How does this system behave in cold weather? Sometimes, I want the car running for a while, either to power the heater or to just warm up the engine before I take it on the road?
This feature will flop in florida et al. No engine, no a/c.
You can buy and sell things so long as you can barter with someone. Making the currency electronic and requiring implanted RFID devices to make transactions will make one's life difficult, but it won't close the barter loophole - and, as in any case of regulation, a shadow economy would inevitably arise, with its own currency (likely gold and other precious metals and stones). So you'd still need a law either way.
Yeah, this is the consensus. That christians will have to find other ways to get what they need. I suspect it will be a lot like nazi germany. There were some non-jewish germans who helped the jews. I think a black market will be a lot harder with a modern surveillance society, but certainly not impossible. The bible clearly says that there will be christians who make it all the way through the tribulation alive. This means 3.5 years on the run. They must be eating something, even if it's been provided supernaturally.
> I believe that Jeffery Dahmer is in heaven. This is because he was saved shortly before he was killed in prison
You're assuming he actually changed and was actually forgiven - something you won't really know unless you meet him in heaven or hell. There's no faith-o-meter that can tell you beforehand which way someone is going, whether they're just saying the words or they really mean it. If there can be "bad christians", that means there can also be insincere conversions.
Of course you're right. There's no way to be sure. But I've seen an interview with the pastor who met him in prison. It was his opinion that his acceptance of christ was sincere. And I have no reason to doubt that.
Yes, but meanwhile they are happy to wear the mark of greed.
The christian community has the exact same problems that the non-christians have. There's divorce, incest, child molestations, theft, lying, cheating... everything. If you look at the statistics, there's really not much outward difference between christians and non-christians.
There's a lot of reasons for this. There are huge numbers of people who call themselves christians, but really aren't any different from other people. Maybe they believe. But they don't go to church, and more or less behave like they're not christians. But everyone looks at people like that and says, see? The christians are hypocrites! Is this person really a christian?
Then there's the christians who really are making an effort to behave in a christ-like manner. But this is spectacularly difficult. So difficult that no one can really do this 100%. So people make their best effort with varying degrees of success. They make mistakes, some small, some big. They recognize what happened, apologize to those affected, repent, and do their best to not repeat the mistake, which sometimes happens and sometimes not. When these people make mistakes, the reaction from non-christians is the same. See?! Hypocrites! Christianity is BS! But what these non-christians should be doing is indicting the person and not the religion.
Christianity isn't about never sinning again, although that is the goal. In fact, it's safe to assume that never sinning again is impossible. In the end, it doesn't matter who has sinned how much, if this person has sinned more or less than that person who got into heaven or who didn't. In the end, all that matters is faith in jesus. You either have it or you don't.
To drive the point home, I believe that Jeffery Dahmer is in heaven. This is because he was saved shortly before he was killed in prison. Some people would react with shock and indignation to this. After all, why would someone so awful be allowed into heaven? But christians have a different perspective. If even someone as bad as Jeffery Dahmer can be forgiven, then so can I.
Can you explain how this equates to a "one-world cashless financial system where the government can approve or deny any transaction in real-time"? It would seem to me that a much more trivial interpretation would be a law enacted such that no-one can trade with people not bearing the "mark".
I think it's reasonable to make an attempt to line up today's technology with the prophecy. If you simply passed a law, what's to stop people from circumventing the law? When it says "no one can buy or sell, I read that as no one is able to buy or sell. In other words, it's impossible.
The prophecy quite specifically talks about a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. It would seem that implanting an RFID chip into the left hand should not pose any problem to Christians.
I think christians approach this from a different angle. Rather than say that anything in the left hand is ok, I think we say that it's going to be in the right hand (or forehead) because that's what's written there. In other words, you can speculate that somewhere along the way, we might be offered something in the left hand. But I doubt that will happen at all. But this tends to be a touchy subject for most (real) christians, hence the aversion to anything that even remotely looks like the mark.
There's a lot of debate in christian circles what the meaning of the mark is. Some say it's some sort of tattoo or barcode. Others say that it's purely a spiritual mark and not really something that is manifested here in this world. But I think it would be impossible to control commerce with a purely spiritual mark. So I take a more pragmatic approach. The goal of the antichrist is to flush out the christians so that they can be killed. What better way than to deny us the ability to eat or work or have a place to live? The problem with all this isn't so much the actual mark or participating in the beast financial system. The problem is that you have to swear allegiance to the antichrist. At that point in time, you'll have to make a choice between Jesus and the antichrist. And there will be no middle ground. You're either in our you're out. And being out is really bad news for eternity.
It (the beast/the antichrist together with the false prophet) also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
Sounds pretty clear to me. You'll find that christians will most likely happily go to their death before agreeing to an implanted RFID (or similar) chip used to facilitate buying and selling.
The article basically describes RFID tech capable of being built into money. These RFIDs can be read at any point-of-sale cash register. No? Give the government a year or so, as this is the real purpose of all of this--tracking every fucking dollar spent (not to mention the person doing the spending).
As with any RFID system, use your microwave oven liberally. 5 seconds is usually enough. If enough people do this, the whole scheme falls apart as constant "counterfeits" will be a deterrent to doing business and people won't trust the RFID pass/fail determintation. Besides, what happens if your hundred-dollar bill RFID malfunctions (from, say, being crumpled up in a pocket while going through the washer?) and no longer communicates? Are you out a hundred bucks? Will the clerk waiting for you to pay for a full shopping cart of groceries care?
It isn't a collar unless you let them put it on you.
As a christian, stories about tracking purchases are very interesting to me. End-time prophecies say that we'll eventually end up with a one-world cashless financial system where the government can approve or deny any transaction in real-time. Say something bad about the government? Associate with the wrong people? Refuse to take this mark that says you agree to worship the mandated one-world religion instead of whoever you want? No transaction for you... and the police will be there in a moment. Please remain calm.
Just 30 years ago, none of us thought this would be in our lifetimes. After all, who could imagine stringing together 1,000,000 apple 2Es over phone lines to make this work? Now? I think I could design the system myself. We're not supposed to set dates. But at least this part of the puzzle can happen pretty much right now.
Ordinarily, I'd think about this stuff and feel a sense of dread. But I'll be gone when all this happens. It's you non-christians who get to deal with that mess.;-)
The thing that floors me is that people get hit by trains. TRAINS! We're talking like five-thousand plus tons of steel rumbling down a track, and people don't notice. How is this even possible? How self-absorbed do you have to be to notice a freaking TRAIN. I used to live not far from a freight line and the whole bloody ground shook when a train went by...
I live in the chicago area. And people do indeed get hit by trains of a fairly regular basis. And I'll explain how it happens.
It's very difficult to get hit by a train at my station. My station has only one track. Farther out in the suburbs, most of the trains are inbound in the morning and outbound in the evening. There's a few places with double tracks and points where trains going the other direction can let other trains pass. At most stations, there are parking lots on both sides of the track. When my train stops, people get out, then walk behind the train, crossing the tracks, so they can get to their car. They do this with the arms down and lights going. This is arguably safe because there's one train and one track, and the train is heading the other direction. So it's impossible to get hit by a train unless the train backs up. And trains aren't exactly known for their acceleration. Of course, this doesn't stop the local police from writing tickets for this behavior.:-/
Closer in to downtown, the train stations have two or more tracks. Here's how people get hit. Their train stops and they get out. The arms are down and flashing. They cross both sets of tracks behind the train. They think it's safe because the train is stopped and will go the other way. What they don't see is the express training passing next to their train on the other track. They think it's their train causing the lights and arms to come down. Their view of the express train is blocked by their stopped train. And they can't hear the train horn because of the crossing arm bell, and the sound is blocked by the stopped train. In this way, people will step in to the path of a 50mph express train. The result is body parts scattered everywhere.
There's also the occasional suicide which can be accomplished at any station where express trains don't stop.
Care to tell me what a blind person is doing alone in a parking lot? Looking for his car?
Blind people drive all the time. You should know this. Ever seen the braille between the lanes? When blind people drive, they open the door and drag their fingers on the ground. Why else would they have braille on drive-up ATM machines?
This is actually an old story. Originally marketing and PR firms noted that cars produce distinctive engine noise that promote the label and with electric cars this would be gone, hence they worked on the idea of electric cars making marketing driving noise and seeking excuses to force it on customers.
ooooooohh, you're a genius! I'm replacing my car horn with a really loud "RENT THIS AD SPACE!" Then, someone could rent the space and replace it with "DRINK COCA-COLA!" I could charge buckets of money each month! Then I could have a lobbyist bribe members of congress to pass a law requiring everyone to have it as a safety feature (think of the children). Of course, we'd also need a device to make sure you're honking the horn enough. Or maybe charge per honk.
I'm beginning to think maybe the Amish got it right.
Even ignoring the fact that the woman's underwear was apparently visible from the street in the first place and it never bothered her. This reeks of unhealthy paranoia to me, is Google really responsible for one woman's mental issues?
Japan has had problems overcoming a few cultural problems. When I was there back in the 80s, it was common and even condoned, for men to grope women on trains. In a lot of cases, people are packed like sardines into the trains. So a man could literally plant his hand on a body part and leave it there until the next train stop, with the woman unable to do anything about it, and everyone around her unable or unwilling to help. This actually happened to my mother on a few occasions.
This is the land that has vending machines for used ladies' underwear. I think there's definitely a reasonable worry that this photo might end up being used by someone for something creepy. Maybe she is overreacting to the perceived danger. But I can definitely see how she'd be creeped out by this. Maybe google's attitude with street view is a little inconsiderate given Japan's culture.
I understand not wanting pictures of your underwear online, but she didn't seem to have a problem hanging it in her front yard.
In my eyes, any legitimacy she had was lost when she sued first instead of just asking to have it blurred or removed.
I spent a few years in Japan. It's actually quite possible that she would assume that no one would look at them out of common courtesy. To give you an idea how Japanese culture works, here's a story. Once, shortly after we arrived in Japan (we had been there only a few days iirc), we were traveling on a highway when we came to something like a toll plaza or something we'd call an oasis. A bus had stopped there, and about 10 men got out of the bus, lined up facing a wall, and began to urinate in public. My mother was laughing at the sight, and suggested that this would be considered rude in the US. The guide said that in Japan, it would be considered rude to notice.
I think American sensibilities would lead people to keep things like that hidden if it worried them. But this just might not be the case in other cultures like Japan.
...because God promised that he wouldn't flood the earth again. (Despite some more barbaric claims in Revelation that He will indeed come back to destroy the world, and the claim that the rainbow is a symbol of God's promise, instead of a result of light refraction.)
God is supernatural. The very definition of that word means that God is outside of nature. Because of this, God can either work within or without the confines of nature to affect his will. In other words, God could strike you dead by making a piano materialize over your head. Or he could simply allow you to catch aids through your lifestyle and die that way.
Did people 4000 years ago understand that a rainbow comes from refracted light? No. Could God have used light refraction to implement a rainbow? Yes. Remember that the world before the flood was wildly different than it is now. It had never rained before the flood. (water for plants and animals came from other sources) So a rainbow would indeed be a new phenomenon for people here on earth. (People often think this is far too fantastic to be true. But how many weird planets are their in our universe? And how much of a astronomical change would it take to turn our planet into something very different?)
You're right that the bible predicts that the earth will be destroyed by God's judgments. But I think it's important to note that it's humans and their free will that brought these judgments upon the planet. Who is responsible then?
I had an interesting conversation on a christian forum discussing the 2012 "prophecies" and such. The book of revelation describes a lot of events during the tribulation that result in destruction here on earth. A few in particular seem like accurate descriptions of large meteor strikes. One describes something "like a large fiery mountain crashing into the sea." We wondered whether this event would be 100% supernatural in origin, whether God would simply bump an asteroid in our direction depending on our behavior, or whether this asteroid is currently on an intercept course because he already knows the outcome of our behavior. It could be any of those. One of the events associated with 2012 is the galactic crossing where we're supposed to cross through the plane of the galaxy. What if the galaxy contains a saturn-style ring full of space junk? Some of them could be the size of small planets. They could pass through the solar system disrupting orbits, the axis of rotation, even the rotational speed of the earth. Then again, it could just all be supernatural in origin.
Anyway, time is running out. Christians will disappear soon and whoever's left gets to deal with all these unpleasantries. It will be so bad that people will wish for death. Of course, death will bring something far worse than life here under those conditions. Repent or else.
I think there is a part of the Bible that says the only unforgivable sin, the only thing that can keep you from going to heaven, is the complete and absolute rejection of God.
This is true. The only unforgivable sin is the rejection of salvation. But this is because you won't allow yourself to be saved.
However, since God is infinite and unknowable you can't really reject him completely.
Hell is full of people who rejected Jesus. It's not so much rejecting the full knowledge of God as it is rejecting salvation.
You can reject the parts you know about, but not the parts you don't know about. You might not even want to reject those parts if you did know about them. Ergo, no one goes to hell.
Jesus clearly said on a number of occasions that there is a hell and many (even most) will go there.
And where did you get this idea? The descriptions I've read in the bible are far from boring.
Hell is suffering,
Understatement of eternity.
I would rather take another chance at life and Re-incarnate, of course it would be nice to retain ALL my memories of the past life so I could learn from experience and not make the same mistakes twice.
I wouldn't. This is an awful place. I don't ever want to come back here again.
But what if the Evil guy had won and then says He is the good guy?
What if the Evil guy didn't win, but led people to believe that he had? Or that he was the good guy? Or that he didn't even exist?
If I were the evil guy, I certainly would mess with peoples head and say that I was good, although I was evil.
Isn't that what Satan does? And where does God ever behave this way? If we have free will, and someone does something evil, who is responsible? God for allowing it? Or the person for doing evil? If God intervened, we wouldn't have free will anymore.
Say to two different persons that I am their only God and kill the other one and see who wins. Just because I can.
Or how about God telling everyone that he is their only God, and Satan telling the people who won't listen that some other gods are the true way, or that there is no God?
All the while the Devil who tries to come back, I will tell the worst stories about. And all the the Devil want to do is you to have fun.
There are practical reasons for the rules. While it may just be having fun to you, there are serious real-world consequences that you could never predict or know about. Why not pick up a girl and have some fun tonight? Oh, you got HPV. 10 years later, oh my wife has HPV. Oh, my baby got HPV during delivery and died from complications. Oh man, I have penile cancer now and there's only one treatment for that. All because of a night of fun. If only there were a set of rules I could live by that could protect me from these kinds of unintended consequences...
Or is this just a matter that absolute power corrupts absolutely?
This applies to humans, not God.
Anyway. Nice and entertaining stories. Lots of violence and sex, so great to turn into movies.
I sincerely hope you figure out the truth before it's too late.
Oh, I did not mean Satan with the guy responsible for this. Any god condemning a single soul to infiinte punishment for a finite transgression is pure evil. That one would be the target in this unlikely case.
What's the difference between finite and infinite?
It's not God condemning you to an eternity in hell, you condemn yourself through your actions (or inaction).
If I believed that there was a good chance that after I died I would be thrown into a lake of fire and otherwise punished for the rest of eternity, you can bet your sorry ass that I would be scared shitless of dying. Yes yes if you're good you get to go to heaven, but what if you accidentally committed a mortal sin without realizing it or something?
Actually, getting into heaven has nothing to do with being good. You only have to be saved. Jeffery Dahmer was saved shortly before he died. I fully expect to see him there. Some might wonder what kind of god would allow "justice" like this, that a serial killer would be allowed into heaven! But I see it differently. If God can save a serial killer, he can save anyone.
After all, if you read the Bible, God is nothing if not capricious; how can you know that when He said "No mixed fabrics!", He didn't really mean it?
This is the age of grace, and as saved christians, the law does not apply to us. Of course, without Jesus, you're still under the law. Which is why you'll never make it.
What if you really are supposed to believe in the Miracle of Transubstantiation, reality be damned? It's just so uncertain.
This is a catholic thing. Not all christians believe in this. Please stop lumping us all together.
Fortunately there's no hell, so there's no worries on that front. Honestly, I can't for the life of me see why theists think that religion brings peace and comfort. What is any amount of Earthly reassurance, in the face of the threat of infinite torture? (take that, Pascal!)
I don't fear death, because I know where I'm going. And I find great comfort and reassurance in that right here.
Those of us paying attention knew exactly what he was, but voting for McCain/Palin was simply out of the question.
I wasn't aware that Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin were the only two choices on the 2008 ballot.
I wasn't aware that there was any difference between McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden, or that anyone else could have won an election in this country and lived to tell about it.
In short, Ms. Napolitano clearly has not thought this through. Either that or she has thought it through and she's just the biggest idiot on the face of the planet.
Or maybe, this all has nothing to do with security or stopping terrorism. And she isn't really in control.
Persecuting a TSA dumbass for following an illegal order is probably the worst way of effecting change.
I disagree. If your employer ordered you to murder someone, you'd be charged with the crime also. We absolutely need to throw the grunts under a bus. This might wake up the rest of them and make them quit.
Do you understand that the problem is at the top of the pyramid? The problem is the people at the top and the policies they are crafting. Not the rank and file guys following these ridiculous policies.
They were only following orders. Godwin indeed.
By no means am I condoning the activity, but stringing up the first TSA grunt that gropes the wrong person is ridiculous. That dudes life will be absolutely and utterly destroyed for following what he believe to be legal and lawful instructions. I'm saying we should prevent the groping from happening in the first place.
You're right that it should be stopped from the top. But the grunt should know better and quit.
Maybe not so massive. I've been a christian for quite a while and have yet to meet a single person that advocates anything like a theocracy. Most will simply encourage you to vote democrat or republican depending on whether they think feeding the poor or stopping abortion is more important. But don't let a silly thing like reality get in the way of your rants.
On move-in day, each item is a carry-on and subject to a baggage fee of $50. You can't have an airplane without junk fees!
Worse than that, does she have to go through security every time she comes home? Does she have to put on her seat belt every time she sits down? Did she reuse the airplane bathrooms? Does turbulence occasionally throw her out of bed? No more than six ounces of liquid allowed in the house?
"Sorry I'm late. It took me an extra 20 minutes to get clearance from the tower before I could push back from the garage."
Slashdot Mirror
How does this system behave in cold weather? Sometimes, I want the car running for a while, either to power the heater or to just warm up the engine before I take it on the road?
This feature will flop in florida et al. No engine, no a/c.
You can buy and sell things so long as you can barter with someone. Making the currency electronic and requiring implanted RFID devices to make transactions will make one's life difficult, but it won't close the barter loophole - and, as in any case of regulation, a shadow economy would inevitably arise, with its own currency (likely gold and other precious metals and stones). So you'd still need a law either way.
Yeah, this is the consensus. That christians will have to find other ways to get what they need. I suspect it will be a lot like nazi germany. There were some non-jewish germans who helped the jews. I think a black market will be a lot harder with a modern surveillance society, but certainly not impossible. The bible clearly says that there will be christians who make it all the way through the tribulation alive. This means 3.5 years on the run. They must be eating something, even if it's been provided supernaturally.
> I believe that Jeffery Dahmer is in heaven. This is because he was saved shortly before he was killed in prison
You're assuming he actually changed and was actually forgiven - something you won't really know unless you meet him in heaven or hell. There's no faith-o-meter that can tell you beforehand which way someone is going, whether they're just saying the words or they really mean it. If there can be "bad christians", that means there can also be insincere conversions.
Of course you're right. There's no way to be sure. But I've seen an interview with the pastor who met him in prison. It was his opinion that his acceptance of christ was sincere. And I have no reason to doubt that.
Yes, but meanwhile they are happy to wear the mark of greed.
The christian community has the exact same problems that the non-christians have. There's divorce, incest, child molestations, theft, lying, cheating... everything. If you look at the statistics, there's really not much outward difference between christians and non-christians.
There's a lot of reasons for this. There are huge numbers of people who call themselves christians, but really aren't any different from other people. Maybe they believe. But they don't go to church, and more or less behave like they're not christians. But everyone looks at people like that and says, see? The christians are hypocrites! Is this person really a christian?
Then there's the christians who really are making an effort to behave in a christ-like manner. But this is spectacularly difficult. So difficult that no one can really do this 100%. So people make their best effort with varying degrees of success. They make mistakes, some small, some big. They recognize what happened, apologize to those affected, repent, and do their best to not repeat the mistake, which sometimes happens and sometimes not. When these people make mistakes, the reaction from non-christians is the same. See?! Hypocrites! Christianity is BS! But what these non-christians should be doing is indicting the person and not the religion.
Christianity isn't about never sinning again, although that is the goal. In fact, it's safe to assume that never sinning again is impossible. In the end, it doesn't matter who has sinned how much, if this person has sinned more or less than that person who got into heaven or who didn't. In the end, all that matters is faith in jesus. You either have it or you don't.
To drive the point home, I believe that Jeffery Dahmer is in heaven. This is because he was saved shortly before he was killed in prison. Some people would react with shock and indignation to this. After all, why would someone so awful be allowed into heaven? But christians have a different perspective. If even someone as bad as Jeffery Dahmer can be forgiven, then so can I.
Can you explain how this equates to a "one-world cashless financial system where the government can approve or deny any transaction in real-time"? It would seem to me that a much more trivial interpretation would be a law enacted such that no-one can trade with people not bearing the "mark".
I think it's reasonable to make an attempt to line up today's technology with the prophecy. If you simply passed a law, what's to stop people from circumventing the law? When it says "no one can buy or sell, I read that as no one is able to buy or sell. In other words, it's impossible.
The prophecy quite specifically talks about a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. It would seem that implanting an RFID chip into the left hand should not pose any problem to Christians.
I think christians approach this from a different angle. Rather than say that anything in the left hand is ok, I think we say that it's going to be in the right hand (or forehead) because that's what's written there. In other words, you can speculate that somewhere along the way, we might be offered something in the left hand. But I doubt that will happen at all. But this tends to be a touchy subject for most (real) christians, hence the aversion to anything that even remotely looks like the mark.
There's a lot of debate in christian circles what the meaning of the mark is. Some say it's some sort of tattoo or barcode. Others say that it's purely a spiritual mark and not really something that is manifested here in this world. But I think it would be impossible to control commerce with a purely spiritual mark. So I take a more pragmatic approach. The goal of the antichrist is to flush out the christians so that they can be killed. What better way than to deny us the ability to eat or work or have a place to live? The problem with all this isn't so much the actual mark or participating in the beast financial system. The problem is that you have to swear allegiance to the antichrist. At that point in time, you'll have to make a choice between Jesus and the antichrist. And there will be no middle ground. You're either in our you're out. And being out is really bad news for eternity.
Not without a lot of baseless guesswork, they don't.
Revelation 13:16-17
It (the beast/the antichrist together with the false prophet) also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
Sounds pretty clear to me. You'll find that christians will most likely happily go to their death before agreeing to an implanted RFID (or similar) chip used to facilitate buying and selling.
Was. (if this idiocy is implemented)
The article basically describes RFID tech capable of being built into money. These RFIDs can be read at any point-of-sale cash register. No? Give the government a year or so, as this is the real purpose of all of this--tracking every fucking dollar spent (not to mention the person doing the spending).
As with any RFID system, use your microwave oven liberally. 5 seconds is usually enough. If enough people do this, the whole scheme falls apart as constant "counterfeits" will be a deterrent to doing business and people won't trust the RFID pass/fail determintation. Besides, what happens if your hundred-dollar bill RFID malfunctions (from, say, being crumpled up in a pocket while going through the washer?) and no longer communicates? Are you out a hundred bucks? Will the clerk waiting for you to pay for a full shopping cart of groceries care?
It isn't a collar unless you let them put it on you.
As a christian, stories about tracking purchases are very interesting to me. End-time prophecies say that we'll eventually end up with a one-world cashless financial system where the government can approve or deny any transaction in real-time. Say something bad about the government? Associate with the wrong people? Refuse to take this mark that says you agree to worship the mandated one-world religion instead of whoever you want? No transaction for you... and the police will be there in a moment. Please remain calm.
Just 30 years ago, none of us thought this would be in our lifetimes. After all, who could imagine stringing together 1,000,000 apple 2Es over phone lines to make this work? Now? I think I could design the system myself. We're not supposed to set dates. But at least this part of the puzzle can happen pretty much right now.
Ordinarily, I'd think about this stuff and feel a sense of dread. But I'll be gone when all this happens. It's you non-christians who get to deal with that mess. ;-)
The thing that floors me is that people get hit by trains. TRAINS! We're talking like five-thousand plus tons of steel rumbling down a track, and people don't notice. How is this even possible? How self-absorbed do you have to be to notice a freaking TRAIN. I used to live not far from a freight line and the whole bloody ground shook when a train went by...
I live in the chicago area. And people do indeed get hit by trains of a fairly regular basis. And I'll explain how it happens.
It's very difficult to get hit by a train at my station. My station has only one track. Farther out in the suburbs, most of the trains are inbound in the morning and outbound in the evening. There's a few places with double tracks and points where trains going the other direction can let other trains pass. At most stations, there are parking lots on both sides of the track. When my train stops, people get out, then walk behind the train, crossing the tracks, so they can get to their car. They do this with the arms down and lights going. This is arguably safe because there's one train and one track, and the train is heading the other direction. So it's impossible to get hit by a train unless the train backs up. And trains aren't exactly known for their acceleration. Of course, this doesn't stop the local police from writing tickets for this behavior. :-/
Closer in to downtown, the train stations have two or more tracks. Here's how people get hit. Their train stops and they get out. The arms are down and flashing. They cross both sets of tracks behind the train. They think it's safe because the train is stopped and will go the other way. What they don't see is the express training passing next to their train on the other track. They think it's their train causing the lights and arms to come down. Their view of the express train is blocked by their stopped train. And they can't hear the train horn because of the crossing arm bell, and the sound is blocked by the stopped train. In this way, people will step in to the path of a 50mph express train. The result is body parts scattered everywhere.
There's also the occasional suicide which can be accomplished at any station where express trains don't stop.
Care to tell me what a blind person is doing alone in a parking lot? Looking for his car?
Blind people drive all the time. You should know this. Ever seen the braille between the lanes? When blind people drive, they open the door and drag their fingers on the ground. Why else would they have braille on drive-up ATM machines?
This is actually an old story. Originally marketing and PR firms noted that cars produce distinctive engine noise that promote the label and with electric cars this would be gone, hence they worked on the idea of electric cars making marketing driving noise and seeking excuses to force it on customers.
ooooooohh, you're a genius! I'm replacing my car horn with a really loud "RENT THIS AD SPACE!" Then, someone could rent the space and replace it with "DRINK COCA-COLA!" I could charge buckets of money each month! Then I could have a lobbyist bribe members of congress to pass a law requiring everyone to have it as a safety feature (think of the children). Of course, we'd also need a device to make sure you're honking the horn enough. Or maybe charge per honk.
I'm beginning to think maybe the Amish got it right.
Even ignoring the fact that the woman's underwear was apparently visible from the street in the first place and it never bothered her. This reeks of unhealthy paranoia to me, is Google really responsible for one woman's mental issues?
Japan has had problems overcoming a few cultural problems. When I was there back in the 80s, it was common and even condoned, for men to grope women on trains. In a lot of cases, people are packed like sardines into the trains. So a man could literally plant his hand on a body part and leave it there until the next train stop, with the woman unable to do anything about it, and everyone around her unable or unwilling to help. This actually happened to my mother on a few occasions.
This is the land that has vending machines for used ladies' underwear. I think there's definitely a reasonable worry that this photo might end up being used by someone for something creepy. Maybe she is overreacting to the perceived danger. But I can definitely see how she'd be creeped out by this. Maybe google's attitude with street view is a little inconsiderate given Japan's culture.
I understand not wanting pictures of your underwear online, but she didn't seem to have a problem hanging it in her front yard.
In my eyes, any legitimacy she had was lost when she sued first instead of just asking to have it blurred or removed.
I spent a few years in Japan. It's actually quite possible that she would assume that no one would look at them out of common courtesy. To give you an idea how Japanese culture works, here's a story. Once, shortly after we arrived in Japan (we had been there only a few days iirc), we were traveling on a highway when we came to something like a toll plaza or something we'd call an oasis. A bus had stopped there, and about 10 men got out of the bus, lined up facing a wall, and began to urinate in public. My mother was laughing at the sight, and suggested that this would be considered rude in the US. The guide said that in Japan, it would be considered rude to notice.
I think American sensibilities would lead people to keep things like that hidden if it worried them. But this just might not be the case in other cultures like Japan.
God is supernatural. The very definition of that word means that God is outside of nature. Because of this, God can either work within or without the confines of nature to affect his will. In other words, God could strike you dead by making a piano materialize over your head. Or he could simply allow you to catch aids through your lifestyle and die that way.
Did people 4000 years ago understand that a rainbow comes from refracted light? No. Could God have used light refraction to implement a rainbow? Yes. Remember that the world before the flood was wildly different than it is now. It had never rained before the flood. (water for plants and animals came from other sources) So a rainbow would indeed be a new phenomenon for people here on earth. (People often think this is far too fantastic to be true. But how many weird planets are their in our universe? And how much of a astronomical change would it take to turn our planet into something very different?)
You're right that the bible predicts that the earth will be destroyed by God's judgments. But I think it's important to note that it's humans and their free will that brought these judgments upon the planet. Who is responsible then?
I had an interesting conversation on a christian forum discussing the 2012 "prophecies" and such. The book of revelation describes a lot of events during the tribulation that result in destruction here on earth. A few in particular seem like accurate descriptions of large meteor strikes. One describes something "like a large fiery mountain crashing into the sea." We wondered whether this event would be 100% supernatural in origin, whether God would simply bump an asteroid in our direction depending on our behavior, or whether this asteroid is currently on an intercept course because he already knows the outcome of our behavior. It could be any of those. One of the events associated with 2012 is the galactic crossing where we're supposed to cross through the plane of the galaxy. What if the galaxy contains a saturn-style ring full of space junk? Some of them could be the size of small planets. They could pass through the solar system disrupting orbits, the axis of rotation, even the rotational speed of the earth. Then again, it could just all be supernatural in origin.
Anyway, time is running out. Christians will disappear soon and whoever's left gets to deal with all these unpleasantries. It will be so bad that people will wish for death. Of course, death will bring something far worse than life here under those conditions. Repent or else.
I think there is a part of the Bible that says the only unforgivable sin, the only thing that can keep you from going to heaven, is the complete and absolute rejection of God.
This is true. The only unforgivable sin is the rejection of salvation. But this is because you won't allow yourself to be saved.
However, since God is infinite and unknowable you can't really reject him completely.
Hell is full of people who rejected Jesus. It's not so much rejecting the full knowledge of God as it is rejecting salvation.
You can reject the parts you know about, but not the parts you don't know about. You might not even want to reject those parts if you did know about them. Ergo, no one goes to hell.
Jesus clearly said on a number of occasions that there is a hell and many (even most) will go there.
Heaven is a terribly boring place,
And where did you get this idea? The descriptions I've read in the bible are far from boring.
Hell is suffering,
Understatement of eternity.
I would rather take another chance at life and Re-incarnate, of course it would be nice to retain ALL my memories of the past life so I could learn from experience and not make the same mistakes twice.
I wouldn't. This is an awful place. I don't ever want to come back here again.
But what if the Evil guy had won and then says He is the good guy?
What if the Evil guy didn't win, but led people to believe that he had? Or that he was the good guy? Or that he didn't even exist?
If I were the evil guy, I certainly would mess with peoples head and say that I was good, although I was evil.
Isn't that what Satan does? And where does God ever behave this way? If we have free will, and someone does something evil, who is responsible? God for allowing it? Or the person for doing evil? If God intervened, we wouldn't have free will anymore.
Say to two different persons that I am their only God and kill the other one and see who wins. Just because I can.
Or how about God telling everyone that he is their only God, and Satan telling the people who won't listen that some other gods are the true way, or that there is no God?
All the while the Devil who tries to come back, I will tell the worst stories about. And all the the Devil want to do is you to have fun.
There are practical reasons for the rules. While it may just be having fun to you, there are serious real-world consequences that you could never predict or know about. Why not pick up a girl and have some fun tonight? Oh, you got HPV. 10 years later, oh my wife has HPV. Oh, my baby got HPV during delivery and died from complications. Oh man, I have penile cancer now and there's only one treatment for that. All because of a night of fun. If only there were a set of rules I could live by that could protect me from these kinds of unintended consequences...
Or is this just a matter that absolute power corrupts absolutely?
This applies to humans, not God.
Anyway. Nice and entertaining stories. Lots of violence and sex, so great to turn into movies.
I sincerely hope you figure out the truth before it's too late.
Oh, I did not mean Satan with the guy responsible for this. Any god condemning a single soul to infiinte punishment for a finite transgression is pure evil. That one would be the target in this unlikely case.
What's the difference between finite and infinite?
It's not God condemning you to an eternity in hell, you condemn yourself through your actions (or inaction).
If I believed that there was a good chance that after I died I would be thrown into a lake of fire and otherwise punished for the rest of eternity, you can bet your sorry ass that I would be scared shitless of dying. Yes yes if you're good you get to go to heaven, but what if you accidentally committed a mortal sin without realizing it or something?
Actually, getting into heaven has nothing to do with being good. You only have to be saved. Jeffery Dahmer was saved shortly before he died. I fully expect to see him there. Some might wonder what kind of god would allow "justice" like this, that a serial killer would be allowed into heaven! But I see it differently. If God can save a serial killer, he can save anyone.
After all, if you read the Bible, God is nothing if not capricious; how can you know that when He said "No mixed fabrics!", He didn't really mean it?
This is the age of grace, and as saved christians, the law does not apply to us. Of course, without Jesus, you're still under the law. Which is why you'll never make it.
What if you really are supposed to believe in the Miracle of Transubstantiation, reality be damned? It's just so uncertain.
This is a catholic thing. Not all christians believe in this. Please stop lumping us all together.
Fortunately there's no hell, so there's no worries on that front. Honestly, I can't for the life of me see why theists think that religion brings peace and comfort. What is any amount of Earthly reassurance, in the face of the threat of infinite torture? (take that, Pascal!)
I don't fear death, because I know where I'm going. And I find great comfort and reassurance in that right here.
Those of us paying attention knew exactly what he was, but voting for McCain/Palin was simply out of the question.
I wasn't aware that Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin were the only two choices on the 2008 ballot.
I wasn't aware that there was any difference between McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden, or that anyone else could have won an election in this country and lived to tell about it.
In short, Ms. Napolitano clearly has not thought this through. Either that or she has thought it through and she's just the biggest idiot on the face of the planet.
Or maybe, this all has nothing to do with security or stopping terrorism. And she isn't really in control.
Persecuting a TSA dumbass for following an illegal order is probably the worst way of effecting change.
I disagree. If your employer ordered you to murder someone, you'd be charged with the crime also. We absolutely need to throw the grunts under a bus. This might wake up the rest of them and make them quit.
Do you understand that the problem is at the top of the pyramid? The problem is the people at the top and the policies they are crafting. Not the rank and file guys following these ridiculous policies.
They were only following orders. Godwin indeed.
By no means am I condoning the activity, but stringing up the first TSA grunt that gropes the wrong person is ridiculous. That dudes life will be absolutely and utterly destroyed for following what he believe to be legal and lawful instructions. I'm saying we should prevent the groping from happening in the first place.
You're right that it should be stopped from the top. But the grunt should know better and quit.
We must ridicule and marginalize those who aren't in denial about basic reality ... err I mean those paranoid naysayers at once.
You mean like anyone who watches video of the collapse of building 7 and concludes that it wasn't an obvious controlled demolition?
Maybe not so massive. I've been a christian for quite a while and have yet to meet a single person that advocates anything like a theocracy. Most will simply encourage you to vote democrat or republican depending on whether they think feeding the poor or stopping abortion is more important. But don't let a silly thing like reality get in the way of your rants.
if you don't like your options get involved and perhaps even run yourself.
Don Quixote, is that you?!
On move-in day, each item is a carry-on and subject to a baggage fee of $50. You can't have an airplane without junk fees!
Worse than that, does she have to go through security every time she comes home? Does she have to put on her seat belt every time she sits down? Did she reuse the airplane bathrooms? Does turbulence occasionally throw her out of bed? No more than six ounces of liquid allowed in the house?
"Sorry I'm late. It took me an extra 20 minutes to get clearance from the tower before I could push back from the garage."
Bu-bye now, Bu-bye.