities to William Shatner. He's old, rich, and not doing anything that interesting anymore. So that's why I said "days of yore". Woz back then was not content to buy prepackaged electronics and use them as a consumer. He had to take things apart and make them do things they weren't supposed to do. He designed his own circuits and wrote his own software for his and Jobs' little startup. He was a phone phreaker, which while eyebrow raising, is definitely an epically geekish thing to have on his resume.
tl;dr version since you're so easily bored: If you find all of that yawn-worthy, I am putting you on notice that your geek card is in peril.
True, but it's still not lent, and the hardware does belong to me. I'm not sure that the "no resale" provision is enforceable, given the First Sale Doctrine. The software is an interesting case; there are legal cans of worms as yet unopened here
You say they didn't buy the device from Apple, which may be true if they got the unit from somebody else. However, I did win the Apple TV lottery and had to pay $1 plus tax, so you are mistaken about that part.
I won the Apple TV lottery and have a unit sitting here on my desk. I never saw terminology that indicated it was lent. And if you look at the terms from the Apple fanboi Daring Fireball blog, it says you can't "resell" it. So even though it only cost me a dollar plus tax, I still interpreted that as a purchase.
Of course iFixit's position appears legally indefensible, however for people who actually believe Jobs' famous "misfits/rebels" speech and are admirers of the illustrious Woz from days of yore, it's natural to take iFixit's side.
A question for you: Would America be stronger or weaker if we gained millions of immigrants speaking thousands of mutually unintelligible languages, but not including English? Wouldn't there be real difficulties with infrastructure, and simply with people interacting with each other? What you seem to have missed is that the problem with the languages can also apply to other cultural differences that lead to clashes. It is socially harmful to inject incompatible cultures en masse into a population, and much better for the host country to control/limit immigration to those who seem most ready and willing to assimilate. Diversity for its own sake is frequently NOT a net benefit. Now, don't get me wrong -- sub-cultures are perfectly fine, whether Italian Americans, Kurdish Americans, etc., but they do all need to be "Americans" and learn English in order for their presence to optimally benefit America.
Key word above is "assimilate".
Immigration is a positive net affect for a country the vast majority of the time.
Somebody else replied and called me a Nazi, so I feel compelled to point out that you mean "effect" above. Beyond that, this seems like a subjective opinion. In particular, tell that to all the African Americans who are being squeezed out of the job market by illegal aliens. Tell that to the European women who must "cover up" and can no longer go some places safely for fear of rape, or to pretty much any Jew in Paris...
Illegal immigration is a problem in the USA only because our politicians insist on keeping it that way. I've known people who where here in the USA for more than a dozen years legally trying to get permanent papers before finally getting it. If we killed the pointless war on drugs and simply issued social security numbers to those that asked in a timely manner illegal border crossings would be a thing of the past.
No, if we become (administratively speaking) friendlier to and more accepting of illegal aliens, then even larger masses of foreign citizens are likely to come over. Not sure why you would think otherwise. I'll leave the "legalizing drugs" thing alone, except to note that you may be smoking something potent if you think that's the way to make "illegal border crossings a thing of the past".
So we have to choose between open borders or the Third Reich. Definitely no shades of gray on this issue, just stark black and white? Somehow I am unconvinced.
It is not true that these are largely displaced Syrian families. Most of the migrants are young men and 4 out of 5 are not from Syria. In the highest traditions of Slashdot, I haven't read the article, but just from the summary I am not going to assume that this individual is a racist jerk.
If part of your basic assumptions include that every country (or region, like the EU) should have open borders, you should question that assumption. The same thought process applies on the USA's southern border. A constant stream of undocumented, unscreened, and (ahem) illegal immigrants is not healthy for a country for multiple reasons, and there's nothing wrong with decrying a leftist-enabled descent into greater levels of cultural and legal anarchy.
This something the US should do, because it would reduce a lot of the attacks before they touch infrastructure.
What the heck? Are you posting on behalf of the PRC?