I could go on and on with examples of how our differing viewpoints will never result in us agreeing on what is a benefit and what is a harm. If there's no benefit/harm agreement, we can't rate the policies and effects of the religions.
I think forcing a woman to wear a veil is a harm. Muslims think "protecting a woman's modesty" is a benefit. I think allowing a terminally ill person to die in a manner of his choosing is a benefit, most Christians think it is a harm. Many Muslims think purposely blowing up a bunch of civilians is a benefit, while I think it is a harm. I think being gay is neutral, while most Christians and Muslims think it is a harm.
An entire corporation with armies of lawyers and the ability to hire protection censors a very profitable show out of fear of actual violence.
We've seen what happens. Rushdie is still living under threat of murder. Theo van Gogh is dead. Theo de Raadt is under threat of murder. Shall we go on? The violence, murder?
I think you knew this, but that makes this test impossible on a wide scale.
The event: Ahmed just murdered his teenage cousin in cold blood for dating a boy.
My view: This is harmful to society
Muslim view: She was becoming corrupted by Western ways and she dishonored her family; therefore, her killing was a benefit to society. Praise be to Allah the merciful.
We'll just never agree.
Even take something as basic as freedom of speech. Not everybody agrees. Germans don't think it applies to Nazis, Christians don't think it applies to sexual content, and Muslims don't think it applies to anything that could offend them.
Oh yes, let's ignore the Bible, ignore God's divine, pure and righteous hatred of homosexuals. You can't be a real Christian if you deny the Bible.
Everybody has their interpretation of what consititutes a "real" Christian. Usually that interpretation coincides with whatever the person thinks anyway.
It appears you were raised by what I could consider to be decent people who happened to be Christians, who are going to hell for coddling gays according to other Christians.
If your deity is defined as all good, and he demands you purposely kill innocent unbelievers, something most in the West could consider evil, then the evil is redefined as good since the act was by the all-good deity's command.
This is a bit different than a religion demanding that you not kill an unborn child, or not allowing someone to die when he himself so desires.
Most high-profile people who are harshly critical of religion tend to avoid or soften criticism of Islam. It's easy to slam Christians and get away with it, but the Muslims can and do kill those who offend them. As we've seen, they'll call for murder and violently riot just over a drawing. Most atheists aren't willing to back up their position with their lives.
Hitchens, however, did not discriminate. He pulled no punches when it came to Islam.
You have the fundamental Islamic concept of taqiyya -- lying to one's enemies. We are considered enemies, so lying to us is practically a religious duty to them. This lying is even more ingrained in Shiite culture, as they've learned to lie to Sunnis in order to survive as the minority for hundreds of years.
That was my first obvious guess. We've been doing reconnaissance overflights of hostile countries since at least the Cold War.
But now the Iranians claim they effectively had control over the aircraft. If true, they could have easily jammed it in foreign airspace and led it to an Iranian landing. I trust them to tell the truth less than I trust the CIA.
They've been waiting on their Toshiba 4S reactor for seven years now.
Of course their heating and electricity comes from fuel oil, which gets very expensive up there since it only comes by boat in the short summer, and by airplane any other time.
Harsh realities such as that tend to temper NIMBY. I'm also guessing there aren't too many Greenpeace activists in that town to protest, mainly working people. Greenpeace will probably fly in some protesters when construction starts, but the locals won't be too friendly to these strangers threatening their livelihood.
From my old Magnavox to the N64, I barely had to wait at all to go between games or parts of games while booted. Now I can wait up to several minutes for the next part of the game to load (especially when it's caching itself on the hard drive). It screws up the flow.
I can't wait until flash is so cheap they distribute 50 GB games on a card. Then we may finally get close to the no-wait we used to have. 1 GB SD cards already cost pocket change in the bulk amounts game makers would be buying them (sad to think I got a good deal on one for $100 some years back).
Added bonus: downloadable content can reside on the card with the game instead of on the machine's storage.
Added added bonus: Harder for kids to destroy a memory card.
Yeah, discs great idea. I mean why bother putting a cartrige in the slot and waiting 1 second for the game to boot when you can wait 30 seconds for the disc?
I know, minor inconvenience vs. unusable, but it is interesting how we've actually gone backwards in this sense over the years.
It also does DVDs as an 8x player, meaning about 10.5 MB/s
The XBox 360 has a 12x DVD player, meaning 16 MB/s
DVDs and BDs have close to the same rotational speeds defined as "1x", DVD at around 600-1600 and BD at around 800-1900, so a BD does spin faster. The difference isn't much, so you're right about data density being mainly responsible for the throughput.
The XBox 360 just spins the disc much faster to achieve higher throughput, which is why an XBox 360 sounds like a wind tunnel during reads compared to the PS3.
Having married an Army brat, having dozens of friends and neighbors currently serving (most of whom have families), and having served for years myself, I can say YOU have no place to say I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Disabled veterans are eligible for a Department of Defense ID card, not just VA. It is considered a valid form of federal identification. Spouses and children of active duty personnel also receive a DoD ID card, valid as identification.
As far as food stamps, remember that the lower ranks are equal to entry-level jobs in any other profession (actually a bit better). They don't pay much, so it's not a good idea to start a large family at those pay levels. A young E4 makes $2,000 a month, which is great for a single guy who also gets free food, housing, utilities and health care. Get a wife who doesn't work and have four kids, you just screwed yourself (although the military actually pays more for that).
But still, there is no way that 40% need food stamps. Even then, any number is inflated because the USDA (the agency overseeing food stamps) doesn't count free government housing as income. Most military food stamp recipients live on base, getting this free housing, which technically brings their income into food stamp eligibility. If they lived off post and were receiving housing allowance (which is counted) equal to their rent and utilities, they would be making too much for food stamps.
The bigger the government, the more this will happen.
Imagine a government that didn't have the power to create entire new industries, the power to pick winners and losers in the commercial sector, through regulation or legislation. The corporations that make money through this now wouldn't have anybody to lobby, they wouldn't have any influence.
Most of the war zone contractors want you to already have a clearance, so those jobs are hard to get without one.
But it's a lot easier to have a contractor get you a clearance for a job in the US. So you work here for a few years getting your clearance, then go for one of the high-paying war zone jobs.
But look carefully at the specifics. Some jobs have you sitting in a relatively safe compound the entire time, others have you in another country that's safe, but still gets paid war zone wages. Other jobs require at least weekly excursions into the field where you get to brave IEDs and getting shot at, not to mention just plain dying in a car crash (there are a lot of those over there).
Corrupt politics has been so heavily ingrained in two systems in our country's history, that there was absolutely no way to operate there without being directly involved in the corruption.
This isn't just "corrupt things happen here or there," but an entire system based on entrenched corruption and patronage. The party bosses run the show regardless of what the people or individual elected politicians might want.
Chicago is one, New York's Tammany Hall prior to the 1950s is the other. Both are Democrat. Although to his credit, the Democrat FDR helped kill Tammany Hall.
As far as Obama's involvement, he was practically appointed to his first State Senate seat by the incumbent Alice Palmer, who endorsed him as her successor when she decided to run for Congress. In a classic twist, he had her disqualified after she decided to keep the seat, thus securing the nomination for himself. By the rules of Chicago politics, the election doesn't matter, only who gets the Democrat nomination, since that person is guaranteed to win by the machine. He is a very skillful within the framework of a corrupt political machine.
Slashdot Mirror
I could go on and on with examples of how our differing viewpoints will never result in us agreeing on what is a benefit and what is a harm. If there's no benefit/harm agreement, we can't rate the policies and effects of the religions.
I think forcing a woman to wear a veil is a harm. Muslims think "protecting a woman's modesty" is a benefit. I think allowing a terminally ill person to die in a manner of his choosing is a benefit, most Christians think it is a harm. Many Muslims think purposely blowing up a bunch of civilians is a benefit, while I think it is a harm. I think being gay is neutral, while most Christians and Muslims think it is a harm.
An entire corporation with armies of lawyers and the ability to hire protection censors a very profitable show out of fear of actual violence.
We've seen what happens. Rushdie is still living under threat of murder. Theo van Gogh is dead. Theo de Raadt is under threat of murder. Shall we go on? The violence, murder?
I think you knew this, but that makes this test impossible on a wide scale.
The event: Ahmed just murdered his teenage cousin in cold blood for dating a boy.
My view: This is harmful to society
Muslim view: She was becoming corrupted by Western ways and she dishonored her family; therefore, her killing was a benefit to society. Praise be to Allah the merciful.
We'll just never agree.
Even take something as basic as freedom of speech. Not everybody agrees. Germans don't think it applies to Nazis, Christians don't think it applies to sexual content, and Muslims don't think it applies to anything that could offend them.
Oh yes, let's ignore the Bible, ignore God's divine, pure and righteous hatred of homosexuals. You can't be a real Christian if you deny the Bible.
Everybody has their interpretation of what consititutes a "real" Christian. Usually that interpretation coincides with whatever the person thinks anyway.
It appears you were raised by what I could consider to be decent people who happened to be Christians, who are going to hell for coddling gays according to other Christians.
"No True Scotsman" is a bitch.
Even a depiction of Mohammed by South Park was censored after Muslims made death threats.
"I am the law!"
If a hater of homosexuality asks, the answer is homosexuality is unacceptable.
If a homosexual asks, the answer is homosexuality is acceptable.
Funny how God's answers tend to be along the lines of what the people wanted in the first place.
If your deity is defined as all good, and he demands you purposely kill innocent unbelievers, something most in the West could consider evil, then the evil is redefined as good since the act was by the all-good deity's command.
This is a bit different than a religion demanding that you not kill an unborn child, or not allowing someone to die when he himself so desires.
Most high-profile people who are harshly critical of religion tend to avoid or soften criticism of Islam. It's easy to slam Christians and get away with it, but the Muslims can and do kill those who offend them. As we've seen, they'll call for murder and violently riot just over a drawing. Most atheists aren't willing to back up their position with their lives.
Hitchens, however, did not discriminate. He pulled no punches when it came to Islam.
What about when committing evil is directly following a tenet of the religion?
In that case, only cafeteria followers of a religion who pick and choose what to obey can avoid committing evil acts.
You have the fundamental Islamic concept of taqiyya -- lying to one's enemies. We are considered enemies, so lying to us is practically a religious duty to them. This lying is even more ingrained in Shiite culture, as they've learned to lie to Sunnis in order to survive as the minority for hundreds of years.
That was my first obvious guess. We've been doing reconnaissance overflights of hostile countries since at least the Cold War.
But now the Iranians claim they effectively had control over the aircraft. If true, they could have easily jammed it in foreign airspace and led it to an Iranian landing. I trust them to tell the truth less than I trust the CIA.
Great, now we get to worry about filling up our console's storage.
In Finland.
They've been waiting on their Toshiba 4S reactor for seven years now.
Of course their heating and electricity comes from fuel oil, which gets very expensive up there since it only comes by boat in the short summer, and by airplane any other time.
Harsh realities such as that tend to temper NIMBY. I'm also guessing there aren't too many Greenpeace activists in that town to protest, mainly working people. Greenpeace will probably fly in some protesters when construction starts, but the locals won't be too friendly to these strangers threatening their livelihood.
Citation needed.
Get real.
From my old Magnavox to the N64, I barely had to wait at all to go between games or parts of games while booted. Now I can wait up to several minutes for the next part of the game to load (especially when it's caching itself on the hard drive). It screws up the flow.
I can't wait until flash is so cheap they distribute 50 GB games on a card. Then we may finally get close to the no-wait we used to have. 1 GB SD cards already cost pocket change in the bulk amounts game makers would be buying them (sad to think I got a good deal on one for $100 some years back).
Added bonus: downloadable content can reside on the card with the game instead of on the machine's storage.
Added added bonus: Harder for kids to destroy a memory card.
Yeah, discs great idea. I mean why bother putting a cartrige in the slot and waiting 1 second for the game to boot when you can wait 30 seconds for the disc?
I know, minor inconvenience vs. unusable, but it is interesting how we've actually gone backwards in this sense over the years.
The PS3 has a 2x Blu-ray player, meaning 9 MB/s
It also does DVDs as an 8x player, meaning about 10.5 MB/s
The XBox 360 has a 12x DVD player, meaning 16 MB/s
DVDs and BDs have close to the same rotational speeds defined as "1x", DVD at around 600-1600 and BD at around 800-1900, so a BD does spin faster. The difference isn't much, so you're right about data density being mainly responsible for the throughput.
The XBox 360 just spins the disc much faster to achieve higher throughput, which is why an XBox 360 sounds like a wind tunnel during reads compared to the PS3.
Having married an Army brat, having dozens of friends and neighbors currently serving (most of whom have families), and having served for years myself, I can say YOU have no place to say I have no idea what I'm talking about.
What happened to it?
Or what would be cool is if it's activated, but on a five-day delay. It'll blow up in the lab, hopefully when important people are around.
If they complain, well, we did ask for it back and they refused. It's their fault.
Disabled veterans are eligible for a Department of Defense ID card, not just VA. It is considered a valid form of federal identification. Spouses and children of active duty personnel also receive a DoD ID card, valid as identification.
As far as food stamps, remember that the lower ranks are equal to entry-level jobs in any other profession (actually a bit better). They don't pay much, so it's not a good idea to start a large family at those pay levels. A young E4 makes $2,000 a month, which is great for a single guy who also gets free food, housing, utilities and health care. Get a wife who doesn't work and have four kids, you just screwed yourself (although the military actually pays more for that).
But still, there is no way that 40% need food stamps. Even then, any number is inflated because the USDA (the agency overseeing food stamps) doesn't count free government housing as income. Most military food stamp recipients live on base, getting this free housing, which technically brings their income into food stamp eligibility. If they lived off post and were receiving housing allowance (which is counted) equal to their rent and utilities, they would be making too much for food stamps.
The bigger the government, the more this will happen.
Imagine a government that didn't have the power to create entire new industries, the power to pick winners and losers in the commercial sector, through regulation or legislation. The corporations that make money through this now wouldn't have anybody to lobby, they wouldn't have any influence.
Most of the war zone contractors want you to already have a clearance, so those jobs are hard to get without one.
But it's a lot easier to have a contractor get you a clearance for a job in the US. So you work here for a few years getting your clearance, then go for one of the high-paying war zone jobs.
But look carefully at the specifics. Some jobs have you sitting in a relatively safe compound the entire time, others have you in another country that's safe, but still gets paid war zone wages. Other jobs require at least weekly excursions into the field where you get to brave IEDs and getting shot at, not to mention just plain dying in a car crash (there are a lot of those over there).
Corrupt politics has been so heavily ingrained in two systems in our country's history, that there was absolutely no way to operate there without being directly involved in the corruption.
This isn't just "corrupt things happen here or there," but an entire system based on entrenched corruption and patronage. The party bosses run the show regardless of what the people or individual elected politicians might want.
Chicago is one, New York's Tammany Hall prior to the 1950s is the other. Both are Democrat. Although to his credit, the Democrat FDR helped kill Tammany Hall.
As far as Obama's involvement, he was practically appointed to his first State Senate seat by the incumbent Alice Palmer, who endorsed him as her successor when she decided to run for Congress. In a classic twist, he had her disqualified after she decided to keep the seat, thus securing the nomination for himself. By the rules of Chicago politics, the election doesn't matter, only who gets the Democrat nomination, since that person is guaranteed to win by the machine. He is a very skillful within the framework of a corrupt political machine.