Well, thanks. Looks like somebody fulfilled your wish and decided you were pretty insightful yourself. It's interesting to see the partisan moderating that happens in threads like this. AFAICT, I'm (thus far) net zero in the thread, and I got comments agreeing with and challenging my points, which is way more interesting to me than the karma consequences.
And, if it wasn't clear, I'm completely agreeing that breastfeeding is a good thing which should happen probably more than it is, and that those who consider it dirty or disgusting are out of whack. I understand that it's not always an option (had that happen with one of my kids), but would encourage it to happen as much as it can without piling guilt on those it just won't work for. Unfortunately, the care and feeding and rearing of children, especially babies, has become quite a partisan battle field, with lots of guilt and accusations piling on post-partum depression to make everything not just a little nuts.
And taking the middle ground tends to mean getting arrows in both sides of your head. Been there before, and I'll likely be there again.
I think FB/MS can enforce their ToS as they see fit, and, if they piss you off, you can go somewhere else. If they see BF pictures as violating their ToS, then that's that.
That "legal right doesn't make it right" sword has two edges. Be careful with it.
And no, I wasn't talking about militant "free thinkers." I was talking about militant breast-feeding activists who feel justified in mistreating me because somebody else mistreated them. That dog don't hunt with me.
Breastfeeding, like many other natural processes, doesn't need to be shared with the whole world, for the protection of the people participating in it as much as the people who don't wish to see it. Privacy isn't for bad things -- it's for private things. Personally, I'd rather not watch. Note the gun I'm not holding in my hand to enforce that preference.
What I'm saying is that there's no need for pictures of people eating, belching or blowing their noses. The igniting of farts is also unnecessary. I don't see a purpose in pushing a massive pull-down either.
That the mothers see this as important (as in, an important thing to do) is irrelevant. There are a number of things that are important to do that don't need to be photographed and presented to the world.
My understanding of the ToS guidelines (the ones I've looked at) is "no nipples." If exceptions are made for nipples shown during breastfeeding, that relatively simple standard becomes complicated and, potentially, useless. When you agree to the ToS, you abide by the ToS, like them or don't. If you can'd abide by them, go somewhere else.
That last paragraph is pretty close to totally off-base, afaict. There's nobody saying that there's anything wrong with breastfeeding that I've seen (I'm not trolling at 0 and reading every AC). Some folks are saying they'd rather not see it. I'm suggesting some modesty is appropriate. I've not called anybody a freak, sinner nor pervert for disagreeing with me about this. If you want to bark at the people who have done more than I have, be my guest, but that's not me, and I'm not going to apologize for something I haven't done.
It's interesting to me that, when I've been in a discussion that involves me asking women to not show me their breasts for any reason, I'm the bad guy. Perhaps I should be as insistent that women show me their breasts. It's not that they aren't fun to look at.
Don't know what happened, but some of my paragraphs got scrambled. Here's how that was supposed to read:
Two of my three children were breastfed, and I have no problem with boob-food happening. I don't think it's sexual (not that some weird folks can't make it so for themselves). When it happens in public, I think using a blanket/towel/etc. is a good idea, not because there's anything dirty about the breast, but because I don't think it's something that needs the amount and quality of attention it's likely to get in public.
I see no need for pictures of anybody eating on FB/MS, regardless of age or what they're eating. I also don't see a need for pictures of people belching, or blowing their noses. I don't think that needs to be a ToS issue (as of yet). When it comes to babies breastfeeding, I don't see any purpose in showing pictures of that. It's a crappy angle for looking at the baby. I'd rather see the baby sleeping or playing or smiling or being cute or something -- speaking just for me.
The pushing of the boob is getting to be an issue for me. I ran into a guy on an IM network who's an amateur photographer, and he wanted to send me some of his pictures. Since I didn't know him, I was a bit concerned about what the pictures would be, which he picked up on, and assured me that he didn't do nudes. However, he did do some tasteful topless shots of his wife. I told him I didn't want to see those, and he's been so intrigued by that that it comes up every time we chat (every week or three). I'm planning on getting very direct the next time he asks, if he does. Topless isn't all he does, and I don't mind looking at his other shots from time to time.
I do think there's something of militancy in this movement of "accept me, approve of me, or you're a bigot/puritan/pervert." And that I'm totally ready to give the finger to. I don't shove my lifestyle down your throat or demand your acceptance or approval, and I'm not obliged to build your feelings of self-worth.
Two of my three children were breastfed, and I have no problem with boob-food happening. I don't think it's sexual (not that some weird folks can't make it so for themselves). When it happens in public, I think using a blanket/towel/etc. is a good idea, not because there's anything dirty about the breast, but because I don't think it's something that needs the amount and quality of attention it's likely to get in public. Topless isn't all he does, and I don't mind looking at his other shots from time to time.
I do think there's something of militancy in this movement of "accept me, approve of me, or you're a bigot/puritan/pervert." And that I'm totally ready to give the finger to. I don't shove my lifestyle down your throat or demand your acceptance or approval, and I'm not obliged to build your feelings of self-worth.
I see no need for pictures of anybody eating on FB/MS, regardless of age or what they're eating. I also don't see a need for pictures of people belching, or blowing their noses. I don't think that needs to be a ToS issue (as of yet). When it comes to babies breastfeeding, I don't see any purpose in showing pictures of that. It's a crappy angle for looking at the baby. I'd rather see the baby sleeping or playing or smiling or being cute or something -- speaking just for me.
The pushing of the boob is getting to be an issue for me. I ran into a guy on an IM network who's an amateur photographer, and he wanted to send me some of his pictures. Since I didn't know him, I was a bit concerned about what the pictures would be, which he picked up on, and assured me that he didn't do nudes. However, he did do some tasteful topless shots of his wife. I told him I didn't want to see those, and he's been so intrigued by that that it comes up every time we chat (every week or three). I'm planning on getting very direct the next time he asks, if he does.
How, exactly should we get rid of all nuclear power world wide. And who is this "we," what do you mean by "get rid of" and why exactly "should" we do this?
And there's no way to bomb nuclear weapons programs into oblivion when they're built sufficiently deep underground. Not even with nukes. That's most likely where the Iranian program is being operated.
So how exactly do you plan to take nuclear power away from North Korea and Iran? And when you get those light-weights out of the way, how do you take it away from Russia?
It's a plug-in *hybrid*, so you get in your car and drive, and, when your battery gives out, it recharges it from the gas you still had in your tank. Like virtually every hybrid on the road right now.
I just watched a Nova about cooling the sun that talked about this. Essentially, particulate pollution makes clouds (as in rain clouds) that take longer to produce rain, as the particulates are larger than dust particles, with greater surface area. Also, these clouds that condense around these larger particles are more reflective on top, which has a cooling effect.
The folks acknowledged that this may have helped off-set the heating caused by CO2 emissions, and feared that reduction of particulate pollution without reducing CO2 emissions could lead to a big increase in global temperature.
And, (k)ubuntu people, please stop renaming the applications in each new version. Going from "firefox" to "mozilla-firefox" to "mozilla/firefox/" and then repeating is annoying, and breaks my application links for no purpose. If you're going to change the application name, how about building in a symlink from the old name, so I don't have to worry about it.
StupidBar (great name) is an example of something I've seen cropping up in FF and other software as it comes around -- default enabling new features in "upgrades" that breaks desired behavior. How about adding a step to the upgrade process where the new features are introduced, with links to more detailed descriptions for those who want more information, and check-box options to enable them or not?
That would make the system more user-oriented. I don't want anybody making guesses (educated or not) about what I want -- just give me the option to enable it and useful information and I'll make my own decision.
Instead of the Orwellian "two minutes of hate" this guy puts forth a daily radio show full of hate and anger 3-5 hours a day (I don't know, I don't listen to the show) and I have heard the show and he is often inaccurate but very capable at seeding his audience with misconceptions and anger.
It's 3 hours a day, less breaks.
You've heard the show, but you don't listen to it, so you don't know how long it is, but you're sure that it's full of hate and anger and is often inaccurate.
You do realize that every radio station he's on has regular mainstream news at the top of every hour, right?
I'm interested in this seeding process you're talking about, and how it's significantly different from things done by Bill Maher, or Steven Colbert, or John Stewart in technique.
I'm also interested in how this seeding process is supposed to produce these misconceptions and anger, or, hell, any evidence you can site to support any claim in this quoted material.
I'll add another anecdote -- I've got a 386sx-16 that's been running for almost seventeen years, being powered down only due to power failure or for repair/upgrade (and none of that for more than a decade).
Not sure it means much, but anecdotal data should hang together.
It would be nice if you knew half as much as you think you do, but you just don't. This is the last time I'm going to play, so pay close attention -- you can have the last word if you really want it.
1. You've provided no (as in zero) evidence that my religion was made up. Look over your posts very closely -- it's not there. Noticing that you've provided zero evidence is not a sign of ignorance -- it's a sign that I can read. If you want to think you're outside of the world of made up religions, feel free, but don't think you can begin to speak to my experience -- you don't even know where to start.
2. You seriously believe the old UL about the Church owning Coke (or Pepsi)? Lots of folks have, but it's not and never has been true. Check out Snopes for more about that. This would be the time for you to post evidence to back up your claim if you have any so it can be reviewed and assessed.
3. You show no sign of understanding where the idea that there is a problem drinking Coke (or Pepsi) came from, what form it took, or any of that. The truth is, my whole life it's never been a problem whether I did or didn't drink it. I've had Mormons who have had a problem with it, but the Church never has. The standard always has been "hot drinks are not for the body or belly" with "hot drinks" referring to coffee and tea. There has been lots of speculation about the reasons behind that, which some have taken to be the caffeine in both drinks, from which they have projected it to other drinks with caffeine in them. However, drinking colas has never been on par with drinking coffee or tea, and that absence of prohibition was in no way connected with the Church's non-ownership of any beverage company. For more clarity, this was a First Presidency statement from 1972:
"With reference to cola drinks, the Church has never officially taken a position on this matter, but the leaders of the Church have advised, and we do now specifically advise, against the use of any drink containing harmful habit-forming drugs under circumstances that would result in acquiring the habit. Any beverage that contains ingredients harmful to the body should be avoided." (Priesthood Bulletin, Feb. 1972, p. 4.)
.4. If you want to be an anti-Mormon without sounding like an idiot, I think you might want to look into the work of Jerald and Sandra Tanner. They haven't got a good thing to say about the Church, but they generally get their facts straight, and that's head and shoulders better than you've done.
Now, I've discussed Mormon doctrine, Mormon culture, and even anti-Mormon writers, illustrating my points with evidence, while all you've discussed is anti-Mormon urban legends with no evidence. You can point fingers at my supposed ignorance as much as you want -- it won't change the facts.
And, with that, I'm done chatting with you. If the other guy I responded to is reading this, I'm sorry that I attacked his intelligence. That was uncalled for. What he said wasn't nearly as stupid nor as arrogant as what you've had to say here.
Nice try. Thanks for playing. I've already demonstrated a far greater understanding of things Mormon than you have, yet you call me "extremely ignorant"? I can not only grasp the claim you're trying to make (without providing any evidence to support it), I am also aware of enough of the history to know the basis for your claim and why I don't find it persuasive. And that's without getting into the spiritual aspects of this, which I'm not nearly stupid enough to discuss in this forum.
I'm regretting the stridency of tone in my prior post. I'm almost regretting that I'm not going to match it in this one, but I'm tired and, frankly, I don't see any point.
Okay, I'll play. Your claim that Mormons never look at evidence contrary to what is commonly believed is false, and I'm far from the only counterexample that blows that overgeneralization out of the water. Looking into relevant words like "Sunstone," "FAIR" and "Mel Tungate" will provide you with solid proof of the inaccuracy of your claim. The fact that you make it shows that you're more than a little ignorant about the body of people called Mormon, and that you're also more than a little ignorant about what the Book of Mormon actually says. Which puts you close to the group of people called "almost everyone," although you were stupid enough to speak here in spite of your ignorance, and that's a much smaller group.
Now, the purpose of the Book of Mormon is spiritual, not historical or scientific, which purpose is not impacted remotely by the (gasp!) notion of cross-Bering migration (which is far from news). The Book of Mormon itself provides evidence that not everyone in the land it speaks of was of Lehite, Jaredite or Mulekite ancestry -- I'd suggest you look to the first use of the terms "Nephite" and "Lamanite" closely to see whether the labels are ethnic or political in nature, and how it leaves the door open to non-Lehites.
Unless, of course, you just want to stay ignorant and keep on throwing these ideas around anyhow.
Science doesn't disprove religion. Science is a methodology for exploring and explaining natural phenomena, and the body of information that methodology has yielded. Religion is about matters of faith, morality, spirituality, theology, and ways of living. Both are human-created, and both are fallible. Some people do stupid things with both from time to time, while others do pretty amazing things with them from time to time, and neither of those patterns proves or invalidates either approach. Trying to put them at odds is simply fallacious false dichotomy.
Another example of this was their response to needing to build electronics that could withstand vacuum -- instead, they built their electronics into chambers that were pressurized. Or using pencils instead of designing pens with pressurized ink reservoirs that could write without weight.
After WWII, when Peenemunde was liberated, the Americans got the scientists and some of the parts of the V2s, and the Soviets got the engineers and the machinery for producing the V2s. I think that has something to do with the shape of the programs each country carried out.
As one person intimated above, the vast majority of recognized languages in the world are only spoken in Papua, New Guinea. So, if we're losing a thousand languages in a time period, there's a good chance that more than 900 of them are spoken by fewer than 100 people who are joining larger language communities. This is not going to threaten humanities survival, although the language geek in me would like to see as many of those languages recorded for a possible resurrection in the future, as we've seen with Hebrew and many of the American Indian languages. But if the speakers of a language no longer find it profitable to use a language, and they move to a language that serves their needs better, I'm not seeing the foul.
Except that civilians forming a militia can still designate themselves as combatants as simply as putting on an armband of a given color, carrying weapons openly, and following a commander, even if they designated themselves. They don't have to enlist in the army to be recognized as combatants deserving prisoner of war status.
I don't think someone who was waterboarded is going to have any cool points among people who beheaded their prisoners before dragging their bodies through the streets and hanging their remains from overpasses. Just not seeing it.
War was not declared in Korea or Vietnam -- both were police actions.
And "war on poverty" and "war on drugs" were not declared wars either. Those were metaphorical fights at best.
If he put on a uniform and armed himself so he could be identified as a combatant for a particular group, then he could be a prisoner of war. AQ, like the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese before them, have no regard for the Geneva Conventions. The Nazis and the Imperial Japanese at least put their forces in uniforms, but none of them provided the prescribed minima of treatment for prisoners.
3) There's this other thing called momentum, which anything leaving Earth orbit has to account for. The vehicle doesn't start out at the edge of Earth orbit stationary compared to anything -- it starts out orbiting the Sun at the same speed as the Earth. The most efficient path won't be to try to kill that momentum and then push in a straight line at Mars. IANARS, but my guess is that the most efficient path would be a curve between the orbits.
This is where the networks and studios are missing the boat -- chasing the "pirates" who are "stealing" instead of seeing an opportunity for income that they could easily be receiving instead. It's very, very simple -- make their episodes available in decent quality for free download, without DRM, but with commercials inserted on the breaks. Make them available using bittorrent, so they don't have to provide all the bandwidth, and with RSS feeds so they can integrate with savvy media players and it will be easier to use their versions, with assured quality and content, than it is to hunt up questionable "pirate" torrents. They track the number of copies downloaded and the advertisers pay based on that number.
This method would also work for shows that don't quite have a large enough audience to justify taking up a time-slot on their broadcast channels, but which do have a large enough audience to advertise to to justify producing them.
This would do nothing to erode their potential for revenue from the sale of these same episodes on DVD, which will include extras that aren't offered on the downloadable versions, which real fans will want anyhow. So this would be an entirely new source of revenue for the same production costs, without the expense of DRM or even all the bandwidth necessary to distribute the product.
I'm scratching my head as to why they haven't figured this out long since and done it.
Or install NoScript and his system doesn't work, as it's Javascript based.
NoScript is a bit annoying when using StumbleUpon along with FlashBlock -- FlashBlock requires Javascript to be enabled, and NoScript by default turns Javascript off for all websites until you enable each one -- but, over time, you learn to notice that things aren't working properly and hit the little S with the slash/circle and allow scripting on the sites you want it at.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, thanks. Looks like somebody fulfilled your wish and decided you were pretty insightful yourself. It's interesting to see the partisan moderating that happens in threads like this. AFAICT, I'm (thus far) net zero in the thread, and I got comments agreeing with and challenging my points, which is way more interesting to me than the karma consequences.
And, if it wasn't clear, I'm completely agreeing that breastfeeding is a good thing which should happen probably more than it is, and that those who consider it dirty or disgusting are out of whack. I understand that it's not always an option (had that happen with one of my kids), but would encourage it to happen as much as it can without piling guilt on those it just won't work for. Unfortunately, the care and feeding and rearing of children, especially babies, has become quite a partisan battle field, with lots of guilt and accusations piling on post-partum depression to make everything not just a little nuts.
And taking the middle ground tends to mean getting arrows in both sides of your head. Been there before, and I'll likely be there again.
I think FB/MS can enforce their ToS as they see fit, and, if they piss you off, you can go somewhere else. If they see BF pictures as violating their ToS, then that's that.
That "legal right doesn't make it right" sword has two edges. Be careful with it.
And no, I wasn't talking about militant "free thinkers." I was talking about militant breast-feeding activists who feel justified in mistreating me because somebody else mistreated them. That dog don't hunt with me.
Breastfeeding, like many other natural processes, doesn't need to be shared with the whole world, for the protection of the people participating in it as much as the people who don't wish to see it. Privacy isn't for bad things -- it's for private things. Personally, I'd rather not watch. Note the gun I'm not holding in my hand to enforce that preference.
What I'm saying is that there's no need for pictures of people eating, belching or blowing their noses. The igniting of farts is also unnecessary. I don't see a purpose in pushing a massive pull-down either.
That the mothers see this as important (as in, an important thing to do) is irrelevant. There are a number of things that are important to do that don't need to be photographed and presented to the world.
My understanding of the ToS guidelines (the ones I've looked at) is "no nipples." If exceptions are made for nipples shown during breastfeeding, that relatively simple standard becomes complicated and, potentially, useless. When you agree to the ToS, you abide by the ToS, like them or don't. If you can'd abide by them, go somewhere else.
That last paragraph is pretty close to totally off-base, afaict. There's nobody saying that there's anything wrong with breastfeeding that I've seen (I'm not trolling at 0 and reading every AC). Some folks are saying they'd rather not see it. I'm suggesting some modesty is appropriate. I've not called anybody a freak, sinner nor pervert for disagreeing with me about this. If you want to bark at the people who have done more than I have, be my guest, but that's not me, and I'm not going to apologize for something I haven't done.
It's interesting to me that, when I've been in a discussion that involves me asking women to not show me their breasts for any reason, I'm the bad guy. Perhaps I should be as insistent that women show me their breasts. It's not that they aren't fun to look at.
Don't know what happened, but some of my paragraphs got scrambled. Here's how that was supposed to read:
Two of my three children were breastfed, and I have no problem with boob-food happening. I don't think it's sexual (not that some weird folks can't make it so for themselves). When it happens in public, I think using a blanket/towel/etc. is a good idea, not because there's anything dirty about the breast, but because I don't think it's something that needs the amount and quality of attention it's likely to get in public.
I see no need for pictures of anybody eating on FB/MS, regardless of age or what they're eating. I also don't see a need for pictures of people belching, or blowing their noses. I don't think that needs to be a ToS issue (as of yet). When it comes to babies breastfeeding, I don't see any purpose in showing pictures of that. It's a crappy angle for looking at the baby. I'd rather see the baby sleeping or playing or smiling or being cute or something -- speaking just for me.
The pushing of the boob is getting to be an issue for me. I ran into a guy on an IM network who's an amateur photographer, and he wanted to send me some of his pictures. Since I didn't know him, I was a bit concerned about what the pictures would be, which he picked up on, and assured me that he didn't do nudes. However, he did do some tasteful topless shots of his wife. I told him I didn't want to see those, and he's been so intrigued by that that it comes up every time we chat (every week or three). I'm planning on getting very direct the next time he asks, if he does. Topless isn't all he does, and I don't mind looking at his other shots from time to time.
I do think there's something of militancy in this movement of "accept me, approve of me, or you're a bigot/puritan/pervert." And that I'm totally ready to give the finger to. I don't shove my lifestyle down your throat or demand your acceptance or approval, and I'm not obliged to build your feelings of self-worth.
Two of my three children were breastfed, and I have no problem with boob-food happening. I don't think it's sexual (not that some weird folks can't make it so for themselves). When it happens in public, I think using a blanket/towel/etc. is a good idea, not because there's anything dirty about the breast, but because I don't think it's something that needs the amount and quality of attention it's likely to get in public. Topless isn't all he does, and I don't mind looking at his other shots from time to time.
I do think there's something of militancy in this movement of "accept me, approve of me, or you're a bigot/puritan/pervert." And that I'm totally ready to give the finger to. I don't shove my lifestyle down your throat or demand your acceptance or approval, and I'm not obliged to build your feelings of self-worth.
I see no need for pictures of anybody eating on FB/MS, regardless of age or what they're eating. I also don't see a need for pictures of people belching, or blowing their noses. I don't think that needs to be a ToS issue (as of yet). When it comes to babies breastfeeding, I don't see any purpose in showing pictures of that. It's a crappy angle for looking at the baby. I'd rather see the baby sleeping or playing or smiling or being cute or something -- speaking just for me.
The pushing of the boob is getting to be an issue for me. I ran into a guy on an IM network who's an amateur photographer, and he wanted to send me some of his pictures. Since I didn't know him, I was a bit concerned about what the pictures would be, which he picked up on, and assured me that he didn't do nudes. However, he did do some tasteful topless shots of his wife. I told him I didn't want to see those, and he's been so intrigued by that that it comes up every time we chat (every week or three). I'm planning on getting very direct the next time he asks, if he does.
George Bush. Everything is his fault.
Expect the holes to start closing in about five weeks.
How, exactly should we get rid of all nuclear power world wide. And who is this "we," what do you mean by "get rid of" and why exactly "should" we do this?
And there's no way to bomb nuclear weapons programs into oblivion when they're built sufficiently deep underground. Not even with nukes. That's most likely where the Iranian program is being operated.
So how exactly do you plan to take nuclear power away from North Korea and Iran? And when you get those light-weights out of the way, how do you take it away from Russia?
Just curious.
It's a plug-in *hybrid*, so you get in your car and drive, and, when your battery gives out, it recharges it from the gas you still had in your tank. Like virtually every hybrid on the road right now.
I just watched a Nova about cooling the sun that talked about this. Essentially, particulate pollution makes clouds (as in rain clouds) that take longer to produce rain, as the particulates are larger than dust particles, with greater surface area. Also, these clouds that condense around these larger particles are more reflective on top, which has a cooling effect.
The folks acknowledged that this may have helped off-set the heating caused by CO2 emissions, and feared that reduction of particulate pollution without reducing CO2 emissions could lead to a big increase in global temperature.
And, (k)ubuntu people, please stop renaming the applications in each new version. Going from "firefox" to "mozilla-firefox" to "mozilla/firefox/" and then repeating is annoying, and breaks my application links for no purpose. If you're going to change the application name, how about building in a symlink from the old name, so I don't have to worry about it.
Tried it. Five minute application loads followed by five minute page loads wasn't attractive. Flash memory is too slow for this to be practical.
StupidBar (great name) is an example of something I've seen cropping up in FF and other software as it comes around -- default enabling new features in "upgrades" that breaks desired behavior. How about adding a step to the upgrade process where the new features are introduced, with links to more detailed descriptions for those who want more information, and check-box options to enable them or not?
That would make the system more user-oriented. I don't want anybody making guesses (educated or not) about what I want -- just give me the option to enable it and useful information and I'll make my own decision.
I'll add another anecdote -- I've got a 386sx-16 that's been running for almost seventeen years, being powered down only due to power failure or for repair/upgrade (and none of that for more than a decade).
Not sure it means much, but anecdotal data should hang together.
1. You've provided no (as in zero) evidence that my religion was made up. Look over your posts very closely -- it's not there. Noticing that you've provided zero evidence is not a sign of ignorance -- it's a sign that I can read. If you want to think you're outside of the world of made up religions, feel free, but don't think you can begin to speak to my experience -- you don't even know where to start.
2. You seriously believe the old UL about the Church owning Coke (or Pepsi)? Lots of folks have, but it's not and never has been true. Check out Snopes for more about that. This would be the time for you to post evidence to back up your claim if you have any so it can be reviewed and assessed.
3. You show no sign of understanding where the idea that there is a problem drinking Coke (or Pepsi) came from, what form it took, or any of that. The truth is, my whole life it's never been a problem whether I did or didn't drink it. I've had Mormons who have had a problem with it, but the Church never has. The standard always has been "hot drinks are not for the body or belly" with "hot drinks" referring to coffee and tea. There has been lots of speculation about the reasons behind that, which some have taken to be the caffeine in both drinks, from which they have projected it to other drinks with caffeine in them. However, drinking colas has never been on par with drinking coffee or tea, and that absence of prohibition was in no way connected with the Church's non-ownership of any beverage company. For more clarity, this was a First Presidency statement from 1972:.4. If you want to be an anti-Mormon without sounding like an idiot, I think you might want to look into the work of Jerald and Sandra Tanner. They haven't got a good thing to say about the Church, but they generally get their facts straight, and that's head and shoulders better than you've done.
Now, I've discussed Mormon doctrine, Mormon culture, and even anti-Mormon writers, illustrating my points with evidence, while all you've discussed is anti-Mormon urban legends with no evidence. You can point fingers at my supposed ignorance as much as you want -- it won't change the facts.
And, with that, I'm done chatting with you. If the other guy I responded to is reading this, I'm sorry that I attacked his intelligence. That was uncalled for. What he said wasn't nearly as stupid nor as arrogant as what you've had to say here.
Nice try. Thanks for playing. I've already demonstrated a far greater understanding of things Mormon than you have, yet you call me "extremely ignorant"? I can not only grasp the claim you're trying to make (without providing any evidence to support it), I am also aware of enough of the history to know the basis for your claim and why I don't find it persuasive. And that's without getting into the spiritual aspects of this, which I'm not nearly stupid enough to discuss in this forum.
I'm regretting the stridency of tone in my prior post. I'm almost regretting that I'm not going to match it in this one, but I'm tired and, frankly, I don't see any point.
Okay, I'll play. Your claim that Mormons never look at evidence contrary to what is commonly believed is false, and I'm far from the only counterexample that blows that overgeneralization out of the water. Looking into relevant words like "Sunstone," "FAIR" and "Mel Tungate" will provide you with solid proof of the inaccuracy of your claim. The fact that you make it shows that you're more than a little ignorant about the body of people called Mormon, and that you're also more than a little ignorant about what the Book of Mormon actually says. Which puts you close to the group of people called "almost everyone," although you were stupid enough to speak here in spite of your ignorance, and that's a much smaller group.
Now, the purpose of the Book of Mormon is spiritual, not historical or scientific, which purpose is not impacted remotely by the (gasp!) notion of cross-Bering migration (which is far from news). The Book of Mormon itself provides evidence that not everyone in the land it speaks of was of Lehite, Jaredite or Mulekite ancestry -- I'd suggest you look to the first use of the terms "Nephite" and "Lamanite" closely to see whether the labels are ethnic or political in nature, and how it leaves the door open to non-Lehites.
Unless, of course, you just want to stay ignorant and keep on throwing these ideas around anyhow.
Science doesn't disprove religion. Science is a methodology for exploring and explaining natural phenomena, and the body of information that methodology has yielded. Religion is about matters of faith, morality, spirituality, theology, and ways of living. Both are human-created, and both are fallible. Some people do stupid things with both from time to time, while others do pretty amazing things with them from time to time, and neither of those patterns proves or invalidates either approach. Trying to put them at odds is simply fallacious false dichotomy.
I'll give you the pencil thing -- it works as a mythological explanation of the difference in approach, regardless of its historical inaccuracy.
Another example of this was their response to needing to build electronics that could withstand vacuum -- instead, they built their electronics into chambers that were pressurized. Or using pencils instead of designing pens with pressurized ink reservoirs that could write without weight.
After WWII, when Peenemunde was liberated, the Americans got the scientists and some of the parts of the V2s, and the Soviets got the engineers and the machinery for producing the V2s. I think that has something to do with the shape of the programs each country carried out.
As one person intimated above, the vast majority of recognized languages in the world are only spoken in Papua, New Guinea. So, if we're losing a thousand languages in a time period, there's a good chance that more than 900 of them are spoken by fewer than 100 people who are joining larger language communities. This is not going to threaten humanities survival, although the language geek in me would like to see as many of those languages recorded for a possible resurrection in the future, as we've seen with Hebrew and many of the American Indian languages. But if the speakers of a language no longer find it profitable to use a language, and they move to a language that serves their needs better, I'm not seeing the foul.
Except that civilians forming a militia can still designate themselves as combatants as simply as putting on an armband of a given color, carrying weapons openly, and following a commander, even if they designated themselves. They don't have to enlist in the army to be recognized as combatants deserving prisoner of war status.
I don't think someone who was waterboarded is going to have any cool points among people who beheaded their prisoners before dragging their bodies through the streets and hanging their remains from overpasses. Just not seeing it.
War was not declared in Korea or Vietnam -- both were police actions.
And "war on poverty" and "war on drugs" were not declared wars either. Those were metaphorical fights at best.
If he put on a uniform and armed himself so he could be identified as a combatant for a particular group, then he could be a prisoner of war. AQ, like the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese before them, have no regard for the Geneva Conventions. The Nazis and the Imperial Japanese at least put their forces in uniforms, but none of them provided the prescribed minima of treatment for prisoners.
Are we far enough from the topic yet?
3) There's this other thing called momentum, which anything leaving Earth orbit has to account for. The vehicle doesn't start out at the edge of Earth orbit stationary compared to anything -- it starts out orbiting the Sun at the same speed as the Earth. The most efficient path won't be to try to kill that momentum and then push in a straight line at Mars. IANARS, but my guess is that the most efficient path would be a curve between the orbits.
This is where the networks and studios are missing the boat -- chasing the "pirates" who are "stealing" instead of seeing an opportunity for income that they could easily be receiving instead. It's very, very simple -- make their episodes available in decent quality for free download, without DRM, but with commercials inserted on the breaks. Make them available using bittorrent, so they don't have to provide all the bandwidth, and with RSS feeds so they can integrate with savvy media players and it will be easier to use their versions, with assured quality and content, than it is to hunt up questionable "pirate" torrents. They track the number of copies downloaded and the advertisers pay based on that number.
This method would also work for shows that don't quite have a large enough audience to justify taking up a time-slot on their broadcast channels, but which do have a large enough audience to advertise to to justify producing them.
This would do nothing to erode their potential for revenue from the sale of these same episodes on DVD, which will include extras that aren't offered on the downloadable versions, which real fans will want anyhow. So this would be an entirely new source of revenue for the same production costs, without the expense of DRM or even all the bandwidth necessary to distribute the product.
I'm scratching my head as to why they haven't figured this out long since and done it.
Or install NoScript and his system doesn't work, as it's Javascript based.
NoScript is a bit annoying when using StumbleUpon along with FlashBlock -- FlashBlock requires Javascript to be enabled, and NoScript by default turns Javascript off for all websites until you enable each one -- but, over time, you learn to notice that things aren't working properly and hit the little S with the slash/circle and allow scripting on the sites you want it at.