The EPA, being made up of SCIENTISTS that make a living studying environmental issues, and consequences of dumping this chemical or that chemical into the air or water are better able to decide what is best than YOU are.
What the hell does a farmer know about pollution and the cost of their actions on those downstream or downwind? What do they know about the consequences of they and all their farmer neighbors cutting down trees, eliminating biodiversity and wildlife habitat for the sake of a field of wheat, on the long-term fate of humanity and the overall ecosystem? They know NOTHING.
You have no right to do anything you want with your land if it adversely affects me. You cannot pollute the stream running across your land - it also crosses your neighbor's land and enters the wildlife refuge down the way. It is needed by your neighbors and the wildlife (which YOU need to stay alive on planet earth).
You know nothing about the ultimate consequences, nor do you care. Those with more foresight, education, ability, and expertise know far more than you do. THEY know better than you what happens if you do this or that. It goes well beyond increasing this years crop yield, which means nothing if in 5 years, as a consequence of your selfish actions, you kill off your neighbors, the wildlife, and yourself. THAT matters much more than your precious right to destroy everything around you for a buck (out of PURE selfishness).
If it wasn't for the EPA, there would be a LOT of Love Canals all over the place. There would be no breathable air, no drinkable water. There would be dead, acidified lakes all over the place, and humans would be going extinct with everything they were killing around them.
You CANNOT separate your actions regarding the environment from the ultimate health of other humans and every other creature on the planet. You CANNOT separate yourself from the health of wildlife and biodiversity. Harming the latter destroys YOU as well as ALL your neighbors. Since the problem affects EVERYONE, you cannot have the right to act unilaterally...unless you are going to permit the right of others to kill you for attempting to kill them and every other living thing around you.
It's strange that people who usually pride themselves of being logical individuals don't see
any fault with this "eye for an eye and tooth for tooth" capital punishment bullshit. The same
people who scorn religious people by calling them illogical, hysterical and "stupid people
driven by emotion instead of logic"
I don't want to be a Vulcan, thank you. I am far from religious but I am also the last person to think that ALL aspects of life should be devoid of emotionalism. Emotions are a MAJOR part of what makes life LIFE. Without them you are merely a roboton. Some things should be emotional.
It would NOT "make things worse" to eliminate the shit that takes my sister's life, for instance. Worse how? In your opinion? So what? In MY opinion, the person who killed her made a CHOICE, taking all choices forever from my sister. That is deserving of punishment...severe punishment. If the perp is dead, it is assured that he will never escape to do it again, never ever be paroled by mistake or by misguided belief in rehab for anyone, regardless.
I wont be paying tax dollars to keep up the bastard's "right" to TV, cable, weights, cigarettes, a prison "bitch", etc. He's gone, no more cost to me to keep him comfy. Put him in solitary until the day he dies, and I'll go with that, but there are whiners who want to kiss his ass and make him comfy and give him all the rights that he took from my sister.
The murderer who committed the crime isn't worth a crockodile tear. The VICTIM is the ONLY one worthy of pity, sorrow, and vengence.
If someone killed someone in my family, I do NOT care for the welfare (not in the slightest) for the shit that did it. I would kill the perp myself if given the chance.
The person murdered didn't deserve their fate, but the one who CHOSE to take that person's life deserves the ultimate consequence for their CHOICE. They DESERVE anything that subsequently befalls them.
The nature of war is similar. You have a goal of ending the war, preferably by winning. In fighting a war, so-called "innocent" civilians die. Regretable, but even this serves a purpose towards the ultimate goal. You try to minimize the civilian causualties, but ultimately they are unavoidable. Nevertheless, you continue the fight. LOTS of civilians died in the fight against Hitler. This was necessary and unavoidable. You have to take the bad with the good.
With the death penalty, you need to install safeguards to try to minimize the execution of innocents, but you don't coddle the monsters for that end.
If prison were truly a hellhole, rather than a raucous country club where criminals hone their skills, form gangs, watch TV (and cable), have access to gymnasia, THEN I could go for life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. Prison should be a true punishment. There should be two prison setups: one for hardened criminals, murderers, rapists, pederasts, and the other for lessor criminals which are actually rehabilitable. The former should be total HELL with practically no personal liberties or rights. It should be hard labor-intensive and no social structures should be permitted. Some actions and some people are well beyond any chance of getting a second chance EVER, period. They should have NO comfort in their prison stays.
The latter should be more the way prisons actually are with access to books, movies, education opportunities, counseling, etc.
Until such a dual system is developed and enforced (and widely and thoroughly used), then keep the death penalty and use it.
Greed, selfishness, self-absorption have ALWAYS been and always shall remain character flaws to be disdained. It doesn't matter if the person with these failings are "put upon" geeks or hard-hitting, trustfunder yuppies in business. These traits are FAILINGS.
Libertarianism ignores fact and the common good, placing self-absorption at the pinnacle of existence. It ignores scientific facts, for instance, that destruction of the environment in the name of "private property rights" is the same thing as committing suicide by the few at the cost of the many. It ignores the fact that societies, COHERENT, cohesive, societies REQUIRE that certain personal freedoms to act must be limited. The much-vaunted "freedom of speech" is not itself without limits. Not even our Founding Fathers (in the USA) intended for free speech to be absolute. They did not intend that everyone do whatever the hell they want, damn the consequences.
I have long noted that the so-called cyber culture is made up of a lot of selfish, spoiled, arrogant brats. They have almost entirely acquired a (false) sense of entitlement to do whatever, whenever, without caring for the ultimate consequences. They ONLY care about how an action will affect them personally, leaving out ANY consideration for the effects of their actions/beliefs on the greater society around them, let alone the person next to them. So long as they can keep their SUVs or have free music or games, to hell with paying for anything, to hell with the environment, to hell with FAIR competition (take EVERYTHING for granted) and to hell with anyone and everyone else.
This is what comes of being shut into your homes, lacking proper and wide social interaction in the REAL world. This is what comes of bad parenting, failing to teach common, simple, ethics. This is what comes of failing to teach the ultimate necessity of civic duty and that nothing worth having is free. This is what comes of never having to actually sacrifice - and begrudging absolutely ANY expectation that they should.
Grow up and mellow out. Think BEYOND yourselves, for a change. Try out empathy and thinking about ultimate consequences...they DO matter (not just personal consequences, but consequences to society as a whole).
I couldn't care less whether or not the death penalty prevents murder better than no death penalty. I want REVENGE on the sh*t that kills someone I care about. If the state wont kill them, I will. Some people need killin'. You can whine about the death penalty when it is YOUR brother or sister or parents that get taken out. Until then, shut your kiss-the-criminal's ass cake hole
They can use this crap to artificially inflate the number of Windoze 2000 copies sold (reporting to press for PR purposes) besides ripping customers off by acquiring additional revenues. Based on my reading, I would estimate that when Microsnot reports x number of Windoze licenses sold, you can reduce that number by 1/3 to 1/2, conservatively, since they will be falsely tallying sales (big customers buying 2 copies of doze, one of which is superfluous and redundant) and installed base anyway.
Photoshop is also a poor benchmark app. It contains code specifically designed to take advantage of the PPC. What really matters is raw integer and floating point math, in the context of cache and ram.
The PPC shines in certain arenas while the x86 line shines in others. Depending on the app suite or benchmark (and your bias) you can pretty much make your favorite CPU the winner.
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The EPA, being made up of SCIENTISTS that make a living studying environmental issues, and consequences of dumping this chemical or that chemical into the air or water are better able to decide what is best than YOU are.
What the hell does a farmer know about pollution and the cost of their actions on those downstream or downwind? What do they know about the consequences of they and all their farmer neighbors cutting down trees, eliminating biodiversity and wildlife habitat for the sake of a field of wheat, on the long-term fate of humanity and the overall ecosystem? They know NOTHING.
You have no right to do anything you want with your land if it adversely affects me. You cannot pollute the stream running across your land - it also crosses your neighbor's land and enters the wildlife refuge down the way. It is needed by your neighbors and the wildlife (which YOU need to stay alive on planet earth).
You know nothing about the ultimate consequences, nor do you care. Those with more foresight, education, ability, and expertise know far more than you do. THEY know better than you what happens if you do this or that. It goes well beyond increasing this years crop yield, which means nothing if in 5 years, as a consequence of your selfish actions, you kill off your neighbors, the wildlife, and yourself. THAT matters much more than your precious right to destroy everything around you for a buck (out of PURE selfishness).
If it wasn't for the EPA, there would be a LOT of Love Canals all over the place. There would be no breathable air, no drinkable water. There would be dead, acidified lakes all over the place, and humans would be going extinct with everything they were killing around them.
You CANNOT separate your actions regarding the environment from the ultimate health of other humans and every other creature on the planet. You CANNOT separate yourself from the health of wildlife and biodiversity. Harming the latter destroys YOU as well as ALL your neighbors. Since the problem affects EVERYONE, you cannot have the right to act unilaterally...unless you are going to permit the right of others to kill you for attempting to kill them and every other living thing around you.
It's strange that people who usually pride themselves of being logical individuals don't see any fault with this "eye for an eye and tooth for tooth" capital punishment bullshit. The same people who scorn religious people by calling them illogical, hysterical and "stupid people driven by emotion instead of logic"
I don't want to be a Vulcan, thank you. I am far from religious but I am also the last person to think that ALL aspects of life should be devoid of emotionalism. Emotions are a MAJOR part of what makes life LIFE. Without them you are merely a roboton. Some things should be emotional.
It would NOT "make things worse" to eliminate the shit that takes my sister's life, for instance. Worse how? In your opinion? So what? In MY opinion, the person who killed her made a CHOICE, taking all choices forever from my sister. That is deserving of punishment...severe punishment. If the perp is dead, it is assured that he will never escape to do it again, never ever be paroled by mistake or by misguided belief in rehab for anyone, regardless.
I wont be paying tax dollars to keep up the bastard's "right" to TV, cable, weights, cigarettes, a prison "bitch", etc. He's gone, no more cost to me to keep him comfy. Put him in solitary until the day he dies, and I'll go with that, but there are whiners who want to kiss his ass and make him comfy and give him all the rights that he took from my sister.
No thanks.
The murderer who committed the crime isn't worth a crockodile tear. The VICTIM is the ONLY one worthy of pity, sorrow, and vengence.
If someone killed someone in my family, I do NOT care for the welfare (not in the slightest) for the shit that did it. I would kill the perp myself if given the chance.
The person murdered didn't deserve their fate, but the one who CHOSE to take that person's life deserves the ultimate consequence for their CHOICE. They DESERVE anything that subsequently befalls them.
The nature of war is similar. You have a goal of ending the war, preferably by winning. In fighting a war, so-called "innocent" civilians die. Regretable, but even this serves a purpose towards the ultimate goal. You try to minimize the civilian causualties, but ultimately they are unavoidable. Nevertheless, you continue the fight. LOTS of civilians died in the fight against Hitler. This was necessary and unavoidable. You have to take the bad with the good.
With the death penalty, you need to install safeguards to try to minimize the execution of innocents, but you don't coddle the monsters for that end.
If prison were truly a hellhole, rather than a raucous country club where criminals hone their skills, form gangs, watch TV (and cable), have access to gymnasia, THEN I could go for life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. Prison should be a true punishment. There should be two prison setups: one for hardened criminals, murderers, rapists, pederasts, and the other for lessor criminals which are actually rehabilitable. The former should be total HELL with practically no personal liberties or rights. It should be hard labor-intensive and no social structures should be permitted. Some actions and some people are well beyond any chance of getting a second chance EVER, period. They should have NO comfort in their prison stays.
The latter should be more the way prisons actually are with access to books, movies, education opportunities, counseling, etc.
Until such a dual system is developed and enforced (and widely and thoroughly used), then keep the death penalty and use it.
Greed, selfishness, self-absorption have ALWAYS been and always shall remain character flaws to be disdained. It doesn't matter if the person with these failings are "put upon" geeks or hard-hitting, trustfunder yuppies in business. These traits are FAILINGS.
Libertarianism ignores fact and the common good, placing self-absorption at the pinnacle of existence. It ignores scientific facts, for instance, that destruction of the environment in the name of "private property rights" is the same thing as committing suicide by the few at the cost of the many. It ignores the fact that societies, COHERENT, cohesive, societies REQUIRE that certain personal freedoms to act must be limited. The much-vaunted "freedom of speech" is not itself without limits. Not even our Founding Fathers (in the USA) intended for free speech to be absolute. They did not intend that everyone do whatever the hell they want, damn the consequences.
I have long noted that the so-called cyber culture is made up of a lot of selfish, spoiled, arrogant brats. They have almost entirely acquired a (false) sense of entitlement to do whatever, whenever, without caring for the ultimate consequences. They ONLY care about how an action will affect them personally, leaving out ANY consideration for the effects of their actions/beliefs on the greater society around them, let alone the person next to them. So long as they can keep their SUVs or have free music or games, to hell with paying for anything, to hell with the environment, to hell with FAIR competition (take EVERYTHING for granted) and to hell with anyone and everyone else.
This is what comes of being shut into your homes, lacking proper and wide social interaction in the REAL world. This is what comes of bad parenting, failing to teach common, simple, ethics. This is what comes of failing to teach the ultimate necessity of civic duty and that nothing worth having is free. This is what comes of never having to actually sacrifice - and begrudging absolutely ANY expectation that they should.
Grow up and mellow out. Think BEYOND yourselves, for a change. Try out empathy and thinking about ultimate consequences...they DO matter (not just personal consequences, but consequences to society as a whole).
I couldn't care less whether or not the death penalty prevents murder better than no death penalty. I want REVENGE on the sh*t that kills someone I care about. If the state wont kill them, I will. Some people need killin'. You can whine about the death penalty when it is YOUR brother or sister or parents that get taken out. Until then, shut your kiss-the-criminal's ass cake hole
They can use this crap to artificially inflate the number of Windoze 2000 copies sold (reporting to press for PR purposes) besides ripping customers off by acquiring additional revenues. Based on my reading, I would estimate that when Microsnot reports x number of Windoze licenses sold, you can reduce that number by 1/3 to 1/2, conservatively, since they will be falsely tallying sales (big customers buying 2 copies of doze, one of which is superfluous and redundant) and installed base anyway.
Photoshop is also a poor benchmark app. It contains code specifically designed to take advantage of the PPC. What really matters is raw integer and floating point math, in the context of cache and ram.
The PPC shines in certain arenas while the x86 line shines in others. Depending on the app suite or benchmark (and your bias) you can pretty much make your favorite CPU the winner.