The shooter never used body armor. The media just doesn't know anything about guns and thought his load bearing vest was body armor. Besides the point, body armor isn't magical, you still feel the hits. It also only covers your chest, there are plenty of other places someone fighting back could hit you and debilitate you.
There's also a pattern to these shootings. Typically as soon as armed resistance shows up, be that the police or a citizen with a carry permit, the shooters either give up or commit suicide.
Finally, I'd rather take my chances with "untrained civilians" than with NYPD.
I too have had a good experience with Dexpot on Windows 7_64. Though Skype doesn't play nice with it for some reason. Other than that no problems and works great.
Seems like a better name would be "SpaceWatch" or something. The word "Fence" implies it can block debris . When I think of tracking I typically don't think of fences.
I had a Zune HD for a while and really liked it. When I got a smartphone it became redundant and I sold it, but it was the nicest mp3 player I ever owned. I still use the Zune software today, I think its better than WMP or iTunes by far!
I, too, am sad Microsoft is abandoning the Zune platform, it was a great product.
You say you support the right to bear arms, yet you suggest that civilians do not need military style weapons. This betrays a misunderstanding of the purpose of the second amendment. Unfortunately this is entirely too common, its probably not even your fault and I'm glad you are asking this question. I hope that I can answer it adequately.
Let's start with the text of the second amendment shall we? It is:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The amendment consists of two parts, the introduction which states the reasoning for the amendment and the actual right to be protected. "To keep and bear arms" is relatively straight forward, it means people have the right to own and carry weapons. Note that it doesn't say "The people shall have the right to keep and bear arms." That would imply the government is granting the right to the people. Rather it says "shall not be infringed," implying that the right to arms is a preexisting right that no government can legitimately take away.
That aside, typically people get hung up on the "well regulated militia" part. They argue that this means the army should have the right to arms, but not the people. The amendment clearly states that it is the people whom have the right to keep and bear arms though and the SCOTUS acknowledged this in DC vs Heller and again in Chicago vs McDonald. The second argument that is typically made is that the word "regulated" implies that the government has the right to restrict how people may exercise their second amendment right. However, there is two problems with this argument. The fist is that this statement takes place in the introduction of the amendment. The legal aspects of the second amendment can be completely understood by everything after the comma. "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." That's all we need, but the framers decided to include the WHY not just the WHAT.
The second problem is that "regulated" doesn't mean the same thing today as it did in 1787 when the Constitution was adopted. In that time, "well regulated" in regards to a militia or a military unit would have meant "properly disciplined." It also helps to remember the context. The revolutionaries had just fought a war against a regular army, the most powerful army in the world at the time, with "untrained civilians." They had no idea what would happen with the new government they were creating, but they knew that most often governments used their armies against the people. Ensuring that the people were able to keep and train in the use of arms was another check on the power of the government. Consider Jefferson:
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
Which brings us to the conclusion of the matter. The purpose of the second amendment is not to protect the rights of hunters, target shooters, or the right to self-defense. It is to protect the people from the government. Consider Madison:
Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.
So if the purpose of the second amendment is to defend the people from the government, and the government controls the military, then m
And do I have to remind you of May 4, 1970, Kent State? Those weren't even highly trained elite forces. They were just National Guardsmen. And it wasn't just a handful of bullets fired; after a Sergeant opened fire with his.45, 29 of 77 guardsmen fired a total of 67 rounds, killing 4 and wounding 9.
So less than half fired about 2 shots out of confusion in the heat of the moment before stopping? And these were the Ohio National Guard, which is clearly less experienced in dealing with stressful situation than the US military, not to mention probably less trained? Kent state was tragic, but it wasn't as if the Guard went in with orders to shoot civilians. They were there to "keep the peace", heard a gunshot, and reacted as if they were under attack until they realized they were not.
"What no one seemed to notice... was the ever widening gap... between the government and the people. The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway... and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that... one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. But the one great shocking occasion... never comes. That's the difficulty."
- Milton Mayer (1908-1986) journalist and educator, writing about the Nazi takeover of Germany from the point of view of the average citizen, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1938-45
It will never "get bad enough" for people to wake up. You can't wait for an external event to cause people to join you. You need to evangelize, you need to get out and spread your message. You need to be the one forcibly waking people up by shaking them out of their nice comfortable ignorance. Its hard work, its frustrating work, but its also the only way we'll ever "take our America back."
If you're getting frisked, we're no longer talking about "law abiding citizens".
So everyone who opts out of TSA body scanners is no longer a law abiding citizen?
I understand the point you are trying to make, but what you fail to recognize is that often times people are arrested without breaking any laws. Or breaking a law that is being violently abused by the police in order to have a reason to arrest a person. Reporters arrested for breaking wiretapping laws while trying to film OWS protests come to mind.
Yes, this is only a tool. However, tools affect the people who use them. Look at SWAT teams. They use military tools and tactics and they end up adopting a military mindset. Ruby Ridge, Waco, the Elián González incident, they didn't go in to arrest people so that they could stand trial, they went in with military force and military objectives to neutralize an enemy.
I wish I had the option of not flying, but my family is in Ohio and I moved to Texas after graduating college to take a job. I get 2 weeks of vacation a year and don't want to waste half of it driving back and forth between Ohio and Texas, so I fly. I opt out of the scanners and when they ask me why I'm very vocal about how I consider it a violation of my fourth amendment rights.
This is also one reason I'm a fan of Ron Paul. He's the only presidential candidate who's explicitly stated his desire to do away with TSA completely, at least as far as I'm aware. That, in and of itself, is worth a Paul presidency, in my opinion anyway.
I know people on Food stamps (a large percentage of the U.S.population now, btw) -- and they can't AFFORD to eat healthy. There's a reason poor people are fat -- bad diet, because good food is too expensive.
I'm going to call BS on that claim. When I worked in a food store while going through college I saw people come in and buy basics with their wic food stamps and then buy energy drinks and other crap with their PA food stamp card. This wasn't a rare occurrence, it tended to happen several times every night I worked.
Perhaps that is a PA specific problem, but I doubt it. Human nature is such that if you are being given other people's money with no restrictions on how you spend it you'll make poor decisions. The wic food stamps I didn't have a problem with, they specified things like "2 jars peanut butter" or "2 loaves of bread" but those debit cards were abused like nothing else. In the case of these people, they could have used those cards to eat healthy, instead they bought energy drinks.
I'm going to bet you live in a city.
Where I grew up, my next door neighbor was one mile away. The nearest Wal-Mart was an hour drive. What you are proposing would have left me and my family more or less under house arrest. Public transportation isn't always available, and driving is not so dangerous as to justify the draconian measures you are suggesting. We aren't talking about flying airplanes!
Boy Scouts of America is a private organization and as such has the right to set requirements for membership. The Scout Law explicitly states that a scout is reverent. The Scout Oath states that a scout will "do my duty to God and my country." You can see how an atheist could not recite the Scout Law or the Oath with a clear conscious. The only way atheists could participate in Scouting would be if BSA changed the Law and the Oath, but neither of those things have changed since their adoption in 1911. To change them would be to compromise the principles on which Scouting was founded.
As far as pushing Mormonism, this is the first I've ever heard of it. I am an Eagle Scout and have been very active in the Scouting community for the last 20 years or so. While Scouting makes a big deal about being reverent, they do not push any specific denomination. There are no religious requirements for advancement through the ranks. My troop was filled with a hodgepodge of Baptists, Methodists, Catholics and a few others. Scout camp chapels were all non-denominational (though a few of the larger camps had chapels by denomination) and very general.
There was no religious agenda being pushed upon any of us.
As far as the gays issue, would you want your daughter going on an overnight girlscout trip led by a male leader? Its the same issue. I know most gays are good people who wouldn't harm anyone, but don't pretend they are all saints. There is, at the very least, a perception issue and at the worst there is a legitimate safety issue for the boys in the troop.
BSA is a great organization that does a lot for boys and for this country. Every Eagle Scout has to do a service project that benefits his community. These are no small things, they typically require a few hundred man hours and get the scout's whole troop involved. They can't be done for Scouts or on Scout owned land. Every boy, to advance in the higher ranks, must hold a leadership position in the troop for at least 3 months. They learn how to work together, how to plan a camping trip, how to prepare for emergencies, basic first aid. Many boys have found their vocation through merit badges such as Environmental Science, Radio, Emergency Preparedness, Music or even Computers.
You can disagree with BSA's morals or with their admissions requirements or whatever. But please, don't demonize an organization that has done so much good and that is well within its rights to determine these policies you find disagreeable.
That doesn't change the fact that the Mexican government is extremely corrupt. They have upped the fight against the cartels, but they are terribly ineffective because the cartels have sources inside the government. Heck, a lot of the men in the cartels came from the army, and brought their guns with them!
What I'd like to know is why the hell are we overseas fighting undeclared wars when there is a perfectly good opportunity for an undeclared war just to our south? We don't seem to care about any other country's sovereignty but our own, so just go into Mexico bomb the cartels AND the government, then rebuild the country like we are so fond of doing. The people of Mexico would probably thank us too.
Either the bible is a body of laws to follow in which you must follow it all, or the bible is not a body of laws to follow in which don't follow the laws in it. You can't claim that it's just a history book and not a body of law....except for the parts that we want to still be laws...
I typically don't like joining the religion threads on Slashdot but this merits a reply.
The Old Testament is primarily about God calling out the nation of Israel to be His chosen people through whom He will bring His son into the world so that His son can serve as a sacrifice to atone for the all of man's sins. Everything in the OT should be interpreted in that context, including Israel's experiment with theocratic rule. In the end it failed because of man's sinfulness, they couldn't live up to God's perfect standards. This is the point of the 10 commandments, they aren't laws to be followed so that you may gain salvation, they are a mirror which reflects your own sinfulness.
When Christ became incarnate He expanded the 10 commandments to include not just actions, but thoughts. He equated hate with murder and lust with adultery. (Matt. 5:22) Obviously no human can ever keep this, we all hate, we all lust. The law of the OT is to point us toward our need of a savior, because we cannot keep the law and are therefore condemned by the law. Christ's death meets that need and thus fulfills God's perfect law.
Its like if I am in court and have been fined 1 million dollars and I can't pay so the judge goes to throw me in jail. Suddenly a complete stranger steps in and says to the judge, "I will pay that fine for him, here is the money." At that point I'm set free. I'm not bound by the law anymore. The grace that the stranger has shown me saves me from the law.
As to why do people pull out OT verses to beat others over the head with? I don't know, probably the same reason someone modded GP (SethThresher) down. His comment isn't worth a zero, someone just didn't like it. There are "Christians" who hate others and misuse the Bible to beat up on them. Just like there are Muslims that misuse the Koran to justify flying airplanes into buildings. Jesus even addresses this in Matthew 25:31 in the parable of the goats and sheep.
When judging a belief system its not enough to look at the people whom claim to follow it. This is because the extremists will always draw more attention than the system's real followers. You must look at the system itself, and then also look at how it effects the lives of those whom follow it.
Funny how being green and efficient is considered a weakness instead of a strength.
A gallon of fuel you dont need to use, is one you dont need to carry or convoy in.
The military found that air conditioning improves the combat efficiency of its personnel. This isn't about making soldiers more comfortable during their down time, its about keeping them sharp and focused which helps to keep them alive. The military is extremely conscious of the costs of getting fuel to forward positions, but it is also aware of the huge advantages to keeping its people at their best.
I propose a simple experiment. Try doing some task that requires mental concentration in 100 degree heat, then do it again at some temperature you are comfortable in. See which one takes longer and how many mistakes you make each time.
Speculators get blamed a lot, but they aren't the real problem. They are a convenient distraction from the real issues that government doesn't want to address, like drilling more domestically. I found John Stossel's opinion on speculators to be rather interesting. He typically does his homework.
Dude, did you even read the page you just linked to? Right beneath the picture you find this:
I suspect that this is an elaborate ruse to throw off Chinese intelligence. Why? Because this is such a basic mistake of huge proportions that one must conclude that it isn’t a mistake. The U.S. military wanted the Chinese to see this picture.
Skillfully crafting a new propeller blade could throw off the Chinese for years. However, the Chinese wouldn’t know for sure, so they must expend resources to investigate this type of propeller design.
nVidia and AMD got along great before AMD bought ATi. nVidia really helped keep them floating back when AMD couldn't make a decent motherboard chipset to save their life. nForce was all the rage for AMD heads.
My desktop has an ASUS A8N-SLI motherboard based on the nForce 4 chipset. Think its about time for me to upgrade?
My father works in the nuclear power industry. Back when I very young, I was still in elementary school because this took place before 9/11, the power plant my dad worked at had a "bring your son to work" day. I got to drive a robot around the power plant, that was really neat. They used them to work in hot rooms all the time, some tasks are easier to use a robot since there aren't any regulations on how long a robot can stay in a hot room.
The nuclear industry loves robots. These will probably help with the cleanup effort enormously. Not that they couldn't use people, the gear exists to keep them safe, but even with that gear there are still lots and lots of regulations to follow, my father says its a headache even under normal operating conditions.
One of my roommates in college was home schooled. He was also one of the smartest people I met in college, though I can't say if that was from natural ability or his insane study habits. He was also very self-disciplined and I still am envious of his self control. He was a little socially awkward, but not much more than any other geek (he was after all a physics major, I was computer science)
Granted he is only one example, but when you look at the state of public education, its no wonder so many people choose to home school. Homeschooling isn't entirely anti-social either. He was in a homeschooling group with several other home schoolers, their parents would would take turns teaching the subjects they were strongest in. I've also heard of homeschooling being able to join the extracurricular activities at their local public high schools, such as sports or band.
I don't know much about that world, but I think there's a lot more opportunity there than most people would expect. In any case its something I'll seriously consider when/if I have children. I am somewhat disillusioned with public education. My high school had such a bad drug problem they removed all the doors from the rest room stalls so it was easier to catch students smoking weed.
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No one makes 7 round magazines for most of these rifles. This is a back door ban on just about anything other than 1911s and revolvers.
The shooter never used body armor. The media just doesn't know anything about guns and thought his load bearing vest was body armor. Besides the point, body armor isn't magical, you still feel the hits. It also only covers your chest, there are plenty of other places someone fighting back could hit you and debilitate you.
There's also a pattern to these shootings. Typically as soon as armed resistance shows up, be that the police or a citizen with a carry permit, the shooters either give up or commit suicide.
Finally, I'd rather take my chances with "untrained civilians" than with NYPD.
I too have had a good experience with Dexpot on Windows 7_64. Though Skype doesn't play nice with it for some reason. Other than that no problems and works great.
Seems like a better name would be "SpaceWatch" or something. The word "Fence" implies it can block debris . When I think of tracking I typically don't think of fences.
Still, sounds like a neat project.
I had a Zune HD for a while and really liked it. When I got a smartphone it became redundant and I sold it, but it was the nicest mp3 player I ever owned. I still use the Zune software today, I think its better than WMP or iTunes by far!
I, too, am sad Microsoft is abandoning the Zune platform, it was a great product.
You say you support the right to bear arms, yet you suggest that civilians do not need military style weapons. This betrays a misunderstanding of the purpose of the second amendment. Unfortunately this is entirely too common, its probably not even your fault and I'm glad you are asking this question. I hope that I can answer it adequately.
Let's start with the text of the second amendment shall we? It is:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The amendment consists of two parts, the introduction which states the reasoning for the amendment and the actual right to be protected. "To keep and bear arms" is relatively straight forward, it means people have the right to own and carry weapons. Note that it doesn't say "The people shall have the right to keep and bear arms." That would imply the government is granting the right to the people. Rather it says "shall not be infringed," implying that the right to arms is a preexisting right that no government can legitimately take away.
That aside, typically people get hung up on the "well regulated militia" part. They argue that this means the army should have the right to arms, but not the people. The amendment clearly states that it is the people whom have the right to keep and bear arms though and the SCOTUS acknowledged this in DC vs Heller and again in Chicago vs McDonald. The second argument that is typically made is that the word "regulated" implies that the government has the right to restrict how people may exercise their second amendment right. However, there is two problems with this argument. The fist is that this statement takes place in the introduction of the amendment. The legal aspects of the second amendment can be completely understood by everything after the comma. "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." That's all we need, but the framers decided to include the WHY not just the WHAT.
The second problem is that "regulated" doesn't mean the same thing today as it did in 1787 when the Constitution was adopted. In that time, "well regulated" in regards to a militia or a military unit would have meant "properly disciplined." It also helps to remember the context. The revolutionaries had just fought a war against a regular army, the most powerful army in the world at the time, with "untrained civilians." They had no idea what would happen with the new government they were creating, but they knew that most often governments used their armies against the people. Ensuring that the people were able to keep and train in the use of arms was another check on the power of the government. Consider Jefferson:
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
Which brings us to the conclusion of the matter. The purpose of the second amendment is not to protect the rights of hunters, target shooters, or the right to self-defense. It is to protect the people from the government. Consider Madison:
Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.
So if the purpose of the second amendment is to defend the people from the government, and the government controls the military, then m
And do I have to remind you of May 4, 1970, Kent State? Those weren't even highly trained elite forces. They were just National Guardsmen. And it wasn't just a handful of bullets fired; after a Sergeant opened fire with his .45, 29 of 77 guardsmen fired a total of 67 rounds, killing 4 and wounding 9.
So less than half fired about 2 shots out of confusion in the heat of the moment before stopping? And these were the Ohio National Guard, which is clearly less experienced in dealing with stressful situation than the US military, not to mention probably less trained? Kent state was tragic, but it wasn't as if the Guard went in with orders to shoot civilians. They were there to "keep the peace", heard a gunshot, and reacted as if they were under attack until they realized they were not.
"What no one seemed to notice... was the ever widening gap... between the government and the people. The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway... and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that... one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. But the one great shocking occasion... never comes. That's the difficulty."
- Milton Mayer (1908-1986) journalist and educator, writing about the Nazi takeover of Germany from the point of view of the average citizen, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1938-45
It will never "get bad enough" for people to wake up. You can't wait for an external event to cause people to join you. You need to evangelize, you need to get out and spread your message. You need to be the one forcibly waking people up by shaking them out of their nice comfortable ignorance. Its hard work, its frustrating work, but its also the only way we'll ever "take our America back."
If you're getting frisked, we're no longer talking about "law abiding citizens".
So everyone who opts out of TSA body scanners is no longer a law abiding citizen?
I understand the point you are trying to make, but what you fail to recognize is that often times people are arrested without breaking any laws. Or breaking a law that is being violently abused by the police in order to have a reason to arrest a person. Reporters arrested for breaking wiretapping laws while trying to film OWS protests come to mind.
Yes, this is only a tool. However, tools affect the people who use them. Look at SWAT teams. They use military tools and tactics and they end up adopting a military mindset. Ruby Ridge, Waco, the Elián González incident, they didn't go in to arrest people so that they could stand trial, they went in with military force and military objectives to neutralize an enemy.
Not that hard to pass off.
"Its raining rocks? Strange weather we're having!"
I wish I had the option of not flying, but my family is in Ohio and I moved to Texas after graduating college to take a job. I get 2 weeks of vacation a year and don't want to waste half of it driving back and forth between Ohio and Texas, so I fly. I opt out of the scanners and when they ask me why I'm very vocal about how I consider it a violation of my fourth amendment rights.
This is also one reason I'm a fan of Ron Paul. He's the only presidential candidate who's explicitly stated his desire to do away with TSA completely, at least as far as I'm aware. That, in and of itself, is worth a Paul presidency, in my opinion anyway.
I know people on Food stamps (a large percentage of the U.S.population now, btw) -- and they can't AFFORD to eat healthy. There's a reason poor people are fat -- bad diet, because good food is too expensive.
I'm going to call BS on that claim. When I worked in a food store while going through college I saw people come in and buy basics with their wic food stamps and then buy energy drinks and other crap with their PA food stamp card. This wasn't a rare occurrence, it tended to happen several times every night I worked.
Perhaps that is a PA specific problem, but I doubt it. Human nature is such that if you are being given other people's money with no restrictions on how you spend it you'll make poor decisions. The wic food stamps I didn't have a problem with, they specified things like "2 jars peanut butter" or "2 loaves of bread" but those debit cards were abused like nothing else. In the case of these people, they could have used those cards to eat healthy, instead they bought energy drinks.
I'm going to bet you live in a city. Where I grew up, my next door neighbor was one mile away. The nearest Wal-Mart was an hour drive. What you are proposing would have left me and my family more or less under house arrest. Public transportation isn't always available, and driving is not so dangerous as to justify the draconian measures you are suggesting. We aren't talking about flying airplanes!
Boy Scouts of America is a private organization and as such has the right to set requirements for membership. The Scout Law explicitly states that a scout is reverent. The Scout Oath states that a scout will "do my duty to God and my country." You can see how an atheist could not recite the Scout Law or the Oath with a clear conscious. The only way atheists could participate in Scouting would be if BSA changed the Law and the Oath, but neither of those things have changed since their adoption in 1911. To change them would be to compromise the principles on which Scouting was founded.
As far as pushing Mormonism, this is the first I've ever heard of it. I am an Eagle Scout and have been very active in the Scouting community for the last 20 years or so. While Scouting makes a big deal about being reverent, they do not push any specific denomination. There are no religious requirements for advancement through the ranks. My troop was filled with a hodgepodge of Baptists, Methodists, Catholics and a few others. Scout camp chapels were all non-denominational (though a few of the larger camps had chapels by denomination) and very general.
There was no religious agenda being pushed upon any of us.
As far as the gays issue, would you want your daughter going on an overnight girlscout trip led by a male leader? Its the same issue. I know most gays are good people who wouldn't harm anyone, but don't pretend they are all saints. There is, at the very least, a perception issue and at the worst there is a legitimate safety issue for the boys in the troop.
BSA is a great organization that does a lot for boys and for this country. Every Eagle Scout has to do a service project that benefits his community. These are no small things, they typically require a few hundred man hours and get the scout's whole troop involved. They can't be done for Scouts or on Scout owned land. Every boy, to advance in the higher ranks, must hold a leadership position in the troop for at least 3 months. They learn how to work together, how to plan a camping trip, how to prepare for emergencies, basic first aid. Many boys have found their vocation through merit badges such as Environmental Science, Radio, Emergency Preparedness, Music or even Computers.
You can disagree with BSA's morals or with their admissions requirements or whatever. But please, don't demonize an organization that has done so much good and that is well within its rights to determine these policies you find disagreeable.
I look forward to the day when people aren't judged by their choice of cell phone.
That doesn't change the fact that the Mexican government is extremely corrupt. They have upped the fight against the cartels, but they are terribly ineffective because the cartels have sources inside the government. Heck, a lot of the men in the cartels came from the army, and brought their guns with them!
What I'd like to know is why the hell are we overseas fighting undeclared wars when there is a perfectly good opportunity for an undeclared war just to our south? We don't seem to care about any other country's sovereignty but our own, so just go into Mexico bomb the cartels AND the government, then rebuild the country like we are so fond of doing. The people of Mexico would probably thank us too.
Either the bible is a body of laws to follow in which you must follow it all, or the bible is not a body of laws to follow in which don't follow the laws in it. You can't claim that it's just a history book and not a body of law....except for the parts that we want to still be laws...
I typically don't like joining the religion threads on Slashdot but this merits a reply.
The Old Testament is primarily about God calling out the nation of Israel to be His chosen people through whom He will bring His son into the world so that His son can serve as a sacrifice to atone for the all of man's sins. Everything in the OT should be interpreted in that context, including Israel's experiment with theocratic rule. In the end it failed because of man's sinfulness, they couldn't live up to God's perfect standards. This is the point of the 10 commandments, they aren't laws to be followed so that you may gain salvation, they are a mirror which reflects your own sinfulness.
When Christ became incarnate He expanded the 10 commandments to include not just actions, but thoughts. He equated hate with murder and lust with adultery. (Matt. 5:22) Obviously no human can ever keep this, we all hate, we all lust. The law of the OT is to point us toward our need of a savior, because we cannot keep the law and are therefore condemned by the law. Christ's death meets that need and thus fulfills God's perfect law.
Its like if I am in court and have been fined 1 million dollars and I can't pay so the judge goes to throw me in jail. Suddenly a complete stranger steps in and says to the judge, "I will pay that fine for him, here is the money." At that point I'm set free. I'm not bound by the law anymore. The grace that the stranger has shown me saves me from the law.
As to why do people pull out OT verses to beat others over the head with? I don't know, probably the same reason someone modded GP (SethThresher) down. His comment isn't worth a zero, someone just didn't like it. There are "Christians" who hate others and misuse the Bible to beat up on them. Just like there are Muslims that misuse the Koran to justify flying airplanes into buildings. Jesus even addresses this in Matthew 25:31 in the parable of the goats and sheep.
When judging a belief system its not enough to look at the people whom claim to follow it. This is because the extremists will always draw more attention than the system's real followers. You must look at the system itself, and then also look at how it effects the lives of those whom follow it.
Funny how being green and efficient is considered a weakness instead of a strength.
A gallon of fuel you dont need to use, is one you dont need to carry or convoy in.
The military found that air conditioning improves the combat efficiency of its personnel. This isn't about making soldiers more comfortable during their down time, its about keeping them sharp and focused which helps to keep them alive. The military is extremely conscious of the costs of getting fuel to forward positions, but it is also aware of the huge advantages to keeping its people at their best.
I propose a simple experiment. Try doing some task that requires mental concentration in 100 degree heat, then do it again at some temperature you are comfortable in. See which one takes longer and how many mistakes you make each time.
Speculators get blamed a lot, but they aren't the real problem. They are a convenient distraction from the real issues that government doesn't want to address, like drilling more domestically. I found John Stossel's opinion on speculators to be rather interesting. He typically does his homework.
Dude, did you even read the page you just linked to? Right beneath the picture you find this:
I suspect that this is an elaborate ruse to throw off Chinese intelligence. Why? Because this is such a basic mistake of huge proportions that one must conclude that it isn’t a mistake. The U.S. military wanted the Chinese to see this picture.
Skillfully crafting a new propeller blade could throw off the Chinese for years. However, the Chinese wouldn’t know for sure, so they must expend resources to investigate this type of propeller design.
nVidia and AMD got along great before AMD bought ATi. nVidia really helped keep them floating back when AMD couldn't make a decent motherboard chipset to save their life. nForce was all the rage for AMD heads.
My desktop has an ASUS A8N-SLI motherboard based on the nForce 4 chipset. Think its about time for me to upgrade?
Not gonna lie, my first thought when I read the article was of the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel.
One distro to rule them all,
One distro find them,
One distro to bring them all
and in the GPL bind them!
My father works in the nuclear power industry. Back when I very young, I was still in elementary school because this took place before 9/11, the power plant my dad worked at had a "bring your son to work" day. I got to drive a robot around the power plant, that was really neat. They used them to work in hot rooms all the time, some tasks are easier to use a robot since there aren't any regulations on how long a robot can stay in a hot room.
The nuclear industry loves robots. These will probably help with the cleanup effort enormously. Not that they couldn't use people, the gear exists to keep them safe, but even with that gear there are still lots and lots of regulations to follow, my father says its a headache even under normal operating conditions.
One of my roommates in college was home schooled. He was also one of the smartest people I met in college, though I can't say if that was from natural ability or his insane study habits. He was also very self-disciplined and I still am envious of his self control. He was a little socially awkward, but not much more than any other geek (he was after all a physics major, I was computer science)
Granted he is only one example, but when you look at the state of public education, its no wonder so many people choose to home school. Homeschooling isn't entirely anti-social either. He was in a homeschooling group with several other home schoolers, their parents would would take turns teaching the subjects they were strongest in. I've also heard of homeschooling being able to join the extracurricular activities at their local public high schools, such as sports or band.
I don't know much about that world, but I think there's a lot more opportunity there than most people would expect. In any case its something I'll seriously consider when/if I have children. I am somewhat disillusioned with public education. My high school had such a bad drug problem they removed all the doors from the rest room stalls so it was easier to catch students smoking weed.