RACKSPACE IS NOT AN ISP. How much more clear can I be? Rackspace is a HOSTING PROVIDER. THAT IS NOT THE SAME THING AS AN ISP. AT&T IS AN ISP. THEY'RE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.
You claimed that Rackspace is also an ISP, but when I asked you to identify what ISP services they provide, you didn't answer. The reason for that is probably that they are not an ISP.
So AT&T could simply refuse to interconnect with anyone hosting skype servers and that'd be okay with you ?
AT&T is a network service provider, and is therefore the focus of net neutrality. So no, that would not be alright with me.
And obviously it violated network neutrality when AT&T intentionally slowed down the sip protocol. Easy enough to do on today's network equipment, and this was obviously seen as a gross violation of net neutrality.
Do you really not understand the difference between a network provider and a hosting provider? Rackspace is a HOSTING provider. They do not own the network. AT&T is a NETWORK provider. This is what we mean by NETWORK Neutrality.
I'm unaware of the part of the discussion where content has been specifically brought up, but that may be a failure of imagination. Who exactly is concerned that ISPs are analyzing packets for content regardless of their source?
And rackspace most definitely is a network provider too
Definitely? I could be wrong, but as far as I know Rackspace is a hosting provider and nothing more. Where do they provide ISP services? What type of network services do they provide?
Network neutrality ONLY concerns itself with getting packets from the server to the user, meaning the ISPs. The server and user themselves are not the focus of network neutrality.
whoa there cowboy, network neutrality has NOTHING to do with free speech laws.
Network neutrality only means that a network operator should treat packets the same regardless of source, meaning no "preferred service" to YouTube or degraded service for break.com. The content of the packets, the actual speech part, plays no part at all in this. Rackspace is also not a network provider, they're a hosting service.
than "serious" (for lack of a better term) journalists like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly
There's your mistake. Beck and O'Reilly aren't journalists at all, serious or otherwise. Their shows are opinion pieces, start to finish. They're "serious journalists" in the same way that professional wrestlers are "serious athletes".
on what's supposed to be a news channel
FOX should just give up the word news and start calling themselves a "political commentary" channel. That's what they really seem to want to focus on, and what they want to be. Why not just go with that? Note to FOX fans who take this as insulting, this isn't necessarily intended to be a negative thing. If anything, it would probably eliminate a lot of the criticism aimed at FOX News. There's nothing wrong with being a political commentary channel, and you don't need to pretend to hold to some kind of "Fair and Balanced" standard.
Well, for starters, while some of the Bible might predate the Bronze Age, even peer reviewed research that is later found to be flawed is defended vigorously until it is exposed..
There's a difference though, that being RESEARCH. The Bible wasn't based on research of any kind, it was written by people with virtually no understanding of the natural world who were making up stories to explain things that they didn't understand. Pork makes you sick? Guess god hates people who eat pork.
The New Testament, in particular, was written by men who mostly went to their deaths defending their faith and their writings. They were convinced. I'm not ready to discard that, but it doesn't meet any scientific critera, I know.
The fact that people were willing to die for their beliefs is completely irrelevant to whether they were actually right or not. Plenty of people from other religions than Christianity have been/are willing to die for their beliefs. They can't all be right.
But is the Bible the 'right one'? You do know that the Q'uran references many Old Testament characters and events, don't you?
Your point? Why is Christianity right, as opposed to Islam? They share certain similarities, but I don't think anyone would say they're the same thing.
The vedas seem to have been written starting around 1500 B.C., nearly contemporary to Moses. An interesting time. Must have been the development of useful written language and implements that makes this a coincidence. I do not know if the vedas were similarly defended by martyrs, but belivers in the Q'uran have a way of killing their detractors.
Okay, so why did god only give the truth to the people living in the middle east, and let all those poor Hindus get the "fake" religion. Does god not like India? Why did he like the people living around Israel so much to tell them and only them the truth?
Nowadays, Chrtistians are once again the martyrs, all over the world. It comes with the territory. They are not alone, I know.
Yeah, poor Christians. Imagine if only one day a Christian could become President of the United States, or Prime Minister of England, or Prime Minister of Canada, or President of France, or Germany. It's a shame that no major power will elect a Christian to lead them. Oh, wait, I got that backwards, the poor, downtrodden Christians have managed to field heads of state in *all* of those places, and in the United States it's virtually a requirement. Not bad for such a persecuted bunch.
I was taught in high school that 'Homer' wrote at least two good books. Well, that didn't hold up. But we don't have any record that those books were intended to be read as 'divinely inspired'. Actually, the Hebrew god and Christ I think are singular individuals in literature as in life. Comparing them to others is not useful.
You're the one who brought "him" up.
But the issue of 'modern miracles' is a difficult one. After you go through the fakes and mistakes, there are few documented miracles.
Or none.
And within Christianity, there is considerable debate over whether they are even necessary.
The point isn't whether they're necessary, it's that the Bible claims they used to happen, and yet they don't now. Kind of like how nobody ever has a camera handy when Bigfoot shows up.
One question I do have. Was Greek mythology intended as testimonials, or was it pure fiction even then?
The ancient Greeks were just as sure their religion was right as you are sure of yours today.
While many claim the Bible is a collection of myths and legends, the Torah is held to be a literal history.
I assume, of course, that the peer review process that most scientific papers undergo nowadays is also without flaws?
Who exactly ever claimed that peer-review is flawless? It is, however, more likely to catch errors and fraud than the alternative of simply taking a group of superstitious bronze-age people at their word, with no verification at all.
It's an old book that has been handed down for thousands of years, accepted as true by an entire race of people, and has not only been challenged, but defended to the death [letusreason.org] by many.
So why is the Bible the right one, as opposed to the Koran, or the vedas? Don't they also match the above criteria?
I know, you refuse the writings of long-lost authors, and the veracity of their words based on just the one book. Compare the sources of Biblical manuscripts with those of Homer or even Gallileo.
I have no idea what this means. If you're saying that believing in the existence of Homer is no more unlikely than believing in Jesus, then you're probably right, since Homer wasn't an actual person, but a personification of the works of multiple people. Galileo on the other hand, only goes back to the 1500s/1600s, a time where documentation was much more formal than it would have been around 2000 years ago when the Bible was assembled.
But I'm wasting my time to go further. We want modern proofs. Happenings that we don't understand we either subscribe to miracles or we dismiss as untrue.
Okay, lets go with that. Why aren't there any "modern proofs". Why is it that the flashy miracles, the walking on water, the bread and fishes, the angels of death, only happened at a point in human history when a) there was no reliable way to record them, and b) at a time in human history when superstition was the norm, and science was still a far-off notion? Why doesn't anyone rise from the dead anymore, why has "witchcraft" suddenly just stopped working, where are the supernatural creatures that used to visit people on a fairly regular basis? I'm going to hazard a guess that it's for the same reason that the Norse pantheon no longer visits Scandinavia, or that the gods of Olympus no longer wage war in Greece, or that leprechauns and pixies no longer populate the British isles and Trolls no longer menace travelers as they cross bridges in Europe. They're all the fantasies of people who hadn't yet learned that there's no such thing as magic.
Ironically, if you get empirical proof that God exists you will not be required to believe... Herein lies the problem.
Why is this so important though? Why, exactly, does having faith in something that's not only unprovable, but staggeringly unlikely, have value? Does God somehow "eat" belief? Is it a form of sustenance? Seems pretty unlikely, since he seemed to do alright for the millions and millions of years before humanity made the scene (lets just leave the whole YEC thing aside for the moment). What's the point then? How is it better to have people scream their unwavering belief in you, while punishing those who don't, than to just say "Yep, here I am, and here are my rules. Ignore them at your own peril" during an in-person appearance on World News Tonight?
Granted this is my own personal experience, and therefore doesn't necessarily reflect anyone else's, but: I have never had anyone walk up to me randomly and say "Hey, I'm an atheist, and you should be too, can I have some of your time to tell you about why you're wrong and I'm right?" I have, on multiple occasions, had people walk up to me in public places, or even knock on my door, to say "Hi, I'm with $RELIGION, and I'd like to share the good news about how $DEITY loves you, wants you to love him, and will punish you forever if he doesn't get what he wants".
Now, what was that about letting people believe what they will, and not imposing beliefs on others?
Courts have ruled over and over that obscenity isn't protected speech.
I have a more complete response to this in another part of the thread, but the FCC doesn't deal with the legal definition of obscenity. HBO's "True Blood" is absolutely not obscene by the courts definition, therefore, the FCC should allow it to be broadcast, right?
But my opinion of nudity doesn't matter; what matters is whether someone has the right to make that determination
But since we've now established that obscenity in the legal sense, and your own personal definition aren't the same thing, from where do they draw that authority? Thin air is the only answer I've seen so far.
He has every right to present it, but having the right to make and present a movie is not the same as having the right to transmit it over the airwaves. The constitution preserves the right to speech, not radio transmission.
Oh isn't that cute. The constitution doesn't say you have the right to own a laptop computer either. Is it okay to make a law restricting owning one? Really now, that's just a stupid argument. The medium is irrelevant, or do you really, honestly believe that the only protected speech is that which comes from a hand-crank powered printing press as known in the late 1700s?
I'm saying that you have the right to watch what you want, but I don't think that right extends to the public airwaves.
Great, start your own country, write your own constitution, and say that. If you really like it here, then start the process of amending the constitution to allow the government to have the authority to do that. In the meantime, the constitution that we have doesn't include your right to not be offended.
Put it any way you want, but I don't think the right to free speech includes all forms of expression in any place at any time. When it comes to specific forms of "expression", there are things you're not allowed to do in public, and there's nothing more public than shooting a radio transmission from the top of a mountain with 50,000 watts of electricity.
It would have been very simple to state in the constitution that the right to free speech is limited to speech that is approved of by the community at large, and yet, it's not there. Until such a time comes as an amendment is added to the constitution granting this restriction, it does not exist as a legal ability of the government.
If a minor can't buy Hustler magazines at the newsstand. How is that not a constitutional issue, under your definition? Doesn't Larry Flint have the right to free speech?
He does, and his materials are available in those stores to adults. An adult bars the child's access to the material. Much like a parent might do when it comes to allowing the child to watch television. Saying that you can't always be there to watch the child would be analogous to saying nobody should be allowed to buy Hustler Magazine because you can't always watch children and prevent them from finding your copies of Hustler.
Courts have stated over and over again that "free speech" doesn't mean indecent or obscene material. Yes, people can and have gone to jail for downloading obscene material, even though the constitution protects free speech.
Which I wouldn't agree with, in my opinion the courts have been very wrong on this issue, but the legal definition of "obscene" goes a whole lot further than saying fuck, or showing a nude body. The FCC regulations do not deal with obscenity in that sense. If it can be shown legally in theaters, and on HBO, it's a pretty safe bet that it comes nowhere near approaching the legal definition of obscenity. In my earlier example using Titanic, that movie simply can not be shown in its entirety on broadcast TV. There is no way though that it would fail the Miller Test and be considered obscene material. Therefore, even under the badly flawed definitions that the courts have allowed, the FCC has gone off on its own and created much more broad restrictions of what is allowable. I ask again, where does the authority come from to do this?
I also doubt it will be much of a problem, but it will let the FCC feel like they're still able to protect the purity of our children without letting them be censors. The FCC's contribution would likely be more along the lines of providing a framework for the ratings, perhaps addressing the concerns of parents who are concerned about violence.
True enough. I suppose as long as there's *someone* to appeal to, even if it's the courts, that would probably work well enough.
If they really want to make themselves useful though, they could try banning commercials that blow you through the back wall when you can barely hear the show. That and pick up the slack from the FTC failing to control deceptive advertising.
I dunno, those commercials have sharpened my reflexes to superhuman levels. I can hit that mute button so fast that I violate the laws of physics.:)
Only you are wrong. They have to uphold Federal law. See Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1464.
And this is the United States Constitution, amendment 1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Do you see anything there that implies that this amendment is somehow limited to things that aren't offensive? Does it say anything about "except for obscene or indecent"? The Constitution trumps ALL other laws, local, state or federal. Unless you can show me a constitutional basis for the government being allowed to censor speech due to offensive content, your link means only that the government has overstepped its bounds.
So what's the better alternative... no regulation of television content at all? Allow any unregulated content on the radio (which has no V-chip)?
Yep. What exactly do you think will happen if that were the case? Broadcasters aren't going to try to trick you into listening to or watching things you don't want to see or hear. Since they rely on sponsors, I seriously doubt they'd change much of anything. Most corporate radio has far stricter rules for what the company will allow to broadcast than the FCC's own regulations. Why? Sponsors. They're terrified of getting complaints and losing ad revenue. If though you should flip through the dial and hear someone say "fuck" before you change the station, don't worry, your head won't explode and your children won't die.
Again, I'm not talking about specifics of what's allowed or not. I just don't think that removing the FCC's ability to enforce standards set up by the Federal government is a good idea.
Unless someone can come up with a reason why FCC content regulations aren't unconstitutional, removing that ability is the only answer. Our government is not meant to be able to say "except in this case" when the rules it's boud by are inconvenient.
You want to change those standards? I'm all for common-sense changes, if need be. But to eliminate them altogether just doesn't seem like a good idea.
I want to remove them as the issuing body has no authority to put them in place to start with. If you want a nice safe clean medium, pay for it. Stick to podcasts, get a satellite radio, but you do not have a constitutional right to not be offended, and the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to decide matters of content.
You ignored every question I asked you, why is that?
Your argument hinges on the idea that society should have to seek to avoid indecent material, that nudity, sex, profanity, and violence should be the default, and that parents should have to take proactive measures to avoid those things in the media.
I'm not seeing the problem here. Parents are supposed to protect their children.
But that's not the case. State and Federal laws make it clear that children should not be exposed to that kind of material. It's against the law to sell a Playboy to a minor
But not to an adult. By censoring what is allowed to be broadcast, you're deciding what adults can have as well, and that's where the problem lies.
and it's against the law to expose children to "immoral acts".
Really? Could you define an "immoral act" for me? How about letting a child watch a news report about Enron, that was pretty immoral.
Broadcast television and radio are different than cable television for one simple reason: its signals are unencrypted and available to all. There's no way to control who can see and hear those signals, as long as they have a receiver,
and even my 6 year old daughter knows how to work a radio and a television set. In fact, she had found my portable TV and tuned to a broadcast of The Family Guy before I even knew she had it.
So because you can't put your portable TV on a shelf that a 6 year old can't reach, and you couldn't be bothered to activate the v-chip settings on that TV, we all have stick with programming that's appropriate for 6 year olds.
The First Amendment says you can have channel 651, but decency standards say that you have to take extra steps to get it.
Please explain how "decency standards" trump the United States Constitution. A real explanation please, not just "think of the children".
Imagine for a moment that the industry did police itself. Would that be a better situation than we have now? Would there be less indecent material on the air? Considering how many times Howard Stern was fined for content on his show, I think we can all agree the answer would be "No."
Again, I fail to see how this allows for a government agency to determine "decency", let alone implement it.
I don't like government over-regulation more than anybody else,
ooooo, I sense a "but" coming.
but I just don't see a solution that works without the involvement of the FCC (or a government body that does the same job.)
So really, you don't like over-regulation, except for when you do.
I don't think a graphic depiction of someone getting shot in the chest is any more acceptable than a graphic depiction of a woman baring her chest
And yet, one is allowed on broadcast TV, and the other is not.
However, our society does have standards of decency, and the government has the legal right to uphold those standards.
Sorry, I missed the portion of the Constitution that says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; except when use of those freedoms might offend or otherwise make someone uncomfortable". So, do tell me, upon what do you base this belief that the government holds such a right?
You have every right to watch whatever disgusting filth you want, as long as you do it where kids can't see it.
What makes you think I want to see "disgusting filth"? Is the scene from Titanic where Rose poses for a portrait without a top on "disgusting filth"? Further, what damage do you feel would be caused to children who see this? What makes you think all nudity should be treated the same as hard-core pornography?
Nobody's taking that right away from you
The government didn't take away James Cameron's right to present Titanic over the air without censorship? Again, the government has no "right" that I'm aware of to censor a work, but an artist does have the right to present that work without censorship.
but if you think it's acceptable expose children to the kind of material that can only be found on pay TV channels, then there's something seriously messed up about your grasp of right and wrong.
So what are you saying here? Due to the fact that a child *might* stumble into adult programming, none should be allowed? If this is really about protecting the innocent little children, why does it only apply to broadcast television? What if a child accidentally turns on HBO? What if a child accidentally sees a copy of Penthouse? And have you seen what's on this internet thing? My god, the very existence of these things threatens childhood as we know it! How about, if you have children, you either monitor their use of the television, or use the easily available systems to block what they have access to?
For the most part, I'd tend to agree. How the ratings are applied would probably be the tricky part, as I'm not sure who you'd trust to do it fairly. Maybe similar to the way movies are rated (although that's not without its problems), or allow the broadcasters to apply their own ratings with a system in place to examine challenges for "misrated" shows. Maybe even a moderation system, perhaps through Neilson where people could say whether they felt a given rating was appropriate. Honestly, I kind of doubt that broadcasters would go crazy putting racy stuff on with family ratings on it. They still have advertisers to answer to, and I just don't see broadcasters risking advertising accounts by telling "PlaySkool" a show is "Family Friendly" when it's actually something like an episode of "True Blood".
They're also required to hold to certain standards of decency, to ensure that television programming is safe for anyone to watch at any time.
And why are you the arbiter of what's "decent". Why, exactly, is a topless woman "indecent" for the purposes of broadcast, but showing someone being shot in the chest is perfectly fine? How is it that an appointed government body gets to decide what is "decent". No, I don't think I'm missing the point. The fact that you think the government should be in the decency business makes me think that you're the one missing the point.
If you want to see and hear material the rest of us consider offensive, then you have plenty of options. You can buy DVD's, you can subscribe to cable, or you can find it on the Internet. But children should not be exposed to excessive violence, sex, or profanity on the PUBLIC airwaves.
Who the hell are "the rest of us". Why is your view that a girl in a bikini is fine, but a more conservative view that it's "indecent" isn't, or that my view that full nudity isn't indecent is wrong? Why is your view that someone getting shot to death isn't "excessive violence" correct, vs someone who finds it shocking and disturbing? What do you think will happen to viewers of the gunshot-death I just mentioned if the character were to say "Holy shit, you fucking shot me!", instead of "Ouch." before he dies? Maybe we should go to the lowest common denominator then, and only allow children's programming, and educational material that isn't too racy by the most prudish available standards to be broadcast. After all, if you want something they find objectionable you can always buy a DVD, subscribe to cable, or look on the internet. Heaven forbid someone should get (gasp!) offended.
Oh, and for the record, there's virtually nothing that I watch at this point on broadcast channels. For the most part, it's too sanitized, and bores me. My first choice is always video on demand, followed by cable, followed by, rarely, broadcast.
The FCC's brief argues the court ruling would make it almost impossible to punish broadcasters that show nudity or profanity during hours when children are likely to be watching or listening."
Good. The FCC has no business regulating the content of what gets broadcast, only the means of broadcasting it, ie: making sure everyone stays in their licensed frequencies and doesn't stomp on each others transmissions. We're now living in a time where it's trivially easy to block potentially offensive channels, or restrict their use with a code to keep them out of children's reach if their parents don't want them watching. If you don't like that channel X broadcasts unedited showings of "Porkey's", don't watch channel X. You, as a viewer, have no right to expect a government agency to protect you from being offended, and the government has no right to prevent a broadcaster from showing what they choose, or me from watching it if I like.
There are no reports of any Microsoft or default Windows applications containing the bug, so unless you have a specific third party app you're not vulnerable.
Now, given the above, how many of those countries have word "America" in their name? One. The United States of America is the only one. Again, given the above links, how many of those countries have the words "United States" in them? Two, the United States of America, and the United Mexican States. Now, given those little tidbits, which name is the most unambiguous for U.S. citizens, "American", or "United Statesian"? If you choose the latter, why do you think it's okay to write-off Mexico's claim to "United Statesian"?
Ask anyone in South America, we all consider ourselves "Americans". There are countless songs and other cultural productions, created between April 25 of 1507 - August 17 2010 in South America that refer to its inhabitants as "Americans". Everything from Folk songs written 450 years ago, to metal songs written yesterday.
Okay, I just Skype'd my friend Juan in Buenos Aires, and he says you're full of shit. He considers himself Argentinean, and for all he cares the rest of South America can fall off the map. Oh, by "anyone", did you mean "anyone who shares your particular sense of false-outrage"?
Now, ask around in North America, and you'll find that generally we consider you to be "South Americans", which, in English, would never be mistaken for someone calling themselves an "American" (U.S. citizen), or "North American". Does that make any difference to you? Probably not, because, like me, you probably don't care what other people think you should be called. It's what you think you should be called that counts. Here's an interesting difference though; you seem to be outraged by what we call ourselves, whereas I really don't give a shit if you call yourselves "American" or "South American". I am a little confused though why you'd use either of those, as opposed to your actual country of origin, since being Argentinean, or Peruvian, or Brazilian are hardly part of a homogenous group with no significant differences between them. I've never heard Americans, Canadians or Mexicans refer to themselves as "North Americans", except in cases where it's collectively useful (Usually referring to trade or other border related issues). I can't really think of many instances where you'd really need to refer to everyone in the western hemisphere collectively as "Americans".
I really can't agree there. I'd still be inclined to categorize it as a trojan since it's disguised as a music player (even a flawed disguise is still a disguise). In any case, I don't think there's any argument to be made that it isn't malware, and I'd still like to know what name it's being distributed under and who it's coming from....
Also, since we don't really know anything about the app, it's entirely possible that its description explains the SMS access away as having the ability to text your friends what music you're listening to or something. Yeah, it's a dumb feature to want, but I could see some people thinking to themselves that they'd just use the player without using the SMS feature or something.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow.
RACKSPACE IS NOT AN ISP. How much more clear can I be? Rackspace is a HOSTING PROVIDER. THAT IS NOT THE SAME THING AS AN ISP.
AT&T IS AN ISP.
THEY'RE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.
You claimed that Rackspace is also an ISP, but when I asked you to identify what ISP services they provide, you didn't answer. The reason for that is probably that they are not an ISP.
AT&T is a network service provider, and is therefore the focus of net neutrality. So no, that would not be alright with me.
Do you really not understand the difference between a network provider and a hosting provider? Rackspace is a HOSTING provider. They do not own the network. AT&T is a NETWORK provider. This is what we mean by NETWORK Neutrality.
I'm unaware of the part of the discussion where content has been specifically brought up, but that may be a failure of imagination. Who exactly is concerned that ISPs are analyzing packets for content regardless of their source?
Definitely? I could be wrong, but as far as I know Rackspace is a hosting provider and nothing more. Where do they provide ISP services? What type of network services do they provide?
Network neutrality ONLY concerns itself with getting packets from the server to the user, meaning the ISPs. The server and user themselves are not the focus of network neutrality.
whoa there cowboy, network neutrality has NOTHING to do with free speech laws.
Network neutrality only means that a network operator should treat packets the same regardless of source, meaning no "preferred service" to YouTube or degraded service for break.com. The content of the packets, the actual speech part, plays no part at all in this. Rackspace is also not a network provider, they're a hosting service.
There's your mistake. Beck and O'Reilly aren't journalists at all, serious or otherwise. Their shows are opinion pieces, start to finish. They're "serious journalists" in the same way that professional wrestlers are "serious athletes".
FOX should just give up the word news and start calling themselves a "political commentary" channel. That's what they really seem to want to focus on, and what they want to be. Why not just go with that? Note to FOX fans who take this as insulting, this isn't necessarily intended to be a negative thing. If anything, it would probably eliminate a lot of the criticism aimed at FOX News. There's nothing wrong with being a political commentary channel, and you don't need to pretend to hold to some kind of "Fair and Balanced" standard.
There's a difference though, that being RESEARCH. The Bible wasn't based on research of any kind, it was written by people with virtually no understanding of the natural world who were making up stories to explain things that they didn't understand. Pork makes you sick? Guess god hates people who eat pork.
The fact that people were willing to die for their beliefs is completely irrelevant to whether they were actually right or not. Plenty of people from other religions than Christianity have been/are willing to die for their beliefs. They can't all be right.
Your point? Why is Christianity right, as opposed to Islam? They share certain similarities, but I don't think anyone would say they're the same thing.
Okay, so why did god only give the truth to the people living in the middle east, and let all those poor Hindus get the "fake" religion. Does god not like India? Why did he like the people living around Israel so much to tell them and only them the truth?
Yeah, poor Christians. Imagine if only one day a Christian could become President of the United States, or Prime Minister of England, or Prime Minister of Canada, or President of France, or Germany. It's a shame that no major power will elect a Christian to lead them. Oh, wait, I got that backwards, the poor, downtrodden Christians have managed to field heads of state in *all* of those places, and in the United States it's virtually a requirement. Not bad for such a persecuted bunch.
You're the one who brought "him" up.
Or none.
The point isn't whether they're necessary, it's that the Bible claims they used to happen, and yet they don't now. Kind of like how nobody ever has a camera handy when Bigfoot shows up.
The ancient Greeks were just as sure their religion was right as you are sure of yours today.
Hoo-boy, I hope you're not using th
Who exactly ever claimed that peer-review is flawless? It is, however, more likely to catch errors and fraud than the alternative of simply taking a group of superstitious bronze-age people at their word, with no verification at all.
So why is the Bible the right one, as opposed to the Koran, or the vedas? Don't they also match the above criteria?
I have no idea what this means. If you're saying that believing in the existence of Homer is no more unlikely than believing in Jesus, then you're probably right, since Homer wasn't an actual person, but a personification of the works of multiple people. Galileo on the other hand, only goes back to the 1500s/1600s, a time where documentation was much more formal than it would have been around 2000 years ago when the Bible was assembled.
Okay, lets go with that. Why aren't there any "modern proofs". Why is it that the flashy miracles, the walking on water, the bread and fishes, the angels of death, only happened at a point in human history when a) there was no reliable way to record them, and b) at a time in human history when superstition was the norm, and science was still a far-off notion? Why doesn't anyone rise from the dead anymore, why has "witchcraft" suddenly just stopped working, where are the supernatural creatures that used to visit people on a fairly regular basis? I'm going to hazard a guess that it's for the same reason that the Norse pantheon no longer visits Scandinavia, or that the gods of Olympus no longer wage war in Greece, or that leprechauns and pixies no longer populate the British isles and Trolls no longer menace travelers as they cross bridges in Europe. They're all the fantasies of people who hadn't yet learned that there's no such thing as magic.
Why is this so important though? Why, exactly, does having faith in something that's not only unprovable, but staggeringly unlikely, have value? Does God somehow "eat" belief? Is it a form of sustenance? Seems pretty unlikely, since he seemed to do alright for the millions and millions of years before humanity made the scene (lets just leave the whole YEC thing aside for the moment). What's the point then? How is it better to have people scream their unwavering belief in you, while punishing those who don't, than to just say "Yep, here I am, and here are my rules. Ignore them at your own peril" during an in-person appearance on World News Tonight?
Y'know, all things considered, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with you being part of this conversation.......
Granted this is my own personal experience, and therefore doesn't necessarily reflect anyone else's, but:
I have never had anyone walk up to me randomly and say "Hey, I'm an atheist, and you should be too, can I have some of your time to tell you about why you're wrong and I'm right?"
I have, on multiple occasions, had people walk up to me in public places, or even knock on my door, to say "Hi, I'm with $RELIGION, and I'd like to share the good news about how $DEITY loves you, wants you to love him, and will punish you forever if he doesn't get what he wants".
Now, what was that about letting people believe what they will, and not imposing beliefs on others?
Um, do you really not notice a certain glaring contradiction in that paragraph?
I have a more complete response to this in another part of the thread, but the FCC doesn't deal with the legal definition of obscenity. HBO's "True Blood" is absolutely not obscene by the courts definition, therefore, the FCC should allow it to be broadcast, right?
But since we've now established that obscenity in the legal sense, and your own personal definition aren't the same thing, from where do they draw that authority? Thin air is the only answer I've seen so far.
Oh isn't that cute. The constitution doesn't say you have the right to own a laptop computer either. Is it okay to make a law restricting owning one? Really now, that's just a stupid argument. The medium is irrelevant, or do you really, honestly believe that the only protected speech is that which comes from a hand-crank powered printing press as known in the late 1700s?
Great, start your own country, write your own constitution, and say that. If you really like it here, then start the process of amending the constitution to allow the government to have the authority to do that. In the meantime, the constitution that we have doesn't include your right to not be offended.
It would have been very simple to state in the constitution that the right to free speech is limited to speech that is approved of by the community at large, and yet, it's not there. Until such a time comes as an amendment is added to the constitution granting this restriction, it does not exist as a legal ability of the government.
He does, and his materials are available in those stores to adults. An adult bars the child's access to the material. Much like a parent might do when it comes to allowing the child to watch television. Saying that you can't always be there to watch the child would be analogous to saying nobody should be allowed to buy Hustler Magazine because you can't always watch children and prevent them from finding your copies of Hustler.
Which I wouldn't agree with, in my opinion the courts have been very wrong on this issue, but the legal definition of "obscene" goes a whole lot further than saying fuck, or showing a nude body. The FCC regulations do not deal with obscenity in that sense. If it can be shown legally in theaters, and on HBO, it's a pretty safe bet that it comes nowhere near approaching the legal definition of obscenity. In my earlier example using Titanic, that movie simply can not be shown in its entirety on broadcast TV. There is no way though that it would fail the Miller Test and be considered obscene material. Therefore, even under the badly flawed definitions that the courts have allowed, the FCC has gone off on its own and created much more broad restrictions of what is allowable. I ask again, where does the authority come from to do this?
True enough. I suppose as long as there's *someone* to appeal to, even if it's the courts, that would probably work well enough.
I dunno, those commercials have sharpened my reflexes to superhuman levels. I can hit that mute button so fast that I violate the laws of physics. :)
And this is the United States Constitution, amendment 1:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Do you see anything there that implies that this amendment is somehow limited to things that aren't offensive? Does it say anything about "except for obscene or indecent"? The Constitution trumps ALL other laws, local, state or federal. Unless you can show me a constitutional basis for the government being allowed to censor speech due to offensive content, your link means only that the government has overstepped its bounds.
Yep. What exactly do you think will happen if that were the case? Broadcasters aren't going to try to trick you into listening to or watching things you don't want to see or hear. Since they rely on sponsors, I seriously doubt they'd change much of anything. Most corporate radio has far stricter rules for what the company will allow to broadcast than the FCC's own regulations. Why? Sponsors. They're terrified of getting complaints and losing ad revenue. If though you should flip through the dial and hear someone say "fuck" before you change the station, don't worry, your head won't explode and your children won't die.
Unless someone can come up with a reason why FCC content regulations aren't unconstitutional, removing that ability is the only answer. Our government is not meant to be able to say "except in this case" when the rules it's boud by are inconvenient.
I want to remove them as the issuing body has no authority to put them in place to start with. If you want a nice safe clean medium, pay for it. Stick to podcasts, get a satellite radio, but you do not have a constitutional right to not be offended, and the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to decide matters of content.
You ignored every question I asked you, why is that?
I'm not seeing the problem here. Parents are supposed to protect their children.
But not to an adult. By censoring what is allowed to be broadcast, you're deciding what adults can have as well, and that's where the problem lies.
Really? Could you define an "immoral act" for me? How about letting a child watch a news report about Enron, that was pretty immoral.
bullshit.
So because you can't put your portable TV on a shelf that a 6 year old can't reach, and you couldn't be bothered to activate the v-chip settings on that TV, we all have stick with programming that's appropriate for 6 year olds.
Please explain how "decency standards" trump the United States Constitution. A real explanation please, not just "think of the children".
Again, I fail to see how this allows for a government agency to determine "decency", let alone implement it.
ooooo, I sense a "but" coming.
So really, you don't like over-regulation, except for when you do.
And yet, one is allowed on broadcast TV, and the other is not.
Sorry, I missed the portion of the Constitution that says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; except when use of those freedoms might offend or otherwise make someone uncomfortable". So, do tell me, upon what do you base this belief that the government holds such a right?
What makes you think I want to see "disgusting filth"? Is the scene from Titanic where Rose poses for a portrait without a top on "disgusting filth"? Further, what damage do you feel would be caused to children who see this? What makes you think all nudity should be treated the same as hard-core pornography?
The government didn't take away James Cameron's right to present Titanic over the air without censorship? Again, the government has no "right" that I'm aware of to censor a work, but an artist does have the right to present that work without censorship.
So what are you saying here? Due to the fact that a child *might* stumble into adult programming, none should be allowed? If this is really about protecting the innocent little children, why does it only apply to broadcast television? What if a child accidentally turns on HBO? What if a child accidentally sees a copy of Penthouse? And have you seen what's on this internet thing? My god, the very existence of these things threatens childhood as we know it! How about, if you have children, you either monitor their use of the television, or use the easily available systems to block what they have access to?
For the most part, I'd tend to agree. How the ratings are applied would probably be the tricky part, as I'm not sure who you'd trust to do it fairly. Maybe similar to the way movies are rated (although that's not without its problems), or allow the broadcasters to apply their own ratings with a system in place to examine challenges for "misrated" shows. Maybe even a moderation system, perhaps through Neilson where people could say whether they felt a given rating was appropriate. Honestly, I kind of doubt that broadcasters would go crazy putting racy stuff on with family ratings on it. They still have advertisers to answer to, and I just don't see broadcasters risking advertising accounts by telling "PlaySkool" a show is "Family Friendly" when it's actually something like an episode of "True Blood".
And why are you the arbiter of what's "decent". Why, exactly, is a topless woman "indecent" for the purposes of broadcast, but showing someone being shot in the chest is perfectly fine? How is it that an appointed government body gets to decide what is "decent". No, I don't think I'm missing the point. The fact that you think the government should be in the decency business makes me think that you're the one missing the point.
Who the hell are "the rest of us". Why is your view that a girl in a bikini is fine, but a more conservative view that it's "indecent" isn't, or that my view that full nudity isn't indecent is wrong? Why is your view that someone getting shot to death isn't "excessive violence" correct, vs someone who finds it shocking and disturbing? What do you think will happen to viewers of the gunshot-death I just mentioned if the character were to say "Holy shit, you fucking shot me!", instead of "Ouch." before he dies? Maybe we should go to the lowest common denominator then, and only allow children's programming, and educational material that isn't too racy by the most prudish available standards to be broadcast. After all, if you want something they find objectionable you can always buy a DVD, subscribe to cable, or look on the internet. Heaven forbid someone should get (gasp!) offended.
Oh, and for the record, there's virtually nothing that I watch at this point on broadcast channels. For the most part, it's too sanitized, and bores me. My first choice is always video on demand, followed by cable, followed by, rarely, broadcast.
Good. The FCC has no business regulating the content of what gets broadcast, only the means of broadcasting it, ie: making sure everyone stays in their licensed frequencies and doesn't stomp on each others transmissions.
We're now living in a time where it's trivially easy to block potentially offensive channels, or restrict their use with a code to keep them out of children's reach if their parents don't want them watching. If you don't like that channel X broadcasts unedited showings of "Porkey's", don't watch channel X. You, as a viewer, have no right to expect a government agency to protect you from being offended, and the government has no right to prevent a broadcaster from showing what they choose, or me from watching it if I like.
This is one of the best opportunities I've seen lately to use either "Insightful" or "Informative" mods to be mean.....
Ummmmmm; "According to Moore, at least one Microsoft executable -- "explorer.exe," the Windows shell -- includes the flaw."
I'm pretty sure your Windows machine has explorer.exe loaded by default.
North American countries
South American countries
Now, given the above, how many of those countries have word "America" in their name? One. The United States of America is the only one.
Again, given the above links, how many of those countries have the words "United States" in them? Two, the United States of America, and the United Mexican States.
Now, given those little tidbits, which name is the most unambiguous for U.S. citizens, "American", or "United Statesian"? If you choose the latter, why do you think it's okay to write-off Mexico's claim to "United Statesian"?
Okay, I just Skype'd my friend Juan in Buenos Aires, and he says you're full of shit. He considers himself Argentinean, and for all he cares the rest of South America can fall off the map. Oh, by "anyone", did you mean "anyone who shares your particular sense of false-outrage"?
Now, ask around in North America, and you'll find that generally we consider you to be "South Americans", which, in English, would never be mistaken for someone calling themselves an "American" (U.S. citizen), or "North American". Does that make any difference to you? Probably not, because, like me, you probably don't care what other people think you should be called. It's what you think you should be called that counts. Here's an interesting difference though; you seem to be outraged by what we call ourselves, whereas I really don't give a shit if you call yourselves "American" or "South American". I am a little confused though why you'd use either of those, as opposed to your actual country of origin, since being Argentinean, or Peruvian, or Brazilian are hardly part of a homogenous group with no significant differences between them. I've never heard Americans, Canadians or Mexicans refer to themselves as "North Americans", except in cases where it's collectively useful (Usually referring to trade or other border related issues). I can't really think of many instances where you'd really need to refer to everyone in the western hemisphere collectively as "Americans".
I really can't agree there. I'd still be inclined to categorize it as a trojan since it's disguised as a music player (even a flawed disguise is still a disguise). In any case, I don't think there's any argument to be made that it isn't malware, and I'd still like to know what name it's being distributed under and who it's coming from....
Also, since we don't really know anything about the app, it's entirely possible that its description explains the SMS access away as having the ability to text your friends what music you're listening to or something. Yeah, it's a dumb feature to want, but I could see some people thinking to themselves that they'd just use the player without using the SMS feature or something.