Without fail i have found people who bag wal-mart are bagging the people who shop/work there. They do it to give themselfs some kind of superiority boost to their ego. There's nothing wrong with walmart in the slightest, they provide jobs to people with little skills and they do it ABOVE the minimum wage. Sure it's not glamrous, but it's a start and not a bad place to work.
The walmart hate is completely without logic or reason, it's definately a case of small minds seeking a cause to belong to. Get off your fucking high horse, you aren't "better" then someone who works or shops at walmart, and i suspect you might even be a little bit less of a person.
Funny. I thought I stopped shopping at Walmart because they destroyed small towns and their buying policies involve penalizing local producers while funneling all the cash in the West to the East, and because they treat their employees like coal miners. I never had any complaints about the employees themselves. But then, I no longer buy stuff there. --Though, it's hard these days to not buy stuff made in a sweat shop or a slave labour camp! --I find myself building a lot of my own things and buying second-hand. That way at least, I reduce the number of people getting rich from unfair and unwholesome business practices when I pull out my wallet. Interestingly, my money now seems to go a lot further than that of other people. But no, I don't sit on a high horse. I just choose to live in a way whenever I am able which doesn't serve to disadvantage my community. I'd feel rotten otherwise.
The cases of wacko christian fundamentalists blowing up innocent people has been a rare exception and was always denounced by main-stream christians. The cases of Muslims blowing up innocents is an every day occurrence and is never denounced by the mythical moderate muslims.
Well. . .
Actually, the only way you could possibly think that is if you spend too much time absorbing the signal from those American news agencies, which as a hard rule offer only a small sliver of truth and plenty of falsehoods.
First of all, every muslim I know is very much opposed to violence. These are not mythical people. They are moms and dads and students and decent working people. I wanted to know what was really going on, and so I made an effort to find my own information. Go visit your local mosque and meet the people there and ask questions. You may be surprised to learn that they are people like any other with the same human drives and emotions, etc. The moderate Muslim is hardly mythical. I don't think their religion is any better than Christianity. It's just as limiting as any other, but as a group, the people who worship under Islam really aren't the depraved lunatics they are made out to be. Further, there is indeed outcry from many sectors of the Islamic religion which is opposed to violence. You just never hear them because it simply isn't reported by the American media. But it's certainly there if you go looking.
Secondly. . , there is plenty of evidence to suggest that many of the bombings attributed to Islamic fundamentalists are indeed orchestrated and funded and encouraged by the various secret services from opposing nations who have a lot to gain from seeding fear into the world. It's a fascinating, albeit sad subject, which again, I looked into because I wanted to know what was really going on. Whenever a big social change comes about and the government starts instructing people, I like to find out what their game is. There always seems to be a game. I don't like to be manipulated or to play the shmuck, so I need to collect my own data and do my own thinking. Thus, if you want to understand the world, it is imperative that one researches beyond the state propaganda organs. The London bombings are an excellent example; the official story is riddled with holes and corruption. The Israeli government also, (and in particular) has a large stake in maintaining a negative world view on Islam. --Land grabs and power and manifest destiny and all that. It's called a 'False Flag' maneuver when one country self inflicts damage to blame upon another so that the populace will agree to further military spending, reduced freedoms and all the various fascist systems which are so seductive to governments. (It's SO much easier to run a country and feather your nest when everybody is too frightened to argue with you.)
Often people, upon hearing this, will knee-jerk with the cry of, "Conspiracy!" and stop listening. That in itself is fascinating. I ask people why they have such a strong reaction to the word and ask them to look inside and ask where the original knee-jerk stems from. Nearly always, the initial replies will be will be surface, rationalist stuff, but with enough time and numerous examples, the flaws are exposed. (False knowledge always contains flaws, otherwise it wouldn't be false. It's easy enough to deconstruct falsehoods because they come with their own inbuilt self-destruct buttons.) Once people are willing to look beneath their own defense systems and find out how those systems were installed and who worked to put them there, it becomes much easier to see through the fog and to recognize when one is being manipulated and used.
The hell I am. The very limited data you point to is interesting, but cannot be used at all to make such a point as you seem to be trying to make. There were some very big publishing companies not represented on that list, and I noticed that several of the ones which were listed were just name holders; mostly owned by larger conglomerates which went un-examined. And even then, 94% of the campaign contributions represented were given up by individuals working in those companies. Well, shucks! I thought I was pretty clear in my post that I knew several journalists, all liberal-minded, who attest to having almost zero control over the content they work to provide. The company owners are the ones who dictate direction, not the employees. And who owns publishing?
Well, I did a quick check and it seems, just as a general for-instance, that nearly all the books published in America come, when you climb the ownership chain high enough, from one Bertelsmann, a German company which survived WWII when other publishers foundered, and they did so by working arm in arm with the Nazi party, agreeing to publish only party-approved crud. Carrying this ethic in mind, Bertelsmann flourished and is today one of the most powerful publishing firms on the planet. They also happen to be a family business with no public shareholders, so they get to do exactly as they please. Indeed, (according Wikipedia) the Bertelsmann Foundation which directs the publishing empire, is a non-profit organization and political think tank set up by the founding families. Hmm. Non-proft. Think tank? Old money? Now when you put all of that together. . .
This isn't conspiracy fluff. It's how it really is. A conservative political think-tank is in control of the books in the bookstore. So don't give me, "Liberal Media".
Then take a look at who owns the rest of the media. --The other giants which control the TV you watch and the newspapers you read. It's almost entirely owned by old and very conservative money. So who gives a hoot how many shackled libby would-be journalists are making campaign contributions to a corrupt democratic party? It doesn't mean a thing when they have no say in how Israel is represented or how the press releases from the Pentagon are published word for word, etc. And don't forget the good ol' secret services. They openly admit to having had agents directing the media fifty years ago, and there is conjecture that they are doing it again today. Ooops. It's not conjecture. With AT&T's relationship with the government's clandestine organizations having been outed, we'd be insane not to suspect all the same activities with regard to above-the-law agencies sitting on the press. I think we'd be nuts not to think that the US spies never actually left after WWII. Heck, with the red menace and all. . .
And even if you discount all of this, a quick afternoon looking at what the U.S. media says and how when compare it to the reality of the situation, anybody who cares to can quickly see that we have anything but a "Liberal media".
My comment was fairly sloppy. I set out to say one thing, and then realized part way through that I wanted to say something else, but was in a rush to get off-line and so let it be.
I agree with your comments. --Indeed, I don't give money to pan handlers for several of the reasons you outline, (except for those odd times when I break the rule based on my own assessment. No one rule can define every eventuality).
The point, as you say, is to use the thinking muscle to make choices. Emotions are a type of internal guide, and they are very important. But the rest of the brain should never be turned off. --And fear should always be questioned and analyzed as it usually results from some part of the self which needs work.
Oh really? Care to explain which parts you think are false? I'd be happy to clear up any part you don't understand.
Life is unpleasant, people do not believe like you do, get used to it. That is my complaint against left wing nutjobs like yourself. They are just as fundamentalists as the right wing fundamentalists, they just refuse to see it.
No. Life may be unpleasant for you, but my life is pretty amazing. Excellent friends, respect in my community, great job, etc. I'll be a "nutjob" any day of the week if it garners the kind of real benefits I've been rewarded with all my life! --Granted, I started from a healthy middle-class background, but I've seen lots of people start with far more than me who end up living in fear and self-imposed misery based entirely on their belief structures and the experiences they guide themselves toward based on those beliefs. It's all in how you go about directing your intent, which is tightly linked to how you describe the world to yourself. If you see darkness wherever you look and if you scoff at the light, then guess what? Your life is going to be incalculably more difficult and sad. Smile at people honestly, love people openly, and don't judge. I've earned trust, love and support in the most unlikely places based on this principal.
Stop seeing evil when simple human nature is involved.
Who said anything about evil? (That sounds like your world-view speaking again). --Human nature is the result of what humans choose to be. I don't see evil anywhere. When I see negative behavior, I see ignorance and fear, greed and psycopathy. All choices, except for the last item which is rather a kind of brain defect.
f there's a moderate side to Islam, it doesn't matter. What the Western World sees is a crowd of hate-filled crazies wanting to kill us for just about anything we do. There might be a moderate crowd buried under all that hate, but I stopped caring a long time ago. I expect things to get a whole hell of a lot worse. We're going to see a lot of nasty shit going on over the next decade. It will happen in Europe first. They will either call it WW3 or The Sword of Allah, depending upon who wins.
Islam is a religion followed by a billion or so people.
There's not just a "moderate crowd buried under all that hate", but it's by far the huge majority.
There are plenty of whacko Christian fundamentalists out there as well, and some of them are in office. Let's not lose perspective just because Fox News (and the rest) are propaganda organs which show us only that which makes a small group of white psychopaths very rich.
Bullshit. You have no facts. Produce a list of papers which have cut the strip and then you can begin to think around the word, "Fact". Produce non-isolated examples of the kind of liberal bias you are accusing of in those papers, and then you can begin to sell your point.
Since you can't do any of this, what we really have here is a typical example of Right Wing emotionalism. (The operative emotions being Fear and Hate, which the typical Right-Wing Bush supporter allows to direct his Judgment and Rationality.)
Newspapers are a collection of ideas folded together into a sheaf of reading material. The Typical Right-Wing brain is naturally going to sift out things to get angry about, regardless of how balanced the reporting might be, which in a typical newspaper today, is totally not balanced at all. I see propaganda wherever I look, and think that the so-called "Liberal Media" is an utter and complete sham designed to support the Military Industrial Complex. But I hail from the Left of Left. Can you tell?.
That's not a conscious choice on my part, by the way. It's a result.
It's the result of how I choose to live:
I choose to live with my emotions under control; to not let fear rule my thoughts and actions. --To seek rationality over knee-jerk emotionalism. --It's not that I have anything against emotions. I love emotions! They guide us and make us human. But there's two ways to be human. You can let emotions show you how to let compassion be your guide, or you can let emotions lead you through fear. Fear is easy. Fear is basic, reptillian brain stuff. It's the default setting. The one which evolution has been moving away from for a ba-zillion years.
If the media were truly 'Liberal', we would know a great deal more than we do through it. We wouldn't be at war, for starters. (Since the Bush admin keeps on repeating straight-faced, shameless lies in the psychopath's knowledge that doing so will make people believe them even with gobs of contrary evidence sitting right out in the open, one should also keep on repeating the Truth. . .
"There were no WMD's in Iraq. The Bush team LIED, saying that Saddam could launch an attack in 45 minutes. (Remember that?) They even delivered the age-old sales line, 'The Troops will be home in ten weeks.'" And people fell for it! They actually fell for it again! --And now hundreds of thousands of regular people are dead while a small group of people has made millions. You want to talk facts? THOSE are facts. You cannot dispute them unless you are insane. We do not have a Liberal media. Pulling Opus was either fear related, (editors believing their own lies and not wanting the frightful hand of Islam to blow up their offices. (Groan.) --Or it was a manipulation designed to spark outrage in people like you and play on everybody else's fears. But whatever the case, I can assure you that it had absolutely nothing to do with compassion.
As it is, we must spend enormous effort cross referencing stories and digging and back-checking just to scrape out truth from the mountain of misleading crud served up every day. I know several guys who work in journalism. Each one of them is a true liberal in the political sense, and they report (privately) the same thing. To quote one of them (as best I can from memory):
"If you speak out against the party line on anything, then you don't work. There is no truth in journalism. We're all whores or robots. This is a disgusting, juvenile, toxic industry where the only successful people in it are incredibly ignorant, back-stabbing and greedy, with no care whatsoever about truth."
Wow. That's a total of 6 mod points blown in order to ignore an ugly reality. Or was it the word, "Jew" which people were auto-reacting against? Sheesh. Get a grip. The face of the world today is being determined by huge forces, and religious lines play one of the most prominent roles. To shy away from the words we have been programmed to fear means we are not able to look at the very issues which are determining the course of our lives. And that's the very essence of a successful social manipulation. Don't look at the cage or the lock because you'll feel all squeamish inside if you do. Just pretend that everything is okay and that millions of people are not being slaughtered in the Middle East.
I find it telling that nobody has had the guts or the wherewithal to comment back to me directly with their concerns. From my perspective, I can only think that the reason for this is that there is nothing which can be argued. And there isn't. It's just knee-jerk reaction bourn of automatic emotional responses baked into people through the society we live in. Whether or not one is able to rise above the programming to ask, "Why do I feel the need to jerk my knee?" is what separates the warriors from the cattle.
If you are afraid to look reality in the face and you decide to turn away and not think about it, then that is a Choice. That's fine. It's your choice to make. But it should be noted that the battle on this world right now is one of awareness, and every choice you make today determines who you become tomorrow.
Those with the courage of a lion will not have the fate of a mouse.
Terribly sorry to offend those delicate ears. "Promoting Torture" is such an ugly term. You simply don't want to think about such things when thinking Star Trek.
Unfortunately, the truth is writ large; J.J. Abrams promotes torture in "Alias", and he promotes the CIA, both of which are insane, evil things to do, which makes J.J. either ignorant, which he's not, or it makes him a Bad Guy.
Can't handle it? No problem! Just mod it 'Troll' and pretend it's not happening.
Alias has forever put Abrams in the black book with me.
Yeah, he knows how to tell a fun story, but sheesh. The hidden messages in Alias were creeeeeepy!
It was a long, drawn out argument for the use of torture and the goody-goodness of the CIA, with the main character's Daddy who looked the spitting image of George Bush when shot from key angles at key moments in the right light, all of which was so plainly on purpose as to make me wonder who the heck was paying the bills on that set.
I never watched enough 'Lost' to figure out the politics on that show, or what the underlying message is. Anybody sifted the poop on that one? I can't be bothered.
My guess is that Abrams is going to try to sell us on some psychology which will benefit the on-going genocide of everybody with brown skin in the Middle East.
He'd better watch out though. J.J. is a Jew, and even working as he clearly is within a Zionist agenda, the screaming Jesus freaks in the White House are only playing along with Israel so far as they have to. Game theory states that when the time is right, you stab your friends in the back. The U.S. doesn't keep allies.
Yes, and I clearly skimmed past the line while searching for the section devoted to battery life. He devoted a couple hundred words to the keyboard and to things like carbon fibers, but burried the highly subjecive and thus virtually useless battery life comment in the middle of a paragraph amongst a bunch of other left-over details on the last page of the review. Granted I was too tired to be reading last night with full awareness, but that doesn't change the general thrust of my comment.
The only comment I do remember seeing was the one relating to the screen using LED lighting improving battery life, which the author even said, "is another majorly important factor". Yes it is! I would like to see comparison tests, not half-baked one-liners and lame excuses about not having some battery testing software installed. How about running the machine for a couple of days under different conditions?
Like I said, there was a time when reviewers made the effort to include this information. But maybe I'm different. I actually spend a lot of time away from home-base with a portable, so battery life really counts. Maybe other people don't press their machines the way I do. We don't even know from the review what kind of battery technology the machine uses, or what kind of power adaptor it employs, or anything remotely practical with regard to its power system. He told us it had a green light and that it's cylindrical in shape. Gee thanks. A six-year old could have given me that information.
I remember back in the day when laptops were first hitting the scene that one of the FIRST and most important elements the reviewer would discuss was the battery life.
It's still one of my primary concerns when thinking about portable computers. Why on earth does the reviewer not even mention this? --Especially when we're dealing with a computer with such a different type of technology design which he excitedly claims consumes much less power. Damn, that'd definitely be on my list of things to test, just out of sheer curiosity. Not discussing it is not simply an oversight, it's just plain strange.
Just some ball-park figures based on different types of use. (Doing nothing but word-processing for X straight hours. V.S. heavy graphics work. How many DVD's can you read/burn on a charge.)
This stuff matters, and it absolutely affects which machine I will buy. Is there some kind of moratorium on battery life comparisons in the portable computer review world, or is the reviewer just being thoughtless?
When there are ten pages of comments here, and I read page one, then click on page two - why the hell do I get page one all over again?
Hm. And for all these years, I thought it was just me.
My solution was just to use the personal options to put the largest number of posts on one page as possible, and to have the posts listed from most-recent to the oldest. That way you can stay on top of ideas as they develop through a discussion. But still. . , it's a weird problem that I would have thought would be addressed by now. Either that, or you and I are simply not smart enough to grasp something which actually works. I've never taken the time to really sort it out. It seems broken to me.
Geez. The article starts by listing all the 'great' qualities of Vista; it sticks it to Mac users, and expresses how important it is to not be left behind in the evolutionary game of change, and the bullshit about how all software is 99% backwards compatibile, (which isn't even true).
Then it makes a frightening claim which even the lowest level geek would recognize as being false.
The end result? Everybody who has read this article has now blithely absorbed a first rate sales-pitch which 1)Lists 'hot' features, and 2)Hits multiple social pressure buttons known to create sales, and 3)Trades on the bullshit "Only Losers Believe in Conspiricies" saw, because a bogus Straw Man threat has been set up and knocked down. --And everybody knows that the most powerful way to get people to believe in a lie is to lead the mark by the nose to the point where they connect the dots themselves and think that it was their idea all along.
And heaven knows that NEVER could happen with the Slashdot crowd. (sic)
Slashdotters and the like are so ego-impaired that when they knock down a Straw Man, they'll congratulate themselves for weeks afterwards and would actually prefer to believe that somebody really is that dumb and that MS isn't manipulating them for all their worth. --Simply so that they can feel smart.
The sad part is that this stuff works. I bet a number of you are going to actually upgrade based on this crap. Doesn't anybody do meta-analysis at all anymore? For goodness sake, I learned the power of the word, 'Meta' , by reading Slashdot!
The only point I'd like to make here is that Iran is a green country; it's not in the middle of a desert'.
Misconceptions about Iran are one of the major ways in which the U.S. population is being led into war. Take a look at some tourist photography of Tehran.
Remember; when American bombs start falling on this country, odd men in the dust with AK-47s are not the ones being killed. We will be murdering millions of people in highly developed first world population centers. --With snow in the Winter, grass and trees and squirrels in the Summer with kids in the park; modern public busses to the modern public library and people going to work in modern offices; a country which is VERY recognizable and similar to our own in many ways.
Why do you think you have been sold the idea of AK-47's in the desert?
This war may well be even worse and more horrific than the one in Iraq because there's a much higher probability of nuclear bombs being used. And just think: it's going to happen because Americans are too well programmed by their video games and their ADD entertainment and false news casts.
Bush needs to be removed from office and put in a psychiatric ward right now, before this horror can be visited upon the human race.
-FL
Aren't they kind of. . . totally different?
on
Kids Say Email is Dead
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I suppose you can compare, but really they are different enough animals to both hold individual merit.
Heck, I still use the paper post system all the time, because electronic mail is useless for physical delivery of packages. Of course.
Text messaging is for people who want real-time, but for whom clarity and deliberate content are not important. I must be old, because I find communications done in IM seem to have a rather light-weight ADD quality about them. --Which is probably appropriate for kids these days. --Keeping in mind, that the kids using computer communications are regular kids who are worried about clothes and popularity contests and who's dating who, etc. Light fluffy stuff. Email was developed by geeks for geeks, and because of its usefulness, was adopted by business, and I expect will remain in use that way for some time to come. (Try keeping 50 clients sorted in real-time!) Maybe when the ADD kids raised and trained in information sorting of that magnitude reach the business world, they will create a different type of work place and style of business management, but I don't see how they'll manage without something as stable as email. Attention to detail, record keeping and being able to take an hour or a few days to think about all the ramifications of a question before responding become important when you enter the business world.
(Although, given some of the communications I've done a back and forth on with various businesses might sometimes suggest otherwise.)
I see IM and today's social networks as having potential for something very useful in the future, but right now they still seem to be in a rather proto-gimik-time-wasting stage of development. When the business world finally adopts them, it will mean that their value has been proven, at which point the next New Hip Thing will be popular with the kids, and only old farts will spend time on Facebook. If we survive long enough as a culture, that is. . .
What part of "acts of violence" do you not understand, dumb-ass?
Ever notice just how many conservatives are happy to lose their tempers? They give jobs to those rare conservatives who know how to talk without swearing. The rest of them just don't have what it takes to rise above the title of, "expendable flag-waving grunt". You might want to consider that next time you open your mouth.
Anyway the point in question is indeed the wording. . .
(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:
Yes, indeed, that certainly does sound pretty cut and dried. A guy selling "Bush Lied, They Died" tee shirts is in the clear, isn't he?
Except. . , well, who exactly gets to determine what an, "Act of Violence" is? --Or what might be considered a "significant risk?" Not you or me. That's the Secretary of the Treasury's job, (in consultation, of course with the Secretary of Defense, which can essentially be read simply, "As determined by the Bush administration"). --Does shouting at the president count as an act of violence? Does saying in a blog, "We should hang the bastards" count as a significant risk of committing an act of violence? Well, that determination is up to Bush and his crew.
But that's just the small fry stuff. It gets better. . ,
the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order,
Ah. So now you can also be nailed by this law if you contribute services which benefit those opposed to America's presence in Iraq.
And, deary me, what constitutes a service which benefits those opposed to America's presence in Iraq?
Does putting up posters which say, "Napalming Iraqi children is Wrong. Bring our troops home!" --That could certainly be deemed to erode military spirit and thus provide a service to the "enemy". That guy with the "Bush Lied, They Died" tee-shirts is suddenly a fair bit closer to thea mite closer to the grey zone covered by this XO, isn't he?
This law can be used as it appears; to penalize those who sell materiel to freedom fighters. All well and good. But should the 'need' arise, it can also be ill-used to penalize people for using something as simple as their freedom of speech. And THAT is what people are complaining about.
This law can without question be read that way, and with the supreme court stacked as it is, you wouldn't get much of a fair hearing should you slip into that grey zone and try to contest it. This bill was written by people (who were given jobs) and who are much more technically clever with small print than you, and thus I would assume that it was intended to be misleading to people who just glance at it without being thoughtful.
Perhaps conservatives need to spend more time being thoughtful and less time being quick to anger and highly reactionary with their "dumb-ass" comments.
Until then, all of you are just bitching about a ruling by which none of us will ever be touched. Stop pretending you understand what this kind of power is for, and where it will be used.
Oh, it's Us versus Them, now is it?
It should be noted that much of the German population were quite happy with Hitler while he reigned, but that didn't make the crimes against humanity committed by the Nazis any less so.
Perhaps -just perhaps- some Americans are not selfish hard cases who have insulated themselves so effectively in bubble realities where facts don't matter. Some people don't think of it as Us versus Them, as we have been instructed to.
Further, you are wrong. History strongly suggests that unless you are a flag waving Party Man, you are in danger, and even then you have to have the right blood, the right religion, etc. Why on Earth would you get so upset about people noticing the same patterns which have come before and which have resulted in disaster? If you want to avoid disaster, only a fool would ignore the signs.
Flag wavers give me the willies. At this point it takes actual insanity to come up with the kind of avoidance rationality needed to ignore the facts, and because of that, the current administration will probably see fit at some point to give such people guns and the power to use them with indiscretion. Psychopaths need other psychopaths in order to maintain their power structure. --Which will fall. History shows that they always do, (psychos are designed to create chaos and fear, and thus are totally ill-suited in basic resource management), and the psychos have to slink away into the shadows once more. We just have to go through the whole song and dance again before they do.
kdawson is a fucking anti-US communist Russian JEW [...] enough said
Huh?
Who cares who submitted the story? Will you ignore the actions of Bush just because you happen to dislike the guy who handed you the article? That kind of thinking can only make sense to a lunatic. I've noticed rather a lot of lunatics rising to the surface lately.
I really expected an uproar from the Libertarians about this but they are strangely silent. Maybe they don't really believe what they say about things they are against and actually support the monoply/oligopoly form of capitalism we have now with government controls of free trade. I am really dissapointed with the non-response from the Libertarians. They must be "only if it benifits me" hypocrites!
You called it.
The Free Market totally works. People with the best ideas and the best implementation WIN WIN WIN in a Free Market! The Free Market Decides it so!
Heck, it allowed the ruling elite to compete their way to the top and hold onto everything forever. They got there by the sweat of their brows and the shrewdness of their schemes! (Then by the sweat of their slaves and the governments they own). The Free Market gave them the freedom to win! Rah Rah! --Too bad the Free Market isn't like a board game which gets reset every time you put it back in the box.
In effect, we've been playing the same game of Monopoly for over 3000 years. --Longer if some conspiracy theorists are correct.
And you know how it goes. When your little brother has hotels on all the good properties, all the money ends up in his hands and you have to mortgage yourself to kingdom come just to stay viable until pay day while the little devil squeaks at you with infuriating glee.
The Rothschildes and their brethren must be a gleeful people.
Oh. I thought when you said rare, you meant a couple of times every hundred years.
I just did some searching, and found that there were two in the last six months. Hereand here. One off the coast of Australia, and another around New Zealand.
Is two enough for a pattern? No, but it is noteworthy. According to this item it seems that squid in general, (off California's coast) are behaving oddly. They think it may be due to the reduction of natural predators, but who knows?
Actually yes it does mean what you are posting is false. You implied that Bush was arresting people for no good reason. Since there aren't mass arrests, I have to assume that what you are saying is false.
Nope. That doesn't help to clear it up. I can't tell if you are a Troll or just Nuts.
You appear to only see what you want to see and not what is there, (or what I actually said.) The fact that there are not mass arrests, (and we'll ignore police brutality against protesters for now), has exactly zero to do with improprieties exercised by the Bush administration. Because you see no mass arrests does not make it legal to get an abortion in some states. Nor because you see no mass arrests does it change policy with regard to immunization of children. Nor because you see no mass arrests does it change the laws with regard to firearms. Nor because you see no mass arrests does it mean wearing a headscarf and taking photos of downtown New York will not result in your being harassed by law enforcement. Nor because you see no mass arrests does it mean that the government didn't change the laws regarding Organic foods. Nor because you see no mass arrests does it mean that. . . Well you either get the idea by now or you don't. In either case, you're wrong.
Besides you cannot prove what you are saying in a court of law, it would be thrown out as hearsay. Even if you had case examples, reasonable doubt exists, but then you were never about "due process" were you?
Not only is that incorect, but it's also one of the the dumbest arguements I've ever heard. Are you like thirteen years old or something? Unfold a newspaper sometime. --Even a big propgagandized newspaper would do. None of what I am saying is contested by anybody but delusional people whose brains can't make the synaptic leap between print and understanding.
Anyone arrested that is a US Citizen has been granted due process, even that shoe bomber guy. Yet even though they clearly found plastic explosives in his shoes, you'd want him to walk free anyway because you want him to do damage.
Do you live under a rock? You're not just wrong, but you're seriously out of touch with
But then again, I think you might just be a Troll trying to make me dig up links and key in a bunch of html tags rather than let people do a bit of work for themselves. Thanks a bunch, if that's the case. If it's not, you should do some digging of your own before you spout anymore nonsense.
The rest of your post is just more delusional garbage based on the belief that I care about "liberals versus conservatives", which I do not, and which you might actually understand if were capable of reading. But there's hardly any point carrying on with this. You've already adequately helped illustrate my point: That for some reason, die-hard conservatives often tend to be prone to delusion and baseless argument. Either that, or you are pretending to be dumber than you are. Either way, you should go away now because I am. Bye bye.
I remember when that cute little home computer came out, and all the programs were just so. . , plinky.
Memory was a huge barrier, because you only had a small quantity of the stuff, and nobody understood the architecture of the system well enough to produce efficient programs.
But back then, there were no video card upgrades. No faster processors and mother boards being produces every three months. If you wanted higher speed and cooler graphics, you had to write your code in more ingenious ways.
And so that's what happened.
By the twilight years of the Color Computer, the games people were writing on that thing were unreal. I remember looking at a few and thinking to myself, "This is the same computer? Wow! Humans rock!"
When you reach the raw power limitations of your muscles but you still want to improve yourself in your combat skills, you take up Kung Fu. That's how it was in the old home computer days. Nowadays, though, (dang kids; I hadda walk fifty miles to school!) it seems that the bulk of improvement comes with the purchasing of increasingly large muscles.
This is not to say that there is no software innovation. Heck, id Software did some pretty amazing things with software ingenuity. But I do remember thinking during the first few years of the big PC revolution, after the 486 was reaching its twilight, "You know, all this hardware innovation is great and all. . , (big muscles are cool), but part of me wishes it would stop cold for six solid years just what would happen when the programmers were really pushed. --You know, to see what one of these machines is actually capable of doing.
if it happens repeatidly i may agree, but since it a rare occurance that has been happening for hundreds of years i doubt it is anything new from climate
It's at least the second or third time in twelve months.
Slashdot Mirror
The walmart hate is completely without logic or reason, it's definately a case of small minds seeking a cause to belong to. Get off your fucking high horse, you aren't "better" then someone who works or shops at walmart, and i suspect you might even be a little bit less of a person.
Funny. I thought I stopped shopping at Walmart because they destroyed small towns and their buying policies involve penalizing local producers while funneling all the cash in the West to the East, and because they treat their employees like coal miners. I never had any complaints about the employees themselves. But then, I no longer buy stuff there. --Though, it's hard these days to not buy stuff made in a sweat shop or a slave labour camp! --I find myself building a lot of my own things and buying second-hand. That way at least, I reduce the number of people getting rich from unfair and unwholesome business practices when I pull out my wallet. Interestingly, my money now seems to go a lot further than that of other people. But no, I don't sit on a high horse. I just choose to live in a way whenever I am able which doesn't serve to disadvantage my community. I'd feel rotten otherwise.
-FL
Well. . .
Actually, the only way you could possibly think that is if you spend too much time absorbing the signal from those American news agencies, which as a hard rule offer only a small sliver of truth and plenty of falsehoods.
First of all, every muslim I know is very much opposed to violence. These are not mythical people. They are moms and dads and students and decent working people. I wanted to know what was really going on, and so I made an effort to find my own information. Go visit your local mosque and meet the people there and ask questions. You may be surprised to learn that they are people like any other with the same human drives and emotions, etc. The moderate Muslim is hardly mythical. I don't think their religion is any better than Christianity. It's just as limiting as any other, but as a group, the people who worship under Islam really aren't the depraved lunatics they are made out to be. Further, there is indeed outcry from many sectors of the Islamic religion which is opposed to violence. You just never hear them because it simply isn't reported by the American media. But it's certainly there if you go looking.
Secondly. . , there is plenty of evidence to suggest that many of the bombings attributed to Islamic fundamentalists are indeed orchestrated and funded and encouraged by the various secret services from opposing nations who have a lot to gain from seeding fear into the world. It's a fascinating, albeit sad subject, which again, I looked into because I wanted to know what was really going on. Whenever a big social change comes about and the government starts instructing people, I like to find out what their game is. There always seems to be a game. I don't like to be manipulated or to play the shmuck, so I need to collect my own data and do my own thinking. Thus, if you want to understand the world, it is imperative that one researches beyond the state propaganda organs. The London bombings are an excellent example; the official story is riddled with holes and corruption. The Israeli government also, (and in particular) has a large stake in maintaining a negative world view on Islam. --Land grabs and power and manifest destiny and all that. It's called a 'False Flag' maneuver when one country self inflicts damage to blame upon another so that the populace will agree to further military spending, reduced freedoms and all the various fascist systems which are so seductive to governments. (It's SO much easier to run a country and feather your nest when everybody is too frightened to argue with you.)
Often people, upon hearing this, will knee-jerk with the cry of, "Conspiracy!" and stop listening. That in itself is fascinating. I ask people why they have such a strong reaction to the word and ask them to look inside and ask where the original knee-jerk stems from. Nearly always, the initial replies will be will be surface, rationalist stuff, but with enough time and numerous examples, the flaws are exposed. (False knowledge always contains flaws, otherwise it wouldn't be false. It's easy enough to deconstruct falsehoods because they come with their own inbuilt self-destruct buttons.) Once people are willing to look beneath their own defense systems and find out how those systems were installed and who worked to put them there, it becomes much easier to see through the fog and to recognize when one is being manipulated and used.
-FL
The hell I am. The very limited data you point to is interesting, but cannot be used at all to make such a point as you seem to be trying to make. There were some very big publishing companies not represented on that list, and I noticed that several of the ones which were listed were just name holders; mostly owned by larger conglomerates which went un-examined. And even then, 94% of the campaign contributions represented were given up by individuals working in those companies. Well, shucks! I thought I was pretty clear in my post that I knew several journalists, all liberal-minded, who attest to having almost zero control over the content they work to provide. The company owners are the ones who dictate direction, not the employees. And who owns publishing?
Well, I did a quick check and it seems, just as a general for-instance, that nearly all the books published in America come, when you climb the ownership chain high enough, from one Bertelsmann, a German company which survived WWII when other publishers foundered, and they did so by working arm in arm with the Nazi party, agreeing to publish only party-approved crud. Carrying this ethic in mind, Bertelsmann flourished and is today one of the most powerful publishing firms on the planet. They also happen to be a family business with no public shareholders, so they get to do exactly as they please. Indeed, (according Wikipedia) the Bertelsmann Foundation which directs the publishing empire, is a non-profit organization and political think tank set up by the founding families. Hmm. Non-proft. Think tank? Old money? Now when you put all of that together. . .
This isn't conspiracy fluff. It's how it really is. A conservative political think-tank is in control of the books in the bookstore. So don't give me, "Liberal Media".
Then take a look at who owns the rest of the media. --The other giants which control the TV you watch and the newspapers you read. It's almost entirely owned by old and very conservative money. So who gives a hoot how many shackled libby would-be journalists are making campaign contributions to a corrupt democratic party? It doesn't mean a thing when they have no say in how Israel is represented or how the press releases from the Pentagon are published word for word, etc. And don't forget the good ol' secret services. They openly admit to having had agents directing the media fifty years ago, and there is conjecture that they are doing it again today. Ooops. It's not conjecture. With AT&T's relationship with the government's clandestine organizations having been outed, we'd be insane not to suspect all the same activities with regard to above-the-law agencies sitting on the press. I think we'd be nuts not to think that the US spies never actually left after WWII. Heck, with the red menace and all. . .
And even if you discount all of this, a quick afternoon looking at what the U.S. media says and how when compare it to the reality of the situation, anybody who cares to can quickly see that we have anything but a "Liberal media".
-FL
I agree with your comments. --Indeed, I don't give money to pan handlers for several of the reasons you outline, (except for those odd times when I break the rule based on my own assessment. No one rule can define every eventuality).
The point, as you say, is to use the thinking muscle to make choices. Emotions are a type of internal guide, and they are very important. But the rest of the brain should never be turned off. --And fear should always be questioned and analyzed as it usually results from some part of the self which needs work.
-FL
Oh really? Care to explain which parts you think are false? I'd be happy to clear up any part you don't understand.
Life is unpleasant, people do not believe like you do, get used to it. That is my complaint against left wing nutjobs like yourself. They are just as fundamentalists as the right wing fundamentalists, they just refuse to see it.
No. Life may be unpleasant for you, but my life is pretty amazing. Excellent friends, respect in my community, great job, etc. I'll be a "nutjob" any day of the week if it garners the kind of real benefits I've been rewarded with all my life! --Granted, I started from a healthy middle-class background, but I've seen lots of people start with far more than me who end up living in fear and self-imposed misery based entirely on their belief structures and the experiences they guide themselves toward based on those beliefs. It's all in how you go about directing your intent, which is tightly linked to how you describe the world to yourself. If you see darkness wherever you look and if you scoff at the light, then guess what? Your life is going to be incalculably more difficult and sad. Smile at people honestly, love people openly, and don't judge. I've earned trust, love and support in the most unlikely places based on this principal.
Stop seeing evil when simple human nature is involved.
Who said anything about evil? (That sounds like your world-view speaking again). --Human nature is the result of what humans choose to be. I don't see evil anywhere. When I see negative behavior, I see ignorance and fear, greed and psycopathy. All choices, except for the last item which is rather a kind of brain defect.
-FL
Islam is a religion followed by a billion or so people.
There's not just a "moderate crowd buried under all that hate", but it's by far the huge majority.
There are plenty of whacko Christian fundamentalists out there as well, and some of them are in office. Let's not lose perspective just because Fox News (and the rest) are propaganda organs which show us only that which makes a small group of white psychopaths very rich.
-FL
Here's facts for you.
Bullshit. You have no facts. Produce a list of papers which have cut the strip and then you can begin to think around the word, "Fact". Produce non-isolated examples of the kind of liberal bias you are accusing of in those papers, and then you can begin to sell your point.
Since you can't do any of this, what we really have here is a typical example of Right Wing emotionalism. (The operative emotions being Fear and Hate, which the typical Right-Wing Bush supporter allows to direct his Judgment and Rationality.)
Newspapers are a collection of ideas folded together into a sheaf of reading material. The Typical Right-Wing brain is naturally going to sift out things to get angry about, regardless of how balanced the reporting might be, which in a typical newspaper today, is totally not balanced at all. I see propaganda wherever I look, and think that the so-called "Liberal Media" is an utter and complete sham designed to support the Military Industrial Complex. But I hail from the Left of Left. Can you tell?.
That's not a conscious choice on my part, by the way. It's a result.
It's the result of how I choose to live:
I choose to live with my emotions under control; to not let fear rule my thoughts and actions. --To seek rationality over knee-jerk emotionalism. --It's not that I have anything against emotions. I love emotions! They guide us and make us human. But there's two ways to be human. You can let emotions show you how to let compassion be your guide, or you can let emotions lead you through fear. Fear is easy. Fear is basic, reptillian brain stuff. It's the default setting. The one which evolution has been moving away from for a ba-zillion years.
If the media were truly 'Liberal', we would know a great deal more than we do through it. We wouldn't be at war, for starters. (Since the Bush admin keeps on repeating straight-faced, shameless lies in the psychopath's knowledge that doing so will make people believe them even with gobs of contrary evidence sitting right out in the open, one should also keep on repeating the Truth. . .
"There were no WMD's in Iraq. The Bush team LIED, saying that Saddam could launch an attack in 45 minutes. (Remember that?) They even delivered the age-old sales line, 'The Troops will be home in ten weeks.'" And people fell for it! They actually fell for it again! --And now hundreds of thousands of regular people are dead while a small group of people has made millions. You want to talk facts? THOSE are facts. You cannot dispute them unless you are insane. We do not have a Liberal media. Pulling Opus was either fear related, (editors believing their own lies and not wanting the frightful hand of Islam to blow up their offices. (Groan.) --Or it was a manipulation designed to spark outrage in people like you and play on everybody else's fears. But whatever the case, I can assure you that it had absolutely nothing to do with compassion.
As it is, we must spend enormous effort cross referencing stories and digging and back-checking just to scrape out truth from the mountain of misleading crud served up every day. I know several guys who work in journalism. Each one of them is a true liberal in the political sense, and they report (privately) the same thing. To quote one of them (as best I can from memory):
"If you speak out against the party line on anything, then you don't work. There is no truth in journalism. We're all whores or robots. This is a disgusting, juvenile, toxic industry where the only successful people in it are incredibly ignorant, back-stabbing and greedy, with no care whatsoever about truth."
-FL
There. I said it.
Please let me be wrong.
-FL
I find it telling that nobody has had the guts or the wherewithal to comment back to me directly with their concerns. From my perspective, I can only think that the reason for this is that there is nothing which can be argued. And there isn't. It's just knee-jerk reaction bourn of automatic emotional responses baked into people through the society we live in. Whether or not one is able to rise above the programming to ask, "Why do I feel the need to jerk my knee?" is what separates the warriors from the cattle.
If you are afraid to look reality in the face and you decide to turn away and not think about it, then that is a Choice. That's fine. It's your choice to make. But it should be noted that the battle on this world right now is one of awareness, and every choice you make today determines who you become tomorrow.
Those with the courage of a lion will not have the fate of a mouse.
-FL
Terribly sorry to offend those delicate ears. "Promoting Torture" is such an ugly term. You simply don't want to think about such things when thinking Star Trek.
Unfortunately, the truth is writ large; J.J. Abrams promotes torture in "Alias", and he promotes the CIA, both of which are insane, evil things to do, which makes J.J. either ignorant, which he's not, or it makes him a Bad Guy.
Can't handle it? No problem! Just mod it 'Troll' and pretend it's not happening.
-FL
Yeah, he knows how to tell a fun story, but sheesh. The hidden messages in Alias were creeeeeepy!
It was a long, drawn out argument for the use of torture and the goody-goodness of the CIA, with the main character's Daddy who looked the spitting image of George Bush when shot from key angles at key moments in the right light, all of which was so plainly on purpose as to make me wonder who the heck was paying the bills on that set.
I never watched enough 'Lost' to figure out the politics on that show, or what the underlying message is. Anybody sifted the poop on that one? I can't be bothered.
My guess is that Abrams is going to try to sell us on some psychology which will benefit the on-going genocide of everybody with brown skin in the Middle East.
He'd better watch out though. J.J. is a Jew, and even working as he clearly is within a Zionist agenda, the screaming Jesus freaks in the White House are only playing along with Israel so far as they have to. Game theory states that when the time is right, you stab your friends in the back. The U.S. doesn't keep allies.
-FL
Yes, and I clearly skimmed past the line while searching for the section devoted to battery life. He devoted a couple hundred words to the keyboard and to things like carbon fibers, but burried the highly subjecive and thus virtually useless battery life comment in the middle of a paragraph amongst a bunch of other left-over details on the last page of the review. Granted I was too tired to be reading last night with full awareness, but that doesn't change the general thrust of my comment.
The only comment I do remember seeing was the one relating to the screen using LED lighting improving battery life, which the author even said, "is another majorly important factor". Yes it is! I would like to see comparison tests, not half-baked one-liners and lame excuses about not having some battery testing software installed. How about running the machine for a couple of days under different conditions?
Like I said, there was a time when reviewers made the effort to include this information. But maybe I'm different. I actually spend a lot of time away from home-base with a portable, so battery life really counts. Maybe other people don't press their machines the way I do. We don't even know from the review what kind of battery technology the machine uses, or what kind of power adaptor it employs, or anything remotely practical with regard to its power system. He told us it had a green light and that it's cylindrical in shape. Gee thanks. A six-year old could have given me that information.
-FL
It's still one of my primary concerns when thinking about portable computers. Why on earth does the reviewer not even mention this? --Especially when we're dealing with a computer with such a different type of technology design which he excitedly claims consumes much less power. Damn, that'd definitely be on my list of things to test, just out of sheer curiosity. Not discussing it is not simply an oversight, it's just plain strange.
Just some ball-park figures based on different types of use. (Doing nothing but word-processing for X straight hours. V.S. heavy graphics work. How many DVD's can you read/burn on a charge.)
This stuff matters, and it absolutely affects which machine I will buy. Is there some kind of moratorium on battery life comparisons in the portable computer review world, or is the reviewer just being thoughtless?
-FL
Hm. And for all these years, I thought it was just me.
My solution was just to use the personal options to put the largest number of posts on one page as possible, and to have the posts listed from most-recent to the oldest. That way you can stay on top of ideas as they develop through a discussion. But still. . , it's a weird problem that I would have thought would be addressed by now. Either that, or you and I are simply not smart enough to grasp something which actually works. I've never taken the time to really sort it out. It seems broken to me.
-FL
Geez. The article starts by listing all the 'great' qualities of Vista; it sticks it to Mac users, and expresses how important it is to not be left behind in the evolutionary game of change, and the bullshit about how all software is 99% backwards compatibile, (which isn't even true).
Then it makes a frightening claim which even the lowest level geek would recognize as being false.
The end result? Everybody who has read this article has now blithely absorbed a first rate sales-pitch which 1)Lists 'hot' features, and 2)Hits multiple social pressure buttons known to create sales, and 3)Trades on the bullshit "Only Losers Believe in Conspiricies" saw, because a bogus Straw Man threat has been set up and knocked down. --And everybody knows that the most powerful way to get people to believe in a lie is to lead the mark by the nose to the point where they connect the dots themselves and think that it was their idea all along.
And heaven knows that NEVER could happen with the Slashdot crowd. (sic)
Slashdotters and the like are so ego-impaired that when they knock down a Straw Man, they'll congratulate themselves for weeks afterwards and would actually prefer to believe that somebody really is that dumb and that MS isn't manipulating them for all their worth. --Simply so that they can feel smart.
The sad part is that this stuff works. I bet a number of you are going to actually upgrade based on this crap. Doesn't anybody do meta-analysis at all anymore? For goodness sake, I learned the power of the word, 'Meta' , by reading Slashdot!
-FL
Misconceptions about Iran are one of the major ways in which the U.S. population is being led into war. Take a look at some tourist photography of Tehran.
Remember; when American bombs start falling on this country, odd men in the dust with AK-47s are not the ones being killed. We will be murdering millions of people in highly developed first world population centers. --With snow in the Winter, grass and trees and squirrels in the Summer with kids in the park; modern public busses to the modern public library and people going to work in modern offices; a country which is VERY recognizable and similar to our own in many ways.
Why do you think you have been sold the idea of AK-47's in the desert?
This war may well be even worse and more horrific than the one in Iraq because there's a much higher probability of nuclear bombs being used. And just think: it's going to happen because Americans are too well programmed by their video games and their ADD entertainment and false news casts.
Bush needs to be removed from office and put in a psychiatric ward right now, before this horror can be visited upon the human race.
-FL
Heck, I still use the paper post system all the time, because electronic mail is useless for physical delivery of packages. Of course.
Text messaging is for people who want real-time, but for whom clarity and deliberate content are not important. I must be old, because I find communications done in IM seem to have a rather light-weight ADD quality about them. --Which is probably appropriate for kids these days. --Keeping in mind, that the kids using computer communications are regular kids who are worried about clothes and popularity contests and who's dating who, etc. Light fluffy stuff. Email was developed by geeks for geeks, and because of its usefulness, was adopted by business, and I expect will remain in use that way for some time to come. (Try keeping 50 clients sorted in real-time!) Maybe when the ADD kids raised and trained in information sorting of that magnitude reach the business world, they will create a different type of work place and style of business management, but I don't see how they'll manage without something as stable as email. Attention to detail, record keeping and being able to take an hour or a few days to think about all the ramifications of a question before responding become important when you enter the business world.
(Although, given some of the communications I've done a back and forth on with various businesses might sometimes suggest otherwise.)
I see IM and today's social networks as having potential for something very useful in the future, but right now they still seem to be in a rather proto-gimik-time-wasting stage of development. When the business world finally adopts them, it will mean that their value has been proven, at which point the next New Hip Thing will be popular with the kids, and only old farts will spend time on Facebook. If we survive long enough as a culture, that is. . .
-FL
Ever notice just how many conservatives are happy to lose their tempers? They give jobs to those rare conservatives who know how to talk without swearing. The rest of them just don't have what it takes to rise above the title of, "expendable flag-waving grunt". You might want to consider that next time you open your mouth.
Anyway the point in question is indeed the wording. . .
Yes, indeed, that certainly does sound pretty cut and dried. A guy selling "Bush Lied, They Died" tee shirts is in the clear, isn't he?
Except. . , well, who exactly gets to determine what an, "Act of Violence" is? --Or what might be considered a "significant risk?" Not you or me. That's the Secretary of the Treasury's job, (in consultation, of course with the Secretary of Defense, which can essentially be read simply, "As determined by the Bush administration"). --Does shouting at the president count as an act of violence? Does saying in a blog, "We should hang the bastards" count as a significant risk of committing an act of violence? Well, that determination is up to Bush and his crew.
But that's just the small fry stuff. It gets better. . ,
Ah. So now you can also be nailed by this law if you contribute services which benefit those opposed to America's presence in Iraq.
And, deary me, what constitutes a service which benefits those opposed to America's presence in Iraq?
Does putting up posters which say, "Napalming Iraqi children is Wrong. Bring our troops home!" --That could certainly be deemed to erode military spirit and thus provide a service to the "enemy". That guy with the "Bush Lied, They Died" tee-shirts is suddenly a fair bit closer to thea mite closer to the grey zone covered by this XO, isn't he?
This law can be used as it appears; to penalize those who sell materiel to freedom fighters. All well and good. But should the 'need' arise, it can also be ill-used to penalize people for using something as simple as their freedom of speech. And THAT is what people are complaining about.
This law can without question be read that way, and with the supreme court stacked as it is, you wouldn't get much of a fair hearing should you slip into that grey zone and try to contest it. This bill was written by people (who were given jobs) and who are much more technically clever with small print than you, and thus I would assume that it was intended to be misleading to people who just glance at it without being thoughtful.
Perhaps conservatives need to spend more time being thoughtful and less time being quick to anger and highly reactionary with their "dumb-ass" comments.
-FL
Oh, it's Us versus Them, now is it?
It should be noted that much of the German population were quite happy with Hitler while he reigned, but that didn't make the crimes against humanity committed by the Nazis any less so.
Perhaps -just perhaps- some Americans are not selfish hard cases who have insulated themselves so effectively in bubble realities where facts don't matter. Some people don't think of it as Us versus Them, as we have been instructed to.
Further, you are wrong. History strongly suggests that unless you are a flag waving Party Man, you are in danger, and even then you have to have the right blood, the right religion, etc. Why on Earth would you get so upset about people noticing the same patterns which have come before and which have resulted in disaster? If you want to avoid disaster, only a fool would ignore the signs.
Flag wavers give me the willies. At this point it takes actual insanity to come up with the kind of avoidance rationality needed to ignore the facts, and because of that, the current administration will probably see fit at some point to give such people guns and the power to use them with indiscretion. Psychopaths need other psychopaths in order to maintain their power structure. --Which will fall. History shows that they always do, (psychos are designed to create chaos and fear, and thus are totally ill-suited in basic resource management), and the psychos have to slink away into the shadows once more. We just have to go through the whole song and dance again before they do.
Sigh.
-FL
Huh?
Who cares who submitted the story? Will you ignore the actions of Bush just because you happen to dislike the guy who handed you the article? That kind of thinking can only make sense to a lunatic. I've noticed rather a lot of lunatics rising to the surface lately.
-FL
You called it.
The Free Market totally works. People with the best ideas and the best implementation WIN WIN WIN in a Free Market! The Free Market Decides it so!
Heck, it allowed the ruling elite to compete their way to the top and hold onto everything forever. They got there by the sweat of their brows and the shrewdness of their schemes! (Then by the sweat of their slaves and the governments they own). The Free Market gave them the freedom to win! Rah Rah! --Too bad the Free Market isn't like a board game which gets reset every time you put it back in the box.
In effect, we've been playing the same game of Monopoly for over 3000 years. --Longer if some conspiracy theorists are correct.
And you know how it goes. When your little brother has hotels on all the good properties, all the money ends up in his hands and you have to mortgage yourself to kingdom come just to stay viable until pay day while the little devil squeaks at you with infuriating glee.
The Rothschildes and their brethren must be a gleeful people.
-FL
Oh. I thought when you said rare, you meant a couple of times every hundred years.
I just did some searching, and found that there were two in the last six months.
Here and here. One off the coast of Australia, and another around New Zealand.
Is two enough for a pattern? No, but it is noteworthy. According to this item it seems that squid in general, (off California's coast) are behaving oddly. They think it may be due to the reduction of natural predators, but who knows?
-FL
Nope. That doesn't help to clear it up. I can't tell if you are a Troll or just Nuts.
You appear to only see what you want to see and not what is there, (or what I actually said.) The fact that there are not mass arrests, (and we'll ignore police brutality against protesters for now), has exactly zero to do with improprieties exercised by the Bush administration. Because you see no mass arrests does not make it legal to get an abortion in some states. Nor because you see no mass arrests does it change policy with regard to immunization of children. Nor because you see no mass arrests does it change the laws with regard to firearms. Nor because you see no mass arrests does it mean wearing a headscarf and taking photos of downtown New York will not result in your being harassed by law enforcement. Nor because you see no mass arrests does it mean that the government didn't change the laws regarding Organic foods. Nor because you see no mass arrests does it mean that. . . Well you either get the idea by now or you don't. In either case, you're wrong.
Besides you cannot prove what you are saying in a court of law, it would be thrown out as hearsay. Even if you had case examples, reasonable doubt exists, but then you were never about "due process" were you?
Not only is that incorect, but it's also one of the the dumbest arguements I've ever heard. Are you like thirteen years old or something? Unfold a newspaper sometime. --Even a big propgagandized newspaper would do. None of what I am saying is contested by anybody but delusional people whose brains can't make the synaptic leap between print and understanding.
Anyone arrested that is a US Citizen has been granted due process, even that shoe bomber guy. Yet even though they clearly found plastic explosives in his shoes, you'd want him to walk free anyway because you want him to do damage.
Do you live under a rock? You're not just wrong, but you're seriously out of touch with
But then again, I think you might just be a Troll trying to make me dig up links and key in a bunch of html tags rather than let people do a bit of work for themselves. Thanks a bunch, if that's the case. If it's not, you should do some digging of your own before you spout anymore nonsense.
The rest of your post is just more delusional garbage based on the belief that I care about "liberals versus conservatives", which I do not, and which you might actually understand if were capable of reading. But there's hardly any point carrying on with this. You've already adequately helped illustrate my point: That for some reason, die-hard conservatives often tend to be prone to delusion and baseless argument. Either that, or you are pretending to be dumber than you are. Either way, you should go away now because I am. Bye bye.
-FL
I remember when that cute little home computer came out, and all the programs were just so. . , plinky.
Memory was a huge barrier, because you only had a small quantity of the stuff, and nobody understood the architecture of the system well enough to produce efficient programs.
But back then, there were no video card upgrades. No faster processors and mother boards being produces every three months. If you wanted higher speed and cooler graphics, you had to write your code in more ingenious ways.
And so that's what happened.
By the twilight years of the Color Computer, the games people were writing on that thing were unreal. I remember looking at a few and thinking to myself, "This is the same computer? Wow! Humans rock!"
When you reach the raw power limitations of your muscles but you still want to improve yourself in your combat skills, you take up Kung Fu. That's how it was in the old home computer days. Nowadays, though, (dang kids; I hadda walk fifty miles to school!) it seems that the bulk of improvement comes with the purchasing of increasingly large muscles.
This is not to say that there is no software innovation. Heck, id Software did some pretty amazing things with software ingenuity. But I do remember thinking during the first few years of the big PC revolution, after the 486 was reaching its twilight, "You know, all this hardware innovation is great and all. . , (big muscles are cool), but part of me wishes it would stop cold for six solid years just what would happen when the programmers were really pushed. --You know, to see what one of these machines is actually capable of doing.
-FL
It's at least the second or third time in twelve months.
-FL