Yes, earth is getting hotter, there is plenty of evidence for that. Sea levels are also going to rise. Some islands are going to flood, some disease are going to move around, and some species are going to die out. So what?
No we don't usually do it or no company would go bankrupt except, maybe, by acts of god.
Nonsense. People have imperfect information and the world in unpredictable. Cost/benefit analysis includes taking risks, and sometimes losing.
In the other hand, when we *do* properly factor costs and benefits you should include "to whom?" into the equation. Corporations have done quite a good work in assuring that most parts of the benefits will go to them while, at the same time, the gross parts of the costs will go anywhere else.
That's what we have courts for. Did BP harm you? Sue them. Did they harm a lot of people? That's what class action lawsuits are for. What we need regulation for is that companies have sufficient funds (or insurance) to pay for the harm that they cause you and others, and we have that. (That's because we have other regulation immunizing shareholders from being sued.)
You want to use regulations to force companies (and others) to do things that are not rationally justifiable anymore, and you pretend that such policies are somehow to the benefit of others.
How does that response relate to what I suggested? What I suggested is that everybody is covered, but that that coverage is very basic: antibiotics, simple surgeries, preventive care, simple palliative care. You would need to buy additional coverage privately to cover things like transplants, heart surgery, aggressive cancer treatment, etc.
that Israel is illegitimate because a "Jewish state" is fundamentally morally wrong. I have never once heard a good argument why that should be the case, while "Greek state", "English state", "Finnish state", "Chinese state", "Russian state", "Arab state" and a whole bunch of other nation states, none of which have their legitimacy questioned, are fine.
That's because "the Jewish state" is taken by many to mean "a state for the religious and/or ethnic group of the Jews", not just because of the meaning of the word "Jewish" but also because of the role ethnicity and religion play in Israel and its politics. I find that as objectionable as a state that designates itself an "Islamic state", "Christian state", or "Aryan state". "Objectionable" doesn't mean "illegitimate", but it is certainly something one can legitimately criticize and makes Israel less than a shining example of democracy to me.
The other designations you list are generally not considered or intended to be religiously or ethnically exclusive anymore (even if they once were). But you have to take them on a case-by-case basis and see whether the term is meant to be ethnically or religiously exclusionary. Anyway, the equivalent of "the English state" would be "the Israeli state", not "the Jewish state".
I think many people are playing word games by deliberately being vague about the meaning of "Jewish", and using it sometimes to refer to religion, ethnicity, or politics, and deftly shifting the meaning mid-sentence to try to win a point and be able to accuse others of anti-Semitism. That is totally unacceptable in a discussion.
It is possible to claim Israel is an illegitimate state without being anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic, but mostly this is done by being ignorant to the facts
Yes, but you also get branded "anti-Semitic" if you merely say "I don't want my tax dollars supporting Israel", not out of any ill will towards Israel, but because (1) I don't think it's actually helping the peace process, and (2) there are a lot of oppressed people in the world and there is no reason to single out Israel for the extraordinary support we have been given it.
If you think the last 6 or 8 years have been bad for the right, try the last 30 as a liberal, socialist, or (the group most discriminated against of all) an athiest
Things have gotten quite a bit better for atheists, in part due to free speech. And liberals, socialists, and progressives got Obama elected; how bad can it be?
In short, Republicans, conservative, and Christians like to dish it out in droves, but can't take the heat when they get even a tiny percentage of it back.
It goes both ways. Just look at the vitriol over non-liberal position ons global warming, quotas, or abortion, for example: accusations of being unscientific, superstitious, and racist are flying around there.
I think Christian conservatives and progressives ("socialists") are pretty much interchangeable: they are both unscientific, irrational, and spew hate towards anybody who doesn't agree with them. Moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans are caught in the crossfire.
(I left the Democratic party after Obama got elected, over the hatred, vitriol, and unscientific attitudes of its progressives, and I'm now an independent.)
And evolution is resilient: even if we managed to wipe out all higher life forms, they would re-evolve within a few hundred millions years. Far bigger cataclysms have befallen earth than anything humans can do.
Somebody has to drill for oil, and they are going to create oil spills, that's just a fact of life. We (humans) try to do the best we can when weighing costs and benefits, and when we get it wrong, we try to correct it. But doing nothing because it might be too risky is just as bad as not regulating things at all.
I suspect BP and Exxon both had a much harder time getting new contracts, but in the end, there are few companies that can do these kinds of jobs. So what alternative do you suggest?
I think the DHS should be scaled back and reined in, but this is really over the top. DHS can monitor, but they can do very little with the information, and furthermore DHS isn't using secret information when they are monitoring social media sites.
I don't see a big problem with that as long as it's public information and as long as free speech laws protect what people say. It does suggest that they are getting too much money, though, if they can waste it on this.
nobodys going to buy into [WIndows 8 phone] bigtime. well, maybe for fucking photoframes.
And that's the reason why custom boot loader installation will be so useful: Microsoft and their partners are going to produce tons of nice hardware with a lousy operating system on it. The hardware is going to be cheap because Microsoft will somehow subsidize it and because it won't sell. And rather than going to the landfill, we'd like to install Android and MeeGo on that hardware.
I have my doubts. Sweden is subject to EU data retention directives (even if they have been dragging their feet implementing them) and permits warrantless wiretapping (backed up by a huge supercomputer). Sweden also has hate-speech laws that have been used to stifle free speech, and has used DNS filters to make sites inaccessible. And the Pirate Bay fate suggests that they are subject to similar copyright enforcement as other nations (the second largest damage award went to a German company, so this isn't just US-driven). In what way is it better than other nations? Furthermore, how well does Sweden protect the rights of foreign customers?
How would you combat these if you can't lock down your boot sector?
"Custom mode" is already "locked down": operating systems can't just install something, the user actually needs to confirm.
I don't know how this works specifically with UEFI, but I would imagine the OS puts the new boot sector in some special area on disk, and then on the next boot, the firmware puts up a big, scary looking screen that gives you a warning about viruses and asks you whether to install the new boot sector or ignore it, with "ignore" being the obvious default. Optionally, add the ability to have signed and unsigned changes.
There, fixed the title for you. This is a security feature.
The fact that you think that disabling "custom boot" on ARM makes Windows more secure is yet another indication that there is really no understanding of security in the Windows world. And Linux users haven't been "asking for" Microsoft to do anything; we don't really care. We just keep pointing out that Microsoft doesn't seem to understand security.
Microsoft's OS's have minimal market share on ARM-based device
Yes, the fact that Microsoft's operating systems are such a failure on ARM: Microsoft is in effect subsidizing hardware in order to give their operating system a chance in the market on ARM; without such subsidies, they wouldn't have a chance. But it is just those subsidies that make the hardware attractive for Linux. In contrast, iPhone and iPod are unattractive targets for alternative operating systems because iOS is successful and Apple charges a premium for their devices.
Locking down the boot loader in that way doesn't improve security and only has one conceivable purpose: to keep out other operating systems, and it is a necesssary part of an attempt by Microsoft to gain market share for their otherwise unattractive operating systems by subsidizing the hardware.
I'd like to know where that mythical country is that respects your Internet privacy and doesn't subject you to damage from arbitrary and invalid copyright claims. I haven't found it, but I'd sure like to move my server there.
Internet connections in Europe are subject to monitoring without a court order, you may end up having to pay fines for mere allegations of copyright infringement without due process, the government can place viruses on your computer to monitor it, and many forms of speech that are legal and protected in the US are illegal and subject to prosecution in Europe.
They're strongly and explicitly typed, compilable, memory-safe (mostly), and have garbage collection.
Objective-C is none of those things: it is dynamically typed, has gaping type holes both in its C and in its OOP interfaces, it isn't "memory safe" (since it has pointers), and it has "automatic reference counting", which isn't the same as garbage collection.
The problem with that argument is that many of these media publishers are manipulating the political system to retain copyright to content that ought to be in the public domain.
So, I would modify the principled stance: think about what you think ought to be copyrighted and respect those copyrights. Respecting unjust copyrights may be legally prudent, but certainly isn't a principled or moral position.
All true. Just remember to take those arguments to UK politicians, since they are responsible for accepting this treaty. You can't blame the US for proposing a treaty that seems to favor it, and you can't blame the US for the UK signing onto it. In fact, I think the UK does get short-term value out of the one-sidedness of the treaty (political and legal convenience). Whether it's legally a good idea is another question.
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I agree: a distinction between legal unions and marriage is the way to go.
Just be aware that there are other _Christians_ who don't share your view and see nothing wrong with gay marriage even from a religious point of view.
A number of states in the US support sex unions or marriages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_marriage
Europe is a mixed bag as well.
The situation in Washington State is already at least as good as in the UK, France, and Germany.
Yes, earth is getting hotter, there is plenty of evidence for that. Sea levels are also going to rise. Some islands are going to flood, some disease are going to move around, and some species are going to die out. So what?
Yes, we do have to drill for oil (and gas and coal). It's what our entire civilization is based on.
You are totally out of touch with reality.
Of course. You say that as if it's a bad thing. Why should the US hurry up to get into the same bad situation that Europe is in?
Go right ahead. Until you come up with something alternative, we all will continue to depend on oil.
Nonsense. People have imperfect information and the world in unpredictable. Cost/benefit analysis includes taking risks, and sometimes losing.
That's what we have courts for. Did BP harm you? Sue them. Did they harm a lot of people? That's what class action lawsuits are for. What we need regulation for is that companies have sufficient funds (or insurance) to pay for the harm that they cause you and others, and we have that. (That's because we have other regulation immunizing shareholders from being sued.)
You want to use regulations to force companies (and others) to do things that are not rationally justifiable anymore, and you pretend that such policies are somehow to the benefit of others.
How does that response relate to what I suggested? What I suggested is that everybody is covered, but that that coverage is very basic: antibiotics, simple surgeries, preventive care, simple palliative care. You would need to buy additional coverage privately to cover things like transplants, heart surgery, aggressive cancer treatment, etc.
That's because "the Jewish state" is taken by many to mean "a state for the religious and/or ethnic group of the Jews", not just because of the meaning of the word "Jewish" but also because of the role ethnicity and religion play in Israel and its politics. I find that as objectionable as a state that designates itself an "Islamic state", "Christian state", or "Aryan state". "Objectionable" doesn't mean "illegitimate", but it is certainly something one can legitimately criticize and makes Israel less than a shining example of democracy to me.
The other designations you list are generally not considered or intended to be religiously or ethnically exclusive anymore (even if they once were). But you have to take them on a case-by-case basis and see whether the term is meant to be ethnically or religiously exclusionary. Anyway, the equivalent of "the English state" would be "the Israeli state", not "the Jewish state".
I think many people are playing word games by deliberately being vague about the meaning of "Jewish", and using it sometimes to refer to religion, ethnicity, or politics, and deftly shifting the meaning mid-sentence to try to win a point and be able to accuse others of anti-Semitism. That is totally unacceptable in a discussion.
Yes, but you also get branded "anti-Semitic" if you merely say "I don't want my tax dollars supporting Israel", not out of any ill will towards Israel, but because (1) I don't think it's actually helping the peace process, and (2) there are a lot of oppressed people in the world and there is no reason to single out Israel for the extraordinary support we have been given it.
Things have gotten quite a bit better for atheists, in part due to free speech. And liberals, socialists, and progressives got Obama elected; how bad can it be?
It goes both ways. Just look at the vitriol over non-liberal position ons global warming, quotas, or abortion, for example: accusations of being unscientific, superstitious, and racist are flying around there.
I think Christian conservatives and progressives ("socialists") are pretty much interchangeable: they are both unscientific, irrational, and spew hate towards anybody who doesn't agree with them. Moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans are caught in the crossfire.
(I left the Democratic party after Obama got elected, over the hatred, vitriol, and unscientific attitudes of its progressives, and I'm now an independent.)
Earth isn't a person, so "she" doesn't care.
And evolution is resilient: even if we managed to wipe out all higher life forms, they would re-evolve within a few hundred millions years. Far bigger cataclysms have befallen earth than anything humans can do.
Somebody has to drill for oil, and they are going to create oil spills, that's just a fact of life. We (humans) try to do the best we can when weighing costs and benefits, and when we get it wrong, we try to correct it. But doing nothing because it might be too risky is just as bad as not regulating things at all.
I suspect BP and Exxon both had a much harder time getting new contracts, but in the end, there are few companies that can do these kinds of jobs. So what alternative do you suggest?
I think the DHS should be scaled back and reined in, but this is really over the top. DHS can monitor, but they can do very little with the information, and furthermore DHS isn't using secret information when they are monitoring social media sites.
I don't see a big problem with that as long as it's public information and as long as free speech laws protect what people say. It does suggest that they are getting too much money, though, if they can waste it on this.
Thanks; that's worth looking into. Chile seems to be doing well (economic freedom, etc.) on other indicators as well.
And that's the reason why custom boot loader installation will be so useful: Microsoft and their partners are going to produce tons of nice hardware with a lousy operating system on it. The hardware is going to be cheap because Microsoft will somehow subsidize it and because it won't sell. And rather than going to the landfill, we'd like to install Android and MeeGo on that hardware.
I have my doubts. Sweden is subject to EU data retention directives (even if they have been dragging their feet implementing them) and permits warrantless wiretapping (backed up by a huge supercomputer). Sweden also has hate-speech laws that have been used to stifle free speech, and has used DNS filters to make sites inaccessible. And the Pirate Bay fate suggests that they are subject to similar copyright enforcement as other nations (the second largest damage award went to a German company, so this isn't just US-driven). In what way is it better than other nations? Furthermore, how well does Sweden protect the rights of foreign customers?
"Custom mode" is already "locked down": operating systems can't just install something, the user actually needs to confirm.
I don't know how this works specifically with UEFI, but I would imagine the OS puts the new boot sector in some special area on disk, and then on the next boot, the firmware puts up a big, scary looking screen that gives you a warning about viruses and asks you whether to install the new boot sector or ignore it, with "ignore" being the obvious default. Optionally, add the ability to have signed and unsigned changes.
The fact that you think that disabling "custom boot" on ARM makes Windows more secure is yet another indication that there is really no understanding of security in the Windows world. And Linux users haven't been "asking for" Microsoft to do anything; we don't really care. We just keep pointing out that Microsoft doesn't seem to understand security.
Yes, the fact that Microsoft's operating systems are such a failure on ARM: Microsoft is in effect subsidizing hardware in order to give their operating system a chance in the market on ARM; without such subsidies, they wouldn't have a chance. But it is just those subsidies that make the hardware attractive for Linux. In contrast, iPhone and iPod are unattractive targets for alternative operating systems because iOS is successful and Apple charges a premium for their devices.
Locking down the boot loader in that way doesn't improve security and only has one conceivable purpose: to keep out other operating systems, and it is a necesssary part of an attempt by Microsoft to gain market share for their otherwise unattractive operating systems by subsidizing the hardware.
I think if you actually looked at the legal situation in Europe, you'd come to a different conclusion.
I'd like to know where that mythical country is that respects your Internet privacy and doesn't subject you to damage from arbitrary and invalid copyright claims. I haven't found it, but I'd sure like to move my server there.
Internet connections in Europe are subject to monitoring without a court order, you may end up having to pay fines for mere allegations of copyright infringement without due process, the government can place viruses on your computer to monitor it, and many forms of speech that are legal and protected in the US are illegal and subject to prosecution in Europe.
Did I take a position either way?
I assume the situation in Australia is the same as in Europe: the copyright remains in force at least until 2016.
Objective-C is none of those things: it is dynamically typed, has gaping type holes both in its C and in its OOP interfaces, it isn't "memory safe" (since it has pointers), and it has "automatic reference counting", which isn't the same as garbage collection.
They could run emacs and screen, then they'd get windows from the command line.
The problem with that argument is that many of these media publishers are manipulating the political system to retain copyright to content that ought to be in the public domain.
So, I would modify the principled stance: think about what you think ought to be copyrighted and respect those copyrights. Respecting unjust copyrights may be legally prudent, but certainly isn't a principled or moral position.
All true. Just remember to take those arguments to UK politicians, since they are responsible for accepting this treaty. You can't blame the US for proposing a treaty that seems to favor it, and you can't blame the US for the UK signing onto it. In fact, I think the UK does get short-term value out of the one-sidedness of the treaty (political and legal convenience). Whether it's legally a good idea is another question.