Video games reflect the political bias of their creators. They can't not.
Command & Conquer; while on the surface, it provided two options, "Playing the Good Guys or the Terrorists", thus appearing balanced, what it really did was make people salivate at the jaw when operation 'Iraqi Freedom' launched. --Cuz everybody who played knew two things; 1. 'terrorists' are very bad and have their own tanks, 2. The endorphin rush of winning a tank battle is as good as sex.
Grand Theft Auto. . ? Come on. More political mind-programming; "Bad guys are really bad guys, and we need fascist laws and lots of big prisons to keep them all in check! Heck, if I get my rocks off by killing hookers, then what about people who are actually criminals? Ooooh. Scary!"
The Sims "Money! Materialism! Pretty People! This is LIFE, and you are a LOSER if you do not strive to emulate these false markers of 'success'." --Follow the model of the 'Sims' and you are on a one-way ticket to a soulless existence and financial slavery. With all your time and energy eaten up chasing materialist bullshit desires, your chance for soul development, the reason we're all here, is shot. And again, this is a goal of the Powers That Be.
Video games are one of the most powerful mediums of mind-programming and behavior modification in current use. This is not a new thing.
I have no problem with kids trying to fuck the system. Hollywood is a corrupt, over-priced, organized-crime-under-written, drug-fueled, Zionist-owned source of 95% crap movies. They don't deserve anything.
It gives me the warm tinglies to think that there are still kids out there willing and able to thumb their noses at the establishment, which is trying to subdue them with Anti-depressants, poisonous food, mind-programming out the wazoo, and the glorious prospect of adulthood slavery.
If you weren't rebellious when you were young, then you might as well have been dead. 'Good' kids were boring, dense and dull-witted, and what little sparkle of life they may have had is generally erased by the System as they grow up. Kids are not designed to sit quietly in rows and ignore their impulses to explore and push boundaries set by bitter old farts.
But I'm betting that you probably did bend the rules for yourself when you were fifteen. And good for you, if you did!
Gee. It doesn't matter how much people know, or how much info is available, "They" will make damned sure you are living beneath the great EM Web.
And virtually everybody goes along with it, deliberately avoiding all the questions too uncomfortable to ask.
I've sat in on government hearings and watched bullshit laws concerning cell tower placement policy rammed through by fat, red-faced balding nerd-boys living out political power fantasies, agreeing with everything said by smarmy lobbyists from the telecom industry, illegally ignoring petitions and protests, while the audience booed and cried out in frustration. --Even when there were more than enough hill-top sites distant from residences and traffic, sites which provide all the coverage necessary as per the telco's own technical specifications at 'safe' distances. But that's not the point. They want towers and antennas in public spaces, right in the middle of town, regardless of what the populace agrees to. It's not about telecommunications, after all. That's just the carrot.
And the worst part is I know that if people succeed resisting on the political front, it won't make any difference. The secret military wants you under the net so that it can nudge your brain where it desires, and listen and watch, zap your computer, tinker with your bank card, mess with your life. It's all about control and nothing more. --Believe me when I say that I know what I am talking about. This isn't tin-foil fantasy, however much people might wish it were. Wishes are worthless.
Learn about this stuff! Simply knowing offers whole levels of protection; knowledge affects your actions and behavior in ways not immediately or directly obvious, but with results of great effect. Knowledge protects. Ignorance endangers.
Whether or not Slashdot is the 'right' forum for discussion of this sort is a moot point. If people don't want to engage in this thread, then fine. The Slashdot editors always provide a dozen other stories every day which can be read without the need to engage political thinking muscles.
Nobody is forcing anybody to click on the, 'Read more' link.
And frankly, this sort of story is very nerdy! It involves bomb making, deceptive legal policy, media workings, good versus evil, and Moore is a first rate, sleep-deprived nerd himself; Heck, F-9/11, using scavenged film clippings from media archives and do-it-yourself-on-a-budget film making is virtually the case-mod of journalism! But that's all neither here nor there. If so much of the regular readership of Slashdot wants to talk about this stuff, then OBVIOUSLY, it is 'News for Nerds'. Nerds are enthusiastically reading and discussing it. Do the math!
But we all know that. And here's something we also all know. ..
Everybody so far who is complaining about whether or not this discussion should be 'allowed' on Slashdot, is doing so because they feel threatened by the subject matter rather than any concerns for the esthetic value of the actual headline itself. Duh.
That is, everybody who is complaining seems to be a supporter of the 'War on Terror' bullshit parade and is angry with Moore for asking them think and question their comfy realities.
But among those who have been following the minutia and details have concluded that Zionist Israel and the Mossad in conjunction with the American Secret Government orchestrated the 9-11 attacks. Bush is nothing more than a puppet show with a limited shelf-life.
Moore didn't implicate Israel at all. He is pointing at a corrupt U.S. government and Saudi Arabia.
So what will be the result? There are two options, and both lead to the same target.
1. John F. Kerry is made president, people believe in him and will follow him with renewed energy. He has Jewish blood lines, and Zionist support, and so can be counted on to continue support to Israel. Moore has lowered the boom on Saudi Arabia, so Kerry, with renewed support from the American public, can aim the U.S. war machine at Saudi Arabia and get away with it. Israel succeeds in wiping out more of their enemies at U.S. expense.
2. Bush, with flagging support, is forced to up the ante by staging an October Surprise in the form of another shocking terrorist attack, a capture of Bin Laden or being around in time to respond to the horrible "Iranian Nuclear Threat". People will be dazed into following him, which will mean a widening of the conflict in the Middle East. This will succeed in wiping out more enemies of Israel at U.S. expense.
Moore's film will either put Kerry in the driver's seat, or propel Bush into making a shock-move, and both choices benefit Israel.
And THAT is why Moore was allowed to distribute his little film.
I've seen this done before. He's good at what he does, leading the angry masses. No hard facts, no other view, just propaganda. I have no love for current administration, but I do not stand for lies, half-truths and brain washing! Simply pisses me off. We deserve what we get if we so blindly follow.
Seriously. . ? Moore is using archival footage taken by news agencies but which was never broadcast. Whereas, Bush is directing the public without the benefit of any evidence whatsoever. --Or worse, with evidence which has been determined later to be falsified.
So who is worse, exactly? The man leading or the man asking where we are being led?
Moore's film is not really what I would call propaganda. Propaganda is typically paid for by the state. I'd put Moore's film in a category similar to where I place political cartoons and such. --Television and Print news media, however, which is indeed owned by big business with ties to wealthy war mongers and government secret agencies, both here and in Israel. --These are the ones spreading fear and falsehoods which lead nations into dropping bombs on civilians.
The New York Times even apologized for propagating the lies with regard to Saddam's Weapons of Mass Vapor-Ware. (Though, I suspect that this is a move to regain false confidence and better position Kerry, who is just as dangerous as Bush, while being more sympathetic to Zionist Israel, having Jewish blood and all. ..).
Honestly. Who has more money and CIA/Mossad plants with which to spread the word? Moore or the American media?
No 2200 + comments of which about 85% seem to agree is preaching to the choir and grossly offending a significant porion of the Slashdot audience. Probably the part that pays the subsciption fee!!
Uh huh. And you, Mr. 'Anonymous', would be one of those subscribers? Forgive me, but somehow I tend to think a subscriber would know how to spell and use proper grammatical sentence construction. But what do I know? I'm not a subscriber.
Listen, kid. The post total is now over 2800. This is the largest number of posts I have ever seen on Slashdot. This means that the topic is something a LOT of people want to discuss and that Slashdot is a center able to provide that discussion. This seems to 'offend' you, in the same way that Creationists are 'offended' by arguments which make them look like blithering idiots.
Grow the hell up, or take your 'subscription' money and go sign up with a forum where your delicate ears will not have to suffer the harsh abuse of reality.
Your links are both dead. --Not the sort of media coverage you'd expect to see if real evidence had been found, is it?
And while your calling me on the carpet for sources, please provide sources where Americans have been accused of raping and torturing.
Are you out of your goddamned mind. . ? Where have you been for the past couple of months? Sorry, but I'm not about to spend a half hour cutting and pasting for the benefit of somebody who is so obviously, willfully blind as to have missed a gazillion hours of world news coverage, an apology from the American president, court marshals, embarrassed CIA policy announcements, and photographs ad infinitum. This is not difficult-to-find info which needs my help to link. Get out from under that rock on your own damned time!
By the way, Abu Ghraib is in no way considered torture, even by Geneva Convention standards. Torture is something like the rape rooms that operated under Saddam's rule or the accunts of people being gradually lowered into wood chippers by Saddam's sons for fun.
Geneva Convention? Er, perhaps you can direct me to the clause of the Geneva Convention which allows for non-combatants to be arrested, beaten senseless, and sexually humiliated, and murdered. (Er. Sorry. Make that, "Died of natural causes during questioning.")
Further, while we're blowing hot air regarding the Geneva Convention, I think if you look it up, you will see that the US invasion of Iraq was an illegal action by those very standards. But then, you don't actually know what you're talking about, do you?
As for the 'rape rooms' and 'Wood Chippers'. ..
Ah. . . The 'Atrocity Story'.
The 'Wood Chipper' story in particular, after being investigated, is now considered a total fabrication. --One which was nonetheless repeated and built upon by the media to the point where people were willing to go to war. Go look up the details yourself!
In the meantime, here's a little reading on how the first Gulf War started based on the same kind of bullshit. . . (Specifically, the 'Babies torn from incubators and smashed to the hospital floor by invading Iraqi troops' bullshit.)
The Human Rights Caucus of the US Congress was meeting in October and Hill & Knowlton arranged for a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl to tell the babies' story before the congressmen. She did it brilliantly, choking with tears at the right moment, her voice breaking as she struggled to continue. The congressional committee knew her only as "Nayirah" and the television segment of her testimony showed anger and resolution on the faces of the congressmen listening to her. President Bush referred to the story six times in the next five weeks as an example of the evil of Saddam's regime.
It was not until nearly two years later that the truth emerged. The story was a fabrication and a myth, and Nayirah, the teenage Kuwaiti girl, coached and rehearsed by Hill & Knowlton for her appearance before the Congressional Committee, was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. By the time Macarthur revealed this, the war was won and over and it did not matter any more.
Full article http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4 270014,00.html
You need to read up on how nations of dimwits are inspired to war.
I won't respond to your claim about the 9/11 commission as another poster already has.
Allow me, nonetheless to answer that idiot response right here with a clipping from MSNBC's coverage. ..
In a report based on research and interviews by the commission staff, the panel said that bin Laden made overtures to toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for assistance, as he did with leaders in Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere as he sought to build an Islamic army.
The report said that bin Laden explored possible cooperati
Well, if the quality of your mind is accurately represented by your original post, then I can understand how you might think I was being 'intellectual' and 'deep'. --Though, really, I was just making a fairly pedestrian observation. But keep trying. You'll catch up to the rest of the class sooner or later.
There was no mention of Mossad influence in his film, and he was, despite outward appearances, supported by the Jewish controlled media to the hilt. --With a dash of Disney resistance just for show.
Which makes me wonder. ..
Is the herding influence pushing for a Kerry government, (less likely to turn the tables on the Israelis, as Kerry has Jewish blood), or is it a method of paving the way to American civil revolt, and the ensuing Judo-flip Machiavellian Military smack-down?
Only time will tell.
But I must say. . . Bush is a stupid, greedy, evil man without the ability to empathize. An actual psychopathic killer. Moore is just a film- maker who has indulged in his bias, (he's not nearly so bad as you make him out to be.) --But the point is that he clearly does NOT support the murder of civilians, or anybody else. I don't see how you can "detest" Moore but only "dislike" Bush, by whose actions thousands of people have met horrible ends, up to and including those who died on 9-11.
Sounds like you've got some fairly major blockages due to obsession. You would advantage by spending more time exploring reality than by spitting, fuming and constructing half-assed denial structures.
WMDS HAVE been found in Iraq. 12 artillary shells containing sarin gas were found just last week. These shells have the capability to kill 100,000 people. If thats not a weapon of mass distruction, I don't know what is.
Source please. I don't remember reading or hearing anything about this, and I've been watching like a hawk. Not that any weapons found now are relevant after the US has had its forces on the ground for so long; any evidence found now isn't worth spit. --In fact, I recall a case where WMDs were actually caught being smuggled INTO Iraq in the last five months.
Saddam definatly supported terriorists, be they AL-Q. or others.
Where do you get this stuff? There were NO links between Al Qaeda and Saddam. None. The recent 9-11 commission, as big a bullshit-parade as it was, even repeated this! It sounds to me like you've been listening to the Bush rhetoric and actually believing it. Dude. The man is a liar and the media repeats his lies. Wake the hell up. You're embarrassing yourself. --And the forces you support are raping, torturing and killing in your name. Be proud.
posters like, 'stoolmaster' pick screen names which are so appropriate to their characters and qualities of awareness and opinion.
--The best one I ever ran across was another shit-spouting fool whose actual, real-life last name was, 'Papernick'.
He was the biggest plagiarist I ever met! No joke!
The Universe, I find, nearly always puts clear signposts on all of its energies. If you know how to read the signs, the world becomes much less confusing!
You might start by actually watching the film and considering the data contained with rather than scrambling to reinforce the walls of your denial structure. Shaking your head violently with eyes closed and ears covered is rather childish, don't you think? (Actually, DO you think?)
The fact of the matter is that there HAVE been productions which support the Bush side of the 'argument'. They're called Network Television and Print Journalism. And THAT, kiddo, is a far more appropriate comparison to your half-baked 'Communist China' remark.
[. ..]I voted for and support Bush. That doesn't make me a Republican or a Democrat. It makes me an American, something he will never understand or be.
I'm sorry. I don't understand this. ..
Somebody you voted for has turned out to be a liar and psychopath, but you still support him because you're an 'American'. . ?
Sounds to me like you are suffering from a combination of things in greater and lesser degrees; 1. Ignorance, 2. Programming, 3. The Total Lack of the Backbone required to admit when You've Been Duped.
Newsflash: Pretending that you haven't been duped when you have, or worse, sticking by a liar and a criminal when you know him to be a liar and a criminal is STUPID. It's not noble. It's not cool. It's STUPID. --And it's certainly not "American", unless Americans are by default a bunch of lemming imbeciles.
Perhaps you should watch the film before complaining about 'leftists'.
What you're suggesting comes perilously close to claiming that Conspiracies actually exist!
Everybody knows, Conspiracies Do Not Exist! After all, it is "Impossible to Keep a Secret". And anyway, "They Just Wouldn't Do That."
And, of course, everybody knows that only wackos believe in conspiracies!
You're not a wacko, are you? If you are suspected of such, we'll all laugh at you. We'll try to make you feel small and ashamed! Your self-esteem must hurt! --Because despite the obvious, nobody at all has any desire to control your behavior through such basic and easily manipulated emotions! Drink more! Watch more TV! You want to be cool and get laid? Take Ecstasy. Quit worrying so much. Take Anti-Depressants. ALL the cool kids are doing it. You want to be cool, don't you?
Despite all logic and evidence you may have to share, you will be condemned to a thorough pestering by thousands of Taco Bell-loving citizens auto-reacting with 'Tin-Foil' jokes and lead walls made of all the clever 'knowledge' they have accumulated from watching 'documentaries' on their televisions.
Get with the times, man! Thinking and pointing out discrepancies between reality and the sham being projected by Big Money, Big Government and Big Military is simply not cool! It clearly says so in all their literature.
When "Troll" doesn't do the job, and "Funny" doesn't quite capture it. . . You need new terms. Though, picking them isn't easy.
"Stupid" is a bit too reactionary. "Ignorant" is certainly accurate, but calls for the reason behind the ignorance.
I think in this case, both "Dupe" and "Conned" would describe the poster well, but fail to describe the actual post itself, which is the prime objective of moderation labels.
You almost need to drop into compound descriptives. Like, "Willfully Ignorant" or even whole sentences such as; "This Dupe has been Successfully Programmed by the Dark Side into believing that Greed is Not A Disease."
In any case, I don't envy the task of the Slashdot programming staff!
that awareness offers its own protection and rewards.
You came here to experience these events. Best to enjoy them and learn from them rather than let them get you down. Though, high ground is probably the wiser of the vantage points available. . . Dodging the draft is half the fun!
I've said such things before, and had such things said to me, and that's life. No complaints. I don't need a law in place to enforce what should and should not be said. I'll trust in the forces of self-correcting social awareness to regulate how and what people speak.
Of course, self-correcting systems don't always pan out the way you'd like when you have huge extra tendrils of influence at work. --Like the Military Industrial Complex with it's hands on popular culture and education doing everything in its power to turn people into savages so that it can point and say, "See! People need to be controlled. How about a nice Military Lockdown? --I think we've got one around here somewhere we'd be willing to sell at a bargain!"
The only ones who should be punished for doing annoying things on the internet are corporations and advertisers.
Everybody is over-dramatic when they first become aware of the veils.
There was a time when you also cried, "I am not a Number!" and really, really meant it. (Come on. You know it's true!)
Ahhh. Childhood.
It only seems pretentious when people wake up during university because their psych/philosophy course told them to do so. (Within the pre-determined safe and acceptable boundaries, of course!)
In any case, I found it hard to follow, 'Waking Life'. I think if you're going to make that kind of film, it should be appealling to the viewer, make a lot of sense, and leave you both changed and thinking. 'Northern Exposure,' did a much better job in communicating those sorts of ideas. As did the first 'Matrix' film, in a pop-star kind of way. Heck, Yoda did a better job, (in 'Empire', anyhow.) 'Waking Life' just confused and annoyed me, and half the time had me wanting to argue with the screen because I thought numerous of the ideas it was presenting were actually broken.
I liked the guy with the ukulele, though.
I'd like to see Carlos Castaneda brought to the screen. Or Hermann Hesse. Now there's a couple of projects which won't ever happen!
Phillip K. Dick just strikes me as weird and clever without any real purpose.
Why why WHY won't somebody build a decent portable computer.
Here's the three point reality:
1. I want to be able to read a document while taking a dump or while lying in bed. It has to be light and easy to hold, and the screen has to be at least twice the size of the standard PDA. 5"x2" will do the job, allowing you to actually see a whole paragraph at once! (whooo.)
2. I want to be able to touch-type into the thing with comfort and ease. Handwriting recognition is the single most limited, irritating and hence, unused technology in handhelds today. Thumb-only keyboards are useless to anybody who needs to write more than a sentence. I don't need the thing to fit in my pocket, because I'm not a space-man living in a Star Trek episode. Further, I don't need to instantly be able to access the thing on a whim, because I don't intend to keep my BRAIN on a PDA. I'll pull the device out of my BACKPACK or BRIEFCASE, or pick it up off the TABLE when I want to do some WORK or READING. --Neither of which are done while standing around the water cooler.
3. The power has to last at LEAST 30 hours on double A's or something else I can easily replace at a convenience store. I DO NOT want to mess around with idiotic recharge bays and proprietary batteries.
It should also be noted that. ..
I DO NOT NEED OR WANT a color screen. I do not need to watch movies or play games on my wallet. I DO, however, need to be able to type essays on a reliable machine. Until somebody can make a color screen which doesn't turn good batteries into worthless 5 hour charges, then just give me a Black & White LCD screen!
The closest I've seen anything come so far is the Psion series 5. I've written about this several times now in the last week, since I just became the proud owner of a used $75 ebay model. The machine is ALMOST perfect. The screen is just a little too shiny which makes it hard to read, and if the keyboard was only one inch wider and slightly more responsive, it'd be the perfect machine. WHY, OH WHY, DIDN'T THEY MAKE IT PERFECTLY???
I mean, it gives you 35 hours on a couple of AA's, an excellent word processor, fully programmable key-board and as many megs of memory as you can stuff on a Compact Flash card. Man, for 75$, that is one SWEET machine!
ONE inch wider, guys, and a non-reflective plastic on the screen, and you'd have created the perfect product.
-FL
Blogs? Just another name for networking.
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Communication on the internet is nothing new. 'Blogs' are just one of the most recent incarnations.
The authorities have hated the free movement of information on the internet ever since it began, and have made many efforts to marginalize public opinion regarding it. As everybody knows, "The things you read on the Web are worthless." And "You are a loser if you spend time on the internet."
Now, who started those ideas? It's certainly not a very poweful message from within cyberspace itself; when you hear it on-line, it's most often a parroted signal from a self-despising cynic.
But in the world beyond the internet, the command to ridicule and feel ashamed of spending time on the web is loud and strong and it does permeate society. So where does it come from? Who started it?
Of course, it is certainly true that information on the web cannot be taken at face value; there is a lot of noise to the signal. But this is little different as compared to the regular media; indeed, the only difference is that on-line there is actually a great deal more and clearer Signal available, and the Noise is much easier to filter out. Is it better to read one newspaper and watch one televised news cast, or to sift through the testimony of from dozens of such sources from all around the globe, and then contrast and compare that data?
That's a no brainer!
Further, you can't collectively debate with and demand references from a television set. The 'Official' media, which as we have seen, is extremely deliberate and powerful in its methods of spreading falsehoods; watching CNN alone and expecting the 'truth' without working for it, is nuts! --The far-too-late retraction from the New York Times regarding Saddam's WMD's illustrates one fine example.
Interestingly, reading and communicating on the internet both requires and rewards people for using their brains; for comparing many sources of information and debating that data into a rational picture of reality. Unlike a CNN news cast, the Web does not lull a person into stupidly thinking that 'everything is allright; Very smart and authoritative people know best'. The internet actually makes you smarter and more responsible as you use it!
This is one of the big things the PTB are afraid of.
Though, all other forces aside, a large part of it comes down to personal security and the fear of job-loss.
When everybody is feeding happily from the same information trough, then the JOBS of News Professionals are not threatened. But people are increasingly feeding from independent sources, and the News people are reacting. The fear of losing job security is one of the most direct routes to reactionary fear-based behavior in otherwise rational adults. Whether the stimulus is imagined or not, the result is typically violent and emotional. Try this experiment:
Think of your career. Then think of some activity which, if enlarged, could put an end to your whole industry. Then gauge how you feel, how you react/have reacted.
News people are just the same as you, with one difference; they all have giant mega-phones with which to broadcast their reactions.
-FL
Very cynical, and largely innaccurate.
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I use the internet to read and communicate on a regular basis. I don't run a blog, per se, but I easily spend about one to two hours most days reading and writing on the web.
I have an interest in the events going on in the world, and the internet is by far the very best way to sample and compare a lot of data from around the globe, and to then discuss/debate it into a rational picture of reality.
I don't bear any of the dumb traits you describe. I have an active social life, a good job and, amazingly I use the internet. And I am not alone.
You seem to typify a peculiar contingent of people who hope that through ridicule and belittlement, populations can be cowed away from seeking knowledge.
I mean come on this guy obviously wears a tinfoil hat...
What? You are not interested by a news item about 60 square kilometers scorched bare by a meteor strike? Why the heck not? You're not one of those prozac people, are you?
BTW, that tin-foil joke just gets fresher and more funny every time it is repeated! Thank you for being 100% un-original in your knee-jerking inability to construct your own thoughts. You wouldn't also happen to be one of those people who repeats Simpsons quotes in lieu of social wit, are you?
The irony is that 'people' of your sort think you are actually capable of performing acts of ridicule, when by simply opening your mouths, you become objects of the same.
You people need help who think religion is the root of all evil. Geez. Religion brings good thing while trying to get rid of all the bad things people can think up in their odd brains and all you can do is criticize.
Er. . . You did understand my reference? We really wouldn't have genocide in Israel and troops in Iraq if it weren't for idiotic religious differences in what amounts to the same text. I have family serving in Afghanistan thanks to the current war on Islam. I have friends who suffer from life-crippling guilt complexes directly built upon the Catholic brain-washing they received as children. I have Jewish friends whose lives are getting steadily more imperiled thanks to the Zionist brain-washing and political activities. So yeah, you'll have to pardon me if I seem a little perplexed by the direct results of popular, centralized religion. The entire world is rearing up to tear itself apart through the massive mind-programming job which has been perpetrated upon Humanity for the last 2000 years.
Don't get me wrong; I have no problem with people being spiritually aware; in fact, I consider it something of an absolute necessity if one wants to fully develop as a soul. I consider Religion a giant trap designed specifically to prevent people from awakening to the various realities upon which spiritual awareness is based.
Indeed, I have NEVER met a Christian who really understands what Christ was actually all about. Dying on the cross for our sins? This is perhaps THE number one false-hood. Very simply, if you read and believe in the Bible, you are a chump. The Bible was written by a large cast of humans, each with varying agendas, during a segment of history when there was both great temptation and reward in mis-directing the population into perpetuating specific thought patterns designed to engender a slave-like mentality.
I'll repeat that in the form of a question:
How can you trust anything written in the bible? How do you know the people who wrote the bible weren't taking money from the thought-police of the day? --And there were definitely such forces at work back then, just as there are now. Very simply, whenever you have powerful governments, you have powerful propaganda departments with very deliberate agendas using the most effective means possible to control the people. Religion is a fantastically effective way to control people.
A self-serving government would have to be insane not to use it to their advantage.
Why the heck doesn't anybody ever consider this basic reality when gauging the value of biblical texts?
There are thousands of scholars who have collectively spent millions of hours trying to demonstrate the truth and validity of the bible through mountains of self-invalidating research which cannot help but be totally biased exactly because it is research done by legions of pre-brainwashed zealots.
(Much like today's newscasts, the Bible is about 80% propaganda and mind-programming bullshit.) And look how effective it has been! --I point out a simple fact; that we have torturing troops in Iraq and genocide going down in Israel BECAUSE of religion, and you tell me to stop being so critical, that 'religion brings the good while trying to get rid of the bad'.
Seems to me that there's a little friction there between the reality of Palestinian children being shot by twenty year-old Jews with machine guns supplied by good ol' church-going Americans, and your Easter Bunny daydream.
Newsflash: People can lead good and responsible lives without being threatened with hellfire. And if they are so stupid as to actually require biblical threats and promises of afterlife reward simply to behave themselves, then perhaps they deserve to be brainwashed and shot, which is exactly what is happening anyway.
Good luck. You're certainly going to need it. --I've also yet to meet the Christian who has even the slightest clue as to what the whole 'Left Behind' thing is actually referencing.
A screen which can hold more than one sentence. 2"x5" would be enough.
Designed to be comfortably read while reclining. I don't want to have to hold my hands in a funny, awkward way just to hit scroll keys.
Good screen. I don't need color. I'm happy with LCD, but it had better not be made of glass or some other highly reflective surface. There's nothing more irritating than having to fight to angle the device in such a way as to avoid reflections of bright objects. Like walls.
Battery has to last for more than 24 hours.
Takes flash cards.
Has the ability, out of the box, to plug into any regular serial or USB keyboard. Must be designed to sit on a surface with a wide range of adjustable viewing angles.
These features are all within the current realm of possible. The Psion series 5 (one of which I just scooped from ebay), comes pretty close, but falls down hard on a couple of points. --The screen is WAY too reflective and the keyboard, while amazing for a handheld, is just slightly too small to comfortably touchtype with, and the button contacts aren't quite sensitive enough. --You type with the same pressure as you would with the keys on a normal keyboard, and you don't get letters every time. This means you're constantly having to back up to fix words. This is a major pain. You have to mess around too much to make it work. It's almost as though Psion was deliberately trying to annoy with almost-good-enough design. Also, plugging into a full-sized keyboard requires third party software which you have to pay for. Aggravating.)
So nobody has made the perfect device yet. I don't know why this is, because it's entirely possible to do. ALL the technology is cheep and available. --And there is WAY more application for a decent tool of that sort than there is for one of those next-to-worthless PDAs.
PDA's are too small, too expensive and too useless. If I can't comfortably write an essay on the device, then it's totally worthless to me. Keeping appointments and phone numbers is fine, and the PDA does it well, but come on! For most people, it's simply not a big enough concern. The people who buy PDA's, for the most part, aren't getting them because they actually need to store phone numbers.
Of course, it's easy to understand why the things are so popular; they're flashy and gadgetty and new. And they'll go the way of the Walkman and Wristwatch. --Cute and clever toys which sane people will get bored with and find they are much less irritated living without.
Give me a real tool. Don't give me a nerd-ball fashion accsessory which doesn't do anything more than play MP3's, remember phone numbers and annoy the piss out of people by forcing them read documents one ingredient-label sized portion at a time.
Slashdot Mirror
Command & Conquer; while on the surface, it provided two options, "Playing the Good Guys or the Terrorists", thus appearing balanced, what it really did was make people salivate at the jaw when operation 'Iraqi Freedom' launched. --Cuz everybody who played knew two things; 1. 'terrorists' are very bad and have their own tanks, 2. The endorphin rush of winning a tank battle is as good as sex.
Grand Theft Auto. . ? Come on. More political mind-programming; "Bad guys are really bad guys, and we need fascist laws and lots of big prisons to keep them all in check! Heck, if I get my rocks off by killing hookers, then what about people who are actually criminals? Ooooh. Scary!"
The Sims "Money! Materialism! Pretty People! This is LIFE, and you are a LOSER if you do not strive to emulate these false markers of 'success'." --Follow the model of the 'Sims' and you are on a one-way ticket to a soulless existence and financial slavery. With all your time and energy eaten up chasing materialist bullshit desires, your chance for soul development, the reason we're all here, is shot. And again, this is a goal of the Powers That Be.
Video games are one of the most powerful mediums of mind-programming and behavior modification in current use. This is not a new thing.
-FL
I have no problem with kids trying to fuck the system. Hollywood is a corrupt, over-priced, organized-crime-under-written, drug-fueled, Zionist-owned source of 95% crap movies. They don't deserve anything.
It gives me the warm tinglies to think that there are still kids out there willing and able to thumb their noses at the establishment, which is trying to subdue them with Anti-depressants, poisonous food, mind-programming out the wazoo, and the glorious prospect of adulthood slavery.
If you weren't rebellious when you were young, then you might as well have been dead. 'Good' kids were boring, dense and dull-witted, and what little sparkle of life they may have had is generally erased by the System as they grow up. Kids are not designed to sit quietly in rows and ignore their impulses to explore and push boundaries set by bitter old farts.
But I'm betting that you probably did bend the rules for yourself when you were fifteen. And good for you, if you did!
-FL
And virtually everybody goes along with it, deliberately avoiding all the questions too uncomfortable to ask.
I've sat in on government hearings and watched bullshit laws concerning cell tower placement policy rammed through by fat, red-faced balding nerd-boys living out political power fantasies, agreeing with everything said by smarmy lobbyists from the telecom industry, illegally ignoring petitions and protests, while the audience booed and cried out in frustration. --Even when there were more than enough hill-top sites distant from residences and traffic, sites which provide all the coverage necessary as per the telco's own technical specifications at 'safe' distances. But that's not the point. They want towers and antennas in public spaces, right in the middle of town, regardless of what the populace agrees to. It's not about telecommunications, after all. That's just the carrot.
And the worst part is I know that if people succeed resisting on the political front, it won't make any difference. The secret military wants you under the net so that it can nudge your brain where it desires, and listen and watch, zap your computer, tinker with your bank card, mess with your life. It's all about control and nothing more. --Believe me when I say that I know what I am talking about. This isn't tin-foil fantasy, however much people might wish it were. Wishes are worthless.
Learn about this stuff! Simply knowing offers whole levels of protection; knowledge affects your actions and behavior in ways not immediately or directly obvious, but with results of great effect. Knowledge protects. Ignorance endangers.
-FL
Nobody is forcing anybody to click on the, 'Read more' link.
And frankly, this sort of story is very nerdy! It involves bomb making, deceptive legal policy, media workings, good versus evil, and Moore is a first rate, sleep-deprived nerd himself; Heck, F-9/11, using scavenged film clippings from media archives and do-it-yourself-on-a-budget film making is virtually the case-mod of journalism! But that's all neither here nor there. If so much of the regular readership of Slashdot wants to talk about this stuff, then OBVIOUSLY, it is 'News for Nerds'. Nerds are enthusiastically reading and discussing it. Do the math!
But we all know that. And here's something we also all know. .
Everybody so far who is complaining about whether or not this discussion should be 'allowed' on Slashdot, is doing so because they feel threatened by the subject matter rather than any concerns for the esthetic value of the actual headline itself. Duh.
That is, everybody who is complaining seems to be a supporter of the 'War on Terror' bullshit parade and is angry with Moore for asking them think and question their comfy realities.
Typical, text-book denial.
-FL
But among those who have been following the minutia and details have concluded that Zionist Israel and the Mossad in conjunction with the American Secret Government orchestrated the 9-11 attacks. Bush is nothing more than a puppet show with a limited shelf-life.
Moore didn't implicate Israel at all. He is pointing at a corrupt U.S. government and Saudi Arabia.
So what will be the result? There are two options, and both lead to the same target.
1. John F. Kerry is made president, people believe in him and will follow him with renewed energy. He has Jewish blood lines, and Zionist support, and so can be counted on to continue support to Israel. Moore has lowered the boom on Saudi Arabia, so Kerry, with renewed support from the American public, can aim the U.S. war machine at Saudi Arabia and get away with it. Israel succeeds in wiping out more of their enemies at U.S. expense.
2. Bush, with flagging support, is forced to up the ante by staging an October Surprise in the form of another shocking terrorist attack, a capture of Bin Laden or being around in time to respond to the horrible "Iranian Nuclear Threat". People will be dazed into following him, which will mean a widening of the conflict in the Middle East. This will succeed in wiping out more enemies of Israel at U.S. expense.
Moore's film will either put Kerry in the driver's seat, or propel Bush into making a shock-move, and both choices benefit Israel.
And THAT is why Moore was allowed to distribute his little film.
-FL
Seriously. . ? Moore is using archival footage taken by news agencies but which was never broadcast. Whereas, Bush is directing the public without the benefit of any evidence whatsoever. --Or worse, with evidence which has been determined later to be falsified.
So who is worse, exactly? The man leading or the man asking where we are being led?
Moore's film is not really what I would call propaganda. Propaganda is typically paid for by the state. I'd put Moore's film in a category similar to where I place political cartoons and such. --Television and Print news media, however, which is indeed owned by big business with ties to wealthy war mongers and government secret agencies, both here and in Israel. --These are the ones spreading fear and falsehoods which lead nations into dropping bombs on civilians.
The New York Times even apologized for propagating the lies with regard to Saddam's Weapons of Mass Vapor-Ware. (Though, I suspect that this is a move to regain false confidence and better position Kerry, who is just as dangerous as Bush, while being more sympathetic to Zionist Israel, having Jewish blood and all. .
Honestly. Who has more money and CIA/Mossad plants with which to spread the word? Moore or the American media?
-FL
Uh huh. And you, Mr. 'Anonymous', would be one of those subscribers? Forgive me, but somehow I tend to think a subscriber would know how to spell and use proper grammatical sentence construction. But what do I know? I'm not a subscriber.
Listen, kid. The post total is now over 2800. This is the largest number of posts I have ever seen on Slashdot. This means that the topic is something a LOT of people want to discuss and that Slashdot is a center able to provide that discussion. This seems to 'offend' you, in the same way that Creationists are 'offended' by arguments which make them look like blithering idiots.
Grow the hell up, or take your 'subscription' money and go sign up with a forum where your delicate ears will not have to suffer the harsh abuse of reality.
-FL
And while your calling me on the carpet for sources, please provide sources where Americans have been accused of raping and torturing.
Are you out of your goddamned mind. . ? Where have you been for the past couple of months? Sorry, but I'm not about to spend a half hour cutting and pasting for the benefit of somebody who is so obviously, willfully blind as to have missed a gazillion hours of world news coverage, an apology from the American president, court marshals, embarrassed CIA policy announcements, and photographs ad infinitum. This is not difficult-to-find info which needs my help to link. Get out from under that rock on your own damned time!
By the way, Abu Ghraib is in no way considered torture, even by Geneva Convention standards. Torture is something like the rape rooms that operated under Saddam's rule or the accunts of people being gradually lowered into wood chippers by Saddam's sons for fun.
Geneva Convention? Er, perhaps you can direct me to the clause of the Geneva Convention which allows for non-combatants to be arrested, beaten senseless, and sexually humiliated, and murdered. (Er. Sorry. Make that, "Died of natural causes during questioning.")
Further, while we're blowing hot air regarding the Geneva Convention, I think if you look it up, you will see that the US invasion of Iraq was an illegal action by those very standards. But then, you don't actually know what you're talking about, do you?
As for the 'rape rooms' and 'Wood Chippers'. .
Ah. . . The 'Atrocity Story'.
The 'Wood Chipper' story in particular, after being investigated, is now considered a total fabrication. --One which was nonetheless repeated and built upon by the media to the point where people were willing to go to war. Go look up the details yourself!
In the meantime, here's a little reading on how the first Gulf War started based on the same kind of bullshit. . . (Specifically, the 'Babies torn from incubators and smashed to the hospital floor by invading Iraqi troops' bullshit.)
You need to read up on how nations of dimwits are inspired to war.
.
I won't respond to your claim about the 9/11 commission as another poster already has.
Allow me, nonetheless to answer that idiot response right here with a clipping from MSNBC's coverage. .
Well, if the quality of your mind is accurately represented by your original post, then I can understand how you might think I was being 'intellectual' and 'deep'. --Though, really, I was just making a fairly pedestrian observation. But keep trying. You'll catch up to the rest of the class sooner or later.
-FL
Which makes me wonder. .
Is the herding influence pushing for a Kerry government, (less likely to turn the tables on the Israelis, as Kerry has Jewish blood), or is it a method of paving the way to American civil revolt, and the ensuing Judo-flip Machiavellian Military smack-down?
Only time will tell.
But I must say. . . Bush is a stupid, greedy, evil man without the ability to empathize. An actual psychopathic killer. Moore is just a film- maker who has indulged in his bias, (he's not nearly so bad as you make him out to be.) --But the point is that he clearly does NOT support the murder of civilians, or anybody else. I don't see how you can "detest" Moore but only "dislike" Bush, by whose actions thousands of people have met horrible ends, up to and including those who died on 9-11.
Sounds like you've got some fairly major blockages due to obsession. You would advantage by spending more time exploring reality than by spitting, fuming and constructing half-assed denial structures.
-FL
Source please. I don't remember reading or hearing anything about this, and I've been watching like a hawk. Not that any weapons found now are relevant after the US has had its forces on the ground for so long; any evidence found now isn't worth spit. --In fact, I recall a case where WMDs were actually caught being smuggled INTO Iraq in the last five months.
Saddam definatly supported terriorists, be they AL-Q. or others.
Where do you get this stuff? There were NO links between Al Qaeda and Saddam. None. The recent 9-11 commission, as big a bullshit-parade as it was, even repeated this! It sounds to me like you've been listening to the Bush rhetoric and actually believing it. Dude. The man is a liar and the media repeats his lies. Wake the hell up. You're embarrassing yourself. --And the forces you support are raping, torturing and killing in your name. Be proud.
-FL
--The best one I ever ran across was another shit-spouting fool whose actual, real-life last name was, 'Papernick'.
He was the biggest plagiarist I ever met! No joke!
The Universe, I find, nearly always puts clear signposts on all of its energies. If you know how to read the signs, the world becomes much less confusing!
-FL
The fact of the matter is that there HAVE been productions which support the Bush side of the 'argument'. They're called Network Television and Print Journalism. And THAT, kiddo, is a far more appropriate comparison to your half-baked 'Communist China' remark.
-FL
I'm sorry. I don't understand this. .
Somebody you voted for has turned out to be a liar and psychopath, but you still support him because you're an 'American'. . ?
Sounds to me like you are suffering from a combination of things in greater and lesser degrees; 1. Ignorance, 2. Programming, 3. The Total Lack of the Backbone required to admit when You've Been Duped.
Newsflash: Pretending that you haven't been duped when you have, or worse, sticking by a liar and a criminal when you know him to be a liar and a criminal is STUPID. It's not noble. It's not cool. It's STUPID. --And it's certainly not "American", unless Americans are by default a bunch of lemming imbeciles.
Perhaps you should watch the film before complaining about 'leftists'.
-FL
Everybody knows, Conspiracies Do Not Exist! After all, it is "Impossible to Keep a Secret". And anyway, "They Just Wouldn't Do That."
And, of course, everybody knows that only wackos believe in conspiracies!
You're not a wacko, are you? If you are suspected of such, we'll all laugh at you. We'll try to make you feel small and ashamed! Your self-esteem must hurt! --Because despite the obvious, nobody at all has any desire to control your behavior through such basic and easily manipulated emotions! Drink more! Watch more TV! You want to be cool and get laid? Take Ecstasy. Quit worrying so much. Take Anti-Depressants. ALL the cool kids are doing it. You want to be cool, don't you?
Despite all logic and evidence you may have to share, you will be condemned to a thorough pestering by thousands of Taco Bell-loving citizens auto-reacting with 'Tin-Foil' jokes and lead walls made of all the clever 'knowledge' they have accumulated from watching 'documentaries' on their televisions.
Get with the times, man! Thinking and pointing out discrepancies between reality and the sham being projected by Big Money, Big Government and Big Military is simply not cool! It clearly says so in all their literature.
--Ask any Think Tank, and they'll tell you.
-FL
"Stupid" is a bit too reactionary. "Ignorant" is certainly accurate, but calls for the reason behind the ignorance.
I think in this case, both "Dupe" and "Conned" would describe the poster well, but fail to describe the actual post itself, which is the prime objective of moderation labels.
You almost need to drop into compound descriptives. Like, "Willfully Ignorant" or even whole sentences such as; "This Dupe has been Successfully Programmed by the Dark Side into believing that Greed is Not A Disease."
In any case, I don't envy the task of the Slashdot programming staff!
-FL
You came here to experience these events. Best to enjoy them and learn from them rather than let them get you down. Though, high ground is probably the wiser of the vantage points available. . . Dodging the draft is half the fun!
-FL
I've said such things before, and had such things said to me, and that's life. No complaints. I don't need a law in place to enforce what should and should not be said. I'll trust in the forces of self-correcting social awareness to regulate how and what people speak.
Of course, self-correcting systems don't always pan out the way you'd like when you have huge extra tendrils of influence at work. --Like the Military Industrial Complex with it's hands on popular culture and education doing everything in its power to turn people into savages so that it can point and say, "See! People need to be controlled. How about a nice Military Lockdown? --I think we've got one around here somewhere we'd be willing to sell at a bargain!"
The only ones who should be punished for doing annoying things on the internet are corporations and advertisers.
-FL
Everybody is over-dramatic when they first become aware of the veils.
There was a time when you also cried, "I am not a Number!" and really, really meant it. (Come on. You know it's true!)
Ahhh. Childhood.
It only seems pretentious when people wake up during university because their psych/philosophy course told them to do so. (Within the pre-determined safe and acceptable boundaries, of course!)
In any case, I found it hard to follow, 'Waking Life'. I think if you're going to make that kind of film, it should be appealling to the viewer, make a lot of sense, and leave you both changed and thinking. 'Northern Exposure,' did a much better job in communicating those sorts of ideas. As did the first 'Matrix' film, in a pop-star kind of way. Heck, Yoda did a better job, (in 'Empire', anyhow.) 'Waking Life' just confused and annoyed me, and half the time had me wanting to argue with the screen because I thought numerous of the ideas it was presenting were actually broken.
I liked the guy with the ukulele, though.
I'd like to see Carlos Castaneda brought to the screen. Or Hermann Hesse. Now there's a couple of projects which won't ever happen!
Phillip K. Dick just strikes me as weird and clever without any real purpose.
-FL
Here's the three point reality:
1. I want to be able to read a document while taking a dump or while lying in bed. It has to be light and easy to hold, and the screen has to be at least twice the size of the standard PDA. 5"x2" will do the job, allowing you to actually see a whole paragraph at once! (whooo.)
2. I want to be able to touch-type into the thing with comfort and ease. Handwriting recognition is the single most limited, irritating and hence, unused technology in handhelds today. Thumb-only keyboards are useless to anybody who needs to write more than a sentence. I don't need the thing to fit in my pocket, because I'm not a space-man living in a Star Trek episode. Further, I don't need to instantly be able to access the thing on a whim, because I don't intend to keep my BRAIN on a PDA. I'll pull the device out of my BACKPACK or BRIEFCASE, or pick it up off the TABLE when I want to do some WORK or READING. --Neither of which are done while standing around the water cooler.
3. The power has to last at LEAST 30 hours on double A's or something else I can easily replace at a convenience store. I DO NOT want to mess around with idiotic recharge bays and proprietary batteries.
It should also be noted that. .
I DO NOT NEED OR WANT a color screen. I do not need to watch movies or play games on my wallet. I DO, however, need to be able to type essays on a reliable machine. Until somebody can make a color screen which doesn't turn good batteries into worthless 5 hour charges, then just give me a Black & White LCD screen!
The closest I've seen anything come so far is the Psion series 5. I've written about this several times now in the last week, since I just became the proud owner of a used $75 ebay model. The machine is ALMOST perfect. The screen is just a little too shiny which makes it hard to read, and if the keyboard was only one inch wider and slightly more responsive, it'd be the perfect machine. WHY, OH WHY, DIDN'T THEY MAKE IT PERFECTLY???
I mean, it gives you 35 hours on a couple of AA's, an excellent word processor, fully programmable key-board and as many megs of memory as you can stuff on a Compact Flash card. Man, for 75$, that is one SWEET machine!
ONE inch wider, guys, and a non-reflective plastic on the screen, and you'd have created the perfect product.
-FL
The authorities have hated the free movement of information on the internet ever since it began, and have made many efforts to marginalize public opinion regarding it. As everybody knows, "The things you read on the Web are worthless." And "You are a loser if you spend time on the internet."
Now, who started those ideas? It's certainly not a very poweful message from within cyberspace itself; when you hear it on-line, it's most often a parroted signal from a self-despising cynic.
But in the world beyond the internet, the command to ridicule and feel ashamed of spending time on the web is loud and strong and it does permeate society. So where does it come from? Who started it?
Of course, it is certainly true that information on the web cannot be taken at face value; there is a lot of noise to the signal. But this is little different as compared to the regular media; indeed, the only difference is that on-line there is actually a great deal more and clearer Signal available, and the Noise is much easier to filter out. Is it better to read one newspaper and watch one televised news cast, or to sift through the testimony of from dozens of such sources from all around the globe, and then contrast and compare that data?
That's a no brainer!
Further, you can't collectively debate with and demand references from a television set. The 'Official' media, which as we have seen, is extremely deliberate and powerful in its methods of spreading falsehoods; watching CNN alone and expecting the 'truth' without working for it, is nuts! --The far-too-late retraction from the New York Times regarding Saddam's WMD's illustrates one fine example.
Interestingly, reading and communicating on the internet both requires and rewards people for using their brains; for comparing many sources of information and debating that data into a rational picture of reality. Unlike a CNN news cast, the Web does not lull a person into stupidly thinking that 'everything is allright; Very smart and authoritative people know best'. The internet actually makes you smarter and more responsible as you use it!
This is one of the big things the PTB are afraid of.
Though, all other forces aside, a large part of it comes down to personal security and the fear of job-loss.
When everybody is feeding happily from the same information trough, then the JOBS of News Professionals are not threatened. But people are increasingly feeding from independent sources, and the News people are reacting. The fear of losing job security is one of the most direct routes to reactionary fear-based behavior in otherwise rational adults. Whether the stimulus is imagined or not, the result is typically violent and emotional. Try this experiment:
Think of your career. Then think of some activity which, if enlarged, could put an end to your whole industry. Then gauge how you feel, how you react/have reacted.
News people are just the same as you, with one difference; they all have giant mega-phones with which to broadcast their reactions.
-FL
I have an interest in the events going on in the world, and the internet is by far the very best way to sample and compare a lot of data from around the globe, and to then discuss/debate it into a rational picture of reality.
I don't bear any of the dumb traits you describe. I have an active social life, a good job and, amazingly I use the internet. And I am not alone.
You seem to typify a peculiar contingent of people who hope that through ridicule and belittlement, populations can be cowed away from seeking knowledge.
And guess what; It's not working.
-FL
I mean come on this guy obviously wears a tinfoil hat...
What? You are not interested by a news item about 60 square kilometers scorched bare by a meteor strike? Why the heck not? You're not one of those prozac people, are you?
BTW, that tin-foil joke just gets fresher and more funny every time it is repeated! Thank you for being 100% un-original in your knee-jerking inability to construct your own thoughts. You wouldn't also happen to be one of those people who repeats Simpsons quotes in lieu of social wit, are you?
The irony is that 'people' of your sort think you are actually capable of performing acts of ridicule, when by simply opening your mouths, you become objects of the same.
-FL
Er. . . You did understand my reference? We really wouldn't have genocide in Israel and troops in Iraq if it weren't for idiotic religious differences in what amounts to the same text. I have family serving in Afghanistan thanks to the current war on Islam. I have friends who suffer from life-crippling guilt complexes directly built upon the Catholic brain-washing they received as children. I have Jewish friends whose lives are getting steadily more imperiled thanks to the Zionist brain-washing and political activities. So yeah, you'll have to pardon me if I seem a little perplexed by the direct results of popular, centralized religion. The entire world is rearing up to tear itself apart through the massive mind-programming job which has been perpetrated upon Humanity for the last 2000 years.
Don't get me wrong; I have no problem with people being spiritually aware; in fact, I consider it something of an absolute necessity if one wants to fully develop as a soul. I consider Religion a giant trap designed specifically to prevent people from awakening to the various realities upon which spiritual awareness is based.
Indeed, I have NEVER met a Christian who really understands what Christ was actually all about. Dying on the cross for our sins? This is perhaps THE number one false-hood. Very simply, if you read and believe in the Bible, you are a chump. The Bible was written by a large cast of humans, each with varying agendas, during a segment of history when there was both great temptation and reward in mis-directing the population into perpetuating specific thought patterns designed to engender a slave-like mentality.
I'll repeat that in the form of a question:
How can you trust anything written in the bible? How do you know the people who wrote the bible weren't taking money from the thought-police of the day? --And there were definitely such forces at work back then, just as there are now. Very simply, whenever you have powerful governments, you have powerful propaganda departments with very deliberate agendas using the most effective means possible to control the people. Religion is a fantastically effective way to control people.
A self-serving government would have to be insane not to use it to their advantage.
Why the heck doesn't anybody ever consider this basic reality when gauging the value of biblical texts?
There are thousands of scholars who have collectively spent millions of hours trying to demonstrate the truth and validity of the bible through mountains of self-invalidating research which cannot help but be totally biased exactly because it is research done by legions of pre-brainwashed zealots.
(Much like today's newscasts, the Bible is about 80% propaganda and mind-programming bullshit.) And look how effective it has been! --I point out a simple fact; that we have torturing troops in Iraq and genocide going down in Israel BECAUSE of religion, and you tell me to stop being so critical, that 'religion brings the good while trying to get rid of the bad'.
Seems to me that there's a little friction there between the reality of Palestinian children being shot by twenty year-old Jews with machine guns supplied by good ol' church-going Americans, and your Easter Bunny daydream.
Newsflash: People can lead good and responsible lives without being threatened with hellfire. And if they are so stupid as to actually require biblical threats and promises of afterlife reward simply to behave themselves, then perhaps they deserve to be brainwashed and shot, which is exactly what is happening anyway.
Good luck. You're certainly going to need it. --I've also yet to meet the Christian who has even the slightest clue as to what the whole 'Left Behind' thing is actually referencing.
-FL
A screen which can hold more than one sentence. 2"x5" would be enough.
Designed to be comfortably read while reclining. I don't want to have to hold my hands in a funny, awkward way just to hit scroll keys.
Good screen. I don't need color. I'm happy with LCD, but it had better not be made of glass or some other highly reflective surface. There's nothing more irritating than having to fight to angle the device in such a way as to avoid reflections of bright objects. Like walls.
Battery has to last for more than 24 hours.
Takes flash cards.
Has the ability, out of the box, to plug into any regular serial or USB keyboard. Must be designed to sit on a surface with a wide range of adjustable viewing angles.
These features are all within the current realm of possible. The Psion series 5 (one of which I just scooped from ebay), comes pretty close, but falls down hard on a couple of points. --The screen is WAY too reflective and the keyboard, while amazing for a handheld, is just slightly too small to comfortably touchtype with, and the button contacts aren't quite sensitive enough. --You type with the same pressure as you would with the keys on a normal keyboard, and you don't get letters every time. This means you're constantly having to back up to fix words. This is a major pain. You have to mess around too much to make it work. It's almost as though Psion was deliberately trying to annoy with almost-good-enough design. Also, plugging into a full-sized keyboard requires third party software which you have to pay for. Aggravating.)
So nobody has made the perfect device yet. I don't know why this is, because it's entirely possible to do. ALL the technology is cheep and available. --And there is WAY more application for a decent tool of that sort than there is for one of those next-to-worthless PDAs.
PDA's are too small, too expensive and too useless. If I can't comfortably write an essay on the device, then it's totally worthless to me. Keeping appointments and phone numbers is fine, and the PDA does it well, but come on! For most people, it's simply not a big enough concern. The people who buy PDA's, for the most part, aren't getting them because they actually need to store phone numbers.
Of course, it's easy to understand why the things are so popular; they're flashy and gadgetty and new. And they'll go the way of the Walkman and Wristwatch. --Cute and clever toys which sane people will get bored with and find they are much less irritated living without.
Give me a real tool. Don't give me a nerd-ball fashion accsessory which doesn't do anything more than play MP3's, remember phone numbers and annoy the piss out of people by forcing them read documents one ingredient-label sized portion at a time.
-FL