Actually the liberal gun laws help prevent violence by ensuring that the honest law abiding citizens are able to protect themselves from criminals. The areas in the US with the highest crime rates are always the ones where the local government interferes with the 2nd amendment.
Movie ratings are based upon the dubious assumption that children will be adversely affected by seeing certain things when these same things are considered harmless to adults.
If you believe that I've got a really nice bridge I need to get rid of and I'm willing to sell it to you on the cheap.
I'm 32 years old and I don't think I've ever seen anything as a child or teenager in any movie or television program that ever warped my psyche or damaged my character. Yet the superstition persists that children need to be "protected" from seeing two people have sex, or from seeing violence, hearing certain words uttered, or any other number of other things that parents and society in general have irrational fears about. What I find most absurd is that things like movies are presumed to have an almost magical hypnotic influence over the young, while their real life experinces are not nearly so obessed about. If you're going to worry about your kids, worry about the example that you set for them, the things that they see YOU do, not whether they listen to Britney Spears, Howard Stern, or see an R rated movie.
When I was younger I believed that society's treatment of the young was a case of intentional malice. As I grew older I came to realize that society was not out to oppress anyone per se, rather people are as a general rule really, really stupid and have a memory about as long as their little finger. The ludicrous myths and superstititons about what it means to be a child that get passed around as fact by those who only 20 or 30 years ago were children themselves would be hilarious if everyone didn't actually believe them.
It is becoming more and more clear to me that civilization is carried on the backs of the relative handful who aren't tragically dumb. Everyone else is merely along for the ride.
How can a grown man, let alone one with the wherewithal to get elected to the highest post in the state, be childish enough to worry about what is "fair?" Anyone old enough to wipe their own behind should know that life isn't fair. Anyone who doesn't understand this fact by the time they're grown shouldn't be put in charge of anything, let alone a state's executive branch.
Is the democratic party in Wisconsin that pathetic, or is it just that this guy is a total nimrod?
The purpose of taxation is to support the government and to allow it to provide the services that it either must provide, or is better at providing than the private sector would be.
Taxation is not and should never be an experiment in "social justice," which is exactly what arguments about fairness make this proposal look like. Taxation hurts the economy because it devalues people's money. So while taxation is a necessary evil, it should be kept to a minimum. The best way to do this it to limit what the government does so as to limit the resources it requires. Arbitrarily seeking out new sources of tax revenue for the sake of taxation itself if foolish and destructive.
If the NYT can do such a good job of covering its butt source wise, why can't CBS news?
On the other hand it took a handful of bloggers all of a few hours to detect a series of forgeries that CBS tried to pass off as legit.
Just because someone isn't getting paid by some big media conglomerate doesn't mean they can't be a journalist. Likewise even big media conglomerates are capable of the worst sort of journalistic corruption and incompetence.
I thought the extreme geek factor was the entire point to begin with. Creating a clone of an Apple I makes about as much practical sense as collecting bottlecaps. The only reason to do it is because you enjoy doing it and learn something from the challenge.
Back when I was younger I actually had thoughts of creating an Apple II clone in a PC form factor case, which back then would have been an XT/Baby-AT case. Every so often I think about doing it again.... maybe I just will.
No, all I meant was an ATX motherboard with PCI slots that I can plug standard components into.
The strength of the PC has never been that it is always the best and the fastest. At various times other platforms have held that crown. The strength of the PC as a platform is that it is based upon interchangable parts from multiple vendors. This ensures that at any given time you will always get the best bang for your buck. It also allows you to completely customize your system and pick and choose the precise components that you use to build it. A certain degree of customization is possible in modern Macs, but only because Apple was forced into it in order to compete with PCs. I understand that your average soccer mom doesn't care about any of this, but then I'm talking about a computer for ME, not for some technophobe. If Apple wants to corner the technophobe market then they're welcome to it, but that isn't a justification for the Apple-freak to then come and preach to me about how a Mac is the ideal computer for me as well, because Macs are not, never have been, and never will be.
An open standards based 2.5 Ghz G5 motherboard sounds like a VERY good idea to me. I'd love to be able to run a 64 bit version of Linux on something like that. It would primarily just be for the hell of it since I'd then have painted myself into a corner software-wise. The only stuff I could run on such a system would be those Linux applications that I could get to compile, and there are no guarantees when it comes to that. Of course if the price/performance ratio of such a system was good, then it is possible that at least a few people would start running such systems. They would be unlikely to ever threaten the dominance of Intel/AMD, but that doesn't mean they couldn't enjoy a strong cult following. Whether that would generate enough revenue to keep anyone in business is of course another matter. Actually I think that one area where such a board would do very well is in the server arena where software compatibility is not as much of an issue. If such a board can be the foundation of a capable server, and it runs cooler and uses less power, then I can see how it would be very appealing to companies that are running into problems keeping their server rooms from melting.
Apple could probably clean up if they pursued such an approach by producing standards based rack-mount systems for a competitive price. They could even use OS-X on it if they wanted to. The problem is that Apple just isn't smart enough to do that. At any given turn the company can be expected to either shoot itself in the foot, or snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Rare mistakes that actually lead to success, such as the Ipod, are subsequently perverted and/or destroyed.
I have no problem with the PowerPC architecture. My problem is with Apple and with the religious zealots who try to convert everyone around them into Mac users. I'm sorry, but I've been around Macs since the very first model shipped in late 1984. Once upon a time they were something to behold, but those days are long past. My very first computer was an Apple II+, which even now sits in my closet. The insanity that overtook Apple is something that pains me still. But as much as I might love the Apple that once was, I have no patience for dogma and ideology, especially not when it comes to a topics like computers and technology where objective reality is anything but a mystery.
The schematics for the II+ are readily available as well. In fact the manuals that Apple shipped with the II and II+ had not only the schematics, but a hex dump of the roms. And to think, they were actually surprised when people started cloning their systems....
As for whether Apple would sue, I don't really think I care. Last time I checked there was nothing illegal about implementing a hardware design that one has the plans to. Selling it would probably violate IP laws of one sort of another, but then I'm not advocating that. As for the ROMS, there are II+ and IIe systems for sale on ebay all the time. There are also several Apple II series emulators that include dumps of the roms. These have been around for many a year. If Apple cared they'd have rattled their cage by now.
I don't know of anyone who makes an open standards based system using the the PowerPC architecture. IBM did release a reference design for a PPC based motherboard, but as far as I know no one every produced it.
Unless and until I can go down to Fry's and buy a motherboard based off of this chip and put it into a standard case, it really doesn't matter if the CPU is better or not. It is the system as a whole that matters, not the relative performance of one of its components. I'm not going to paint myself into a corner with a proprietary system from anyone, let alone Apple.
The only people who act more like rabid idiots than Linux/OSS advocates are Mac zealots. They are their own worst enemy, not to mention a bunch of bald face liars. With Linux/OSS there are valid technical merits and advantages that exist. With Macs this is not the case and has not been the case in well over a decade if not longer. Yet the true believers still persist in trying to con anyone who will listen into pouring their money in a hole in the ground by buying a Mac, and acting like petulant brats towards anyone who won't listen.
That being said, opposing something in the technology world because of the culture surrounding it, and not because of any concrete technical reason, is simply irrational. Linux and OSS are ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency, both of which inevitably lead to more $$$$$. Shunning them because some of the people who are behind them are unpalatable, just doesn't make sense.
Last time I checked, porn was something you had to pay for. No pay, no porn for you. Whether people who are not paying for it and therefore are not watching it find it offensive or not is irrelevant.
Your rights extend to the point where your fingers touch the tip of my nose, and vice versa. There are plenty of things that I don't like, but the burden of living in a free society is that we are all going to see, hear, and know about things that we disagree with and do not like. You can either have freedom of speech or freedom from being offended, you can't have both.
Actually I don't think that politics has anything to do with it. The blue states would want to censor some things (racism, sexism, political incorrectness), the red states other things (sex, sex, and uhhh sex).
Being a non-authoritarian agnostic, I don't have much patience with either set of zealots.
Forgive me if I just don't understand what this decency stuff is supposed to be about. Do we really need the government to dictate a program's content?
I have a hard time believing that there are actually programs or movies being created that are patently offensive to a majority (or even a sizable minority) of the population. Such programs would not be watched and would thereby lose either their commerical sponsorship, or the revenue from paid subscribers.
I don't think I've ever seen anything on television, whether it be broadcast or cable, that struck me as just so henious that I needed the government to protect me from it.
The truth is that this kind of censorship is nothing more than an attempt by a small but organized minority to remove certain ideas from the public airwaves, and thus the public consciousness. Now they'll claim that its "for the children!" but this is at best a half-truth. They may actually care whether kids see the things they're up in arms against, but they're just as worried that adults will see them as well.
Here in America the concept of freedom of speech is enshrined in the document that is the foundation of our government, the US constitution. What most people don't recognize or realize is that freedom of speech itself is not meaningful without freedom of thought. Freedom of thought is dependent upon freedom of information. This is what censorship is an attempt to stifle. The things you know and the ideas and concepts you come into contact with determine the things you think about, which in turn determines what you talk about, the ideas that you express, and the conclusions you reach.
Censorship is evil regardless of who is doing it or the supposed justifcations behind it. If something is a lie, the answer is not to suppress it, but to answer it with the truth. The truth itself, needless to say, is not something that needs to be suppressed, and anyone who does so is NOT your friend. There are times when secrets are necessary, and when information needs to be kept private, but holding details in private is not the same as the active suppression of public discourse.
When Ted Stevens assumed office he took a solemn oath to uphold, protect, and defend the constitution. What he is doing is nothing less than the violation of his oath of office.
The question is what the ultimate result would be for terrorists who used a bomb to attack us. The answer of course is the utter and complete annihiliation of them and anyone who we even suspected might have had anything to do with it.
If the lefties and the peace-niks think that the US is being mean now (poor Saddam..sob,sob), they have no idea of the things we are capable of doing given sufficient provocation. If some terrorists attacked us using an atomic device and we even had a hunch that a particular country was giving them aid and sanctuary, that country would cease to exist. We are the only nation to ever use atomic weapons in anger, and by God we'll do it again if necessary. The good news is that we don't even need to use our own nukes. We've got enough conventional firepower at our disposal to turn a country the size of California into a huge smoldering crater.
....why exactly it is that China has most favored nation status?
Stuff like this fills me with intense rage. When any government attempts to control the free flow of information and ideas, it is as clear a sign of that government's illegitimacy as the overt use of force against its own people. The chinese government is a cleptocracy, a cabal of criminals who use their position to oppress and abuse the chinese people. If I had my way, they would all be put on trial and the guilty ones shot, preferably in public.
This is nothing but further proof that they have not changed their ways since the Tiananmen Square massacre 16 years ago.
You might be right. I think I was thrown off by the term "liberal," the meaning of which was distorted by neo-bolshevik marxist looonies when they began using it to describe themselves. A classical liberal has very little, if anything in common with modern "liberals."
Actually the original star trek didn't suffer from that problem very much. Its politics were very middlle-of-the-road. TNG suffered did to some degree, more in some episodes than other, but wasn't totally ate up with it. DS9 and Voyager actually seemed largely apolitical. Whatever political or social commentary that was present was not so over the top as to distract from the story.
Then came Enterprise.
Somewhere along the line Berman and company decided to get out of the storytelling business and take up a career as social activists, using allegory to sell their social and political beliefs. This usually results in disaster because the audience quickly catches on. Those who strongly agree with what is being sold keep tuning in, while everyone else who is actually looking to be entertained and not preached to quickly changes the channel.
This is why Farscape was such a good show, it wasn't used as an excuse or an opportunity to push a political or social ideology. It had compelling characters and good stories, and that is all the show was about. Any ideas or philosophies that found their way into the show were there as a reflection of the psyche of the writers, and were presented as issues the characters dealt with on a personal level, not as abstract admonishments about the evils or flaws of society. This is very different from other shows where what ammount to political sermons and social commentary are purposefully inserted by writers and producers who use the show as their personal propaganda machine. When this is subtle then it isn't so bad, but when the story takes a back seat to the proselytization, the integrity of the show quickly collapses and viewers turn elsewhere.
Enterprise isn't even the worst example of this. Sea Quest DSV is the worst example I know of, at least in Sci-Fi. If it wasn't for the fact that Speilberg had a 5 year contract with NBC, the show would have been flushed halfway through the first season.
I think that the reason why Enterprise got better was 9/11. People weren't interested in watching some touchy-feely wimped out version of the future where the captain of the enterprise attempts to deal with the Klingons through whining. I actually watched most of the last season and was pleasantly suprised to see Archer transformed into a strong leader willing to do whatever was necessary to protect earth. If the show had started out that way, maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be getting the axe today.
Admittedly recent episodes are not as bad as the first season, which was little more than a container for P.C./lefty proselytization, but that still doesn't make it a good show.
Just because something is based on Star Trek, doesn't mean it deserves a stay of execution.
To say that my camry is not faster than a porche 929 is a true statement when interpreted one way, but untrue when interpreted another. The use of amphiboly to lead someone to an erroneous conclusion is only different from an outright lie its craftiness.
Does anyone know why the drinking age is 21 in every state except Louisianna?
I'll tell you why. Back in the 1980's Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) lobbied congress to pass a law tying each state's federal highway funding to its drinking age. If a state wanted funding, the drinking age had to be 21.
The rationale for this law was that it would lower the incidence of drunk driving. The political truth behind this law is that it targed a segment of the population which lacked political clout or influence, namely 18 to 21 year olds. Basically a bunch of overprotective moms, unable to deal with the fact that their children were now grown, petitioned the government to impose childhood restrictions upon them a little longer. The supposed benefit of this imposition and erosion of personal freedom, fewer drunk drivers, never panned out. The rate changed 0.3%, which anyone with a knowledge of statistics will tell you is indistinguishable from white noise. Statistics also tell us that it is 23 to 25 year olds who are most likely to drive drunk, making even the excuse for this law laughable. This law costs society who knows how much money in terms of police manpower wasted persecuting college students for drinking beer. All this time and trouble are spent trying to keep people from doing something when there is no evidence that any good comes from the effort, and a whole lot of people who are innocent of any actual wrongdoing find themselves criminalized as a result. Thanks a lot moms!
It is a law which serves no purpose other than to subvert the rights and status of 18 to 21 year old's as adults. I'm frankly amazed that society allows its enforcement, let alone goes to the trouble of carding anyone who looks like they might be under 30. It just goes to show that people are always willing to infringe upon the rights of others when they know their own rights are not at risk as a result.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually the liberal gun laws help prevent violence by ensuring that the honest law abiding citizens are able to protect themselves from criminals. The areas in the US with the highest crime rates are always the ones where the local government interferes with the 2nd amendment.
Movie ratings are based upon the dubious assumption that children will be adversely affected by seeing certain things when these same things are considered harmless to adults.
If you believe that I've got a really nice bridge I need to get rid of and I'm willing to sell it to you on the cheap.
I'm 32 years old and I don't think I've ever seen anything as a child or teenager in any movie or television program that ever warped my psyche or damaged my character. Yet the superstition persists that children need to be "protected" from seeing two people have sex, or from seeing violence, hearing certain words uttered, or any other number of other things that parents and society in general have irrational fears about. What I find most absurd is that things like movies are presumed to have an almost magical hypnotic influence over the young, while their real life experinces are not nearly so obessed about. If you're going to worry about your kids, worry about the example that you set for them, the things that they see YOU do, not whether they listen to Britney Spears, Howard Stern, or see an R rated movie.
When I was younger I believed that society's treatment of the young was a case of intentional malice. As I grew older I came to realize that society was not out to oppress anyone per se, rather people are as a general rule really, really stupid and have a memory about as long as their little finger. The ludicrous myths and superstititons about what it means to be a child that get passed around as fact by those who only 20 or 30 years ago were children themselves would be hilarious if everyone didn't actually believe them.
It is becoming more and more clear to me that civilization is carried on the backs of the relative handful who aren't tragically dumb. Everyone else is merely along for the ride.
Lee
How can a grown man, let alone one with the wherewithal to get elected to the highest post in the state, be childish enough to worry about what is "fair?" Anyone old enough to wipe their own behind should know that life isn't fair. Anyone who doesn't understand this fact by the time they're grown shouldn't be put in charge of anything, let alone a state's executive branch.
Is the democratic party in Wisconsin that pathetic, or is it just that this guy is a total nimrod?
The purpose of taxation is to support the government and to allow it to provide the services that it either must provide, or is better at providing than the private sector would be.
Taxation is not and should never be an experiment in "social justice," which is exactly what arguments about fairness make this proposal look like. Taxation hurts the economy because it devalues people's money. So while taxation is a necessary evil, it should be kept to a minimum. The best way to do this it to limit what the government does so as to limit the resources it requires. Arbitrarily seeking out new sources of tax revenue for the sake of taxation itself if foolish and destructive.
Lee
If the NYT can do such a good job of covering its butt source wise, why can't CBS news?
On the other hand it took a handful of bloggers all of a few hours to detect a series of forgeries that CBS tried to pass off as legit.
Just because someone isn't getting paid by some big media conglomerate doesn't mean they can't be a journalist. Likewise even big media conglomerates are capable of the worst sort of journalistic corruption and incompetence.
Lee
I thought the extreme geek factor was the entire point to begin with. Creating a clone of an Apple I makes about as much practical sense as collecting bottlecaps. The only reason to do it is because you enjoy doing it and learn something from the challenge.
Back when I was younger I actually had thoughts of creating an Apple II clone in a PC form factor case, which back then would have been an XT/Baby-AT case. Every so often I think about doing it again.... maybe I just will.
Lee
No, all I meant was an ATX motherboard with PCI slots that I can plug standard components into.
The strength of the PC has never been that it is always the best and the fastest. At various times other platforms have held that crown. The strength of the PC as a platform is that it is based upon interchangable parts from multiple vendors. This ensures that at any given time you will always get the best bang for your buck. It also allows you to completely customize your system and pick and choose the precise components that you use to build it. A certain degree of customization is possible in modern Macs, but only because Apple was forced into it in order to compete with PCs. I understand that your average soccer mom doesn't care about any of this, but then I'm talking about a computer for ME, not for some technophobe. If Apple wants to corner the technophobe market then they're welcome to it, but that isn't a justification for the Apple-freak to then come and preach to me about how a Mac is the ideal computer for me as well, because Macs are not, never have been, and never will be.
An open standards based 2.5 Ghz G5 motherboard sounds like a VERY good idea to me. I'd love to be able to run a 64 bit version of Linux on something like that. It would primarily just be for the hell of it since I'd then have painted myself into a corner software-wise. The only stuff I could run on such a system would be those Linux applications that I could get to compile, and there are no guarantees when it comes to that. Of course if the price/performance ratio of such a system was good, then it is possible that at least a few people would start running such systems. They would be unlikely to ever threaten the dominance of Intel/AMD, but that doesn't mean they couldn't enjoy a strong cult following. Whether that would generate enough revenue to keep anyone in business is of course another matter. Actually I think that one area where such a board would do very well is in the server arena where software compatibility is not as much of an issue. If such a board can be the foundation of a capable server, and it runs cooler and uses less power, then I can see how it would be very appealing to companies that are running into problems keeping their server rooms from melting.
Apple could probably clean up if they pursued such an approach by producing standards based rack-mount systems for a competitive price. They could even use OS-X on it if they wanted to. The problem is that Apple just isn't smart enough to do that. At any given turn the company can be expected to either shoot itself in the foot, or snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Rare mistakes that actually lead to success, such as the Ipod, are subsequently perverted and/or destroyed.
I have no problem with the PowerPC architecture. My problem is with Apple and with the religious zealots who try to convert everyone around them into Mac users. I'm sorry, but I've been around Macs since the very first model shipped in late 1984. Once upon a time they were something to behold, but those days are long past. My very first computer was an Apple II+, which even now sits in my closet. The insanity that overtook Apple is something that pains me still. But as much as I might love the Apple that once was, I have no patience for dogma and ideology, especially not when it comes to a topics like computers and technology where objective reality is anything but a mystery.
Lee
The schematics for the II+ are readily available as well. In fact the manuals that Apple shipped with the II and II+ had not only the schematics, but a hex dump of the roms. And to think, they were actually surprised when people started cloning their systems....
As for whether Apple would sue, I don't really think I care. Last time I checked there was nothing illegal about implementing a hardware design that one has the plans to. Selling it would probably violate IP laws of one sort of another, but then I'm not advocating that. As for the ROMS, there are II+ and IIe systems for sale on ebay all the time. There are also several Apple II series emulators that include dumps of the roms. These have been around for many a year. If Apple cared they'd have rattled their cage by now.
Lee
If I wanted a slow laptop, I'd at least buy one that comes with a screen and a keyboard.
Lee
I don't know of anyone who makes an open standards based system using the the PowerPC architecture. IBM did release a reference design for a PPC based motherboard, but as far as I know no one every produced it.
Unless and until I can go down to Fry's and buy a motherboard based off of this chip and put it into a standard case, it really doesn't matter if the CPU is better or not. It is the system as a whole that matters, not the relative performance of one of its components. I'm not going to paint myself into a corner with a proprietary system from anyone, let alone Apple.
Lee
You are, of course, a gerbil. But given the attitude you display in your post, I don't expect you to listen to any of the reasons why you're a gerbil.
The only people who act more like rabid idiots than Linux/OSS advocates are Mac zealots. They are their own worst enemy, not to mention a bunch of bald face liars. With Linux/OSS there are valid technical merits and advantages that exist. With Macs this is not the case and has not been the case in well over a decade if not longer. Yet the true believers still persist in trying to con anyone who will listen into pouring their money in a hole in the ground by buying a Mac, and acting like petulant brats towards anyone who won't listen.
That being said, opposing something in the technology world because of the culture surrounding it, and not because of any concrete technical reason, is simply irrational. Linux and OSS are ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency, both of which inevitably lead to more $$$$$. Shunning them because some of the people who are behind them are unpalatable, just doesn't make sense.
Lee
Places hand on crashed system running Windows.....
"You shall be Heeeaaaled!!!!"
"Praise Linus!!!!"
Last time I checked, porn was something you had to pay for. No pay, no porn for you. Whether people who are not paying for it and therefore are not watching it find it offensive or not is irrelevant.
Your rights extend to the point where your fingers touch the tip of my nose, and vice versa. There are plenty of things that I don't like, but the burden of living in a free society is that we are all going to see, hear, and know about things that we disagree with and do not like. You can either have freedom of speech or freedom from being offended, you can't have both.
Lee
Actually I don't think that politics has anything to do with it. The blue states would want to censor some things (racism, sexism, political incorrectness), the red states other things (sex, sex, and uhhh sex).
Being a non-authoritarian agnostic, I don't have much patience with either set of zealots.
Lee
Forgive me if I just don't understand what this decency stuff is supposed to be about. Do we really need the government to dictate a program's content?
I have a hard time believing that there are actually programs or movies being created that are patently offensive to a majority (or even a sizable minority) of the population. Such programs would not be watched and would thereby lose either their commerical sponsorship, or the revenue from paid subscribers.
I don't think I've ever seen anything on television, whether it be broadcast or cable, that struck me as just so henious that I needed the government to protect me from it.
The truth is that this kind of censorship is nothing more than an attempt by a small but organized minority to remove certain ideas from the public airwaves, and thus the public consciousness. Now they'll claim that its "for the children!" but this is at best a half-truth. They may actually care whether kids see the things they're up in arms against, but they're just as worried that adults will see them as well.
Here in America the concept of freedom of speech is enshrined in the document that is the foundation of our government, the US constitution. What most people don't recognize or realize is that freedom of speech itself is not meaningful without freedom of thought. Freedom of thought is dependent upon freedom of information. This is what censorship is an attempt to stifle. The things you know and the ideas and concepts you come into contact with determine the things you think about, which in turn determines what you talk about, the ideas that you express, and the conclusions you reach.
Censorship is evil regardless of who is doing it or the supposed justifcations behind it. If something is a lie, the answer is not to suppress it, but to answer it with the truth. The truth itself, needless to say, is not something that needs to be suppressed, and anyone who does so is NOT your friend. There are times when secrets are necessary, and when information needs to be kept private, but holding details in private is not the same as the active suppression of public discourse.
When Ted Stevens assumed office he took a solemn oath to uphold, protect, and defend the constitution. What he is doing is nothing less than the violation of his oath of office.
Lee
The question is what the ultimate result would be for terrorists who used a bomb to attack us. The answer of course is the utter and complete annihiliation of them and anyone who we even suspected might have had anything to do with it.
If the lefties and the peace-niks think that the US is being mean now (poor Saddam..sob,sob), they have no idea of the things we are capable of doing given sufficient provocation. If some terrorists attacked us using an atomic device and we even had a hunch that a particular country was giving them aid and sanctuary, that country would cease to exist. We are the only nation to ever use atomic weapons in anger, and by God we'll do it again if necessary. The good news is that we don't even need to use our own nukes. We've got enough conventional firepower at our disposal to turn a country the size of California into a huge smoldering crater.
Lee
"I've never heard a neo-bolshevik marxist loony call himself a "liberal".
I guess you've never seen this site then:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/
Also known as the "fever swamp."
....why exactly it is that China has most favored nation status?
Stuff like this fills me with intense rage. When any government attempts to control the free flow of information and ideas, it is as clear a sign of that government's illegitimacy as the overt use of force against its own people. The chinese government is a cleptocracy, a cabal of criminals who use their position to oppress and abuse the chinese people. If I had my way, they would all be put on trial and the guilty ones shot, preferably in public.
This is nothing but further proof that they have not changed their ways since the Tiananmen Square massacre 16 years ago.
Lee
You might be right. I think I was thrown off by the term "liberal," the meaning of which was distorted by neo-bolshevik marxist looonies when they began using it to describe themselves. A classical liberal has very little, if anything in common with modern "liberals."
Lee
Actually the original star trek didn't suffer from that problem very much. Its politics were very middlle-of-the-road. TNG suffered did to some degree, more in some episodes than other, but wasn't totally ate up with it. DS9 and Voyager actually seemed largely apolitical. Whatever political or social commentary that was present was not so over the top as to distract from the story.
Then came Enterprise.
Somewhere along the line Berman and company decided to get out of the storytelling business and take up a career as social activists, using allegory to sell their social and political beliefs. This usually results in disaster because the audience quickly catches on. Those who strongly agree with what is being sold keep tuning in, while everyone else who is actually looking to be entertained and not preached to quickly changes the channel.
This is why Farscape was such a good show, it wasn't used as an excuse or an opportunity to push a political or social ideology. It had compelling characters and good stories, and that is all the show was about. Any ideas or philosophies that found their way into the show were there as a reflection of the psyche of the writers, and were presented as issues the characters dealt with on a personal level, not as abstract admonishments about the evils or flaws of society. This is very different from other shows where what ammount to political sermons and social commentary are purposefully inserted by writers and producers who use the show as their personal propaganda machine. When this is subtle then it isn't so bad, but when the story takes a back seat to the proselytization, the integrity of the show quickly collapses and viewers turn elsewhere.
Enterprise isn't even the worst example of this. Sea Quest DSV is the worst example I know of, at least in Sci-Fi. If it wasn't for the fact that Speilberg had a 5 year contract with NBC, the show would have been flushed halfway through the first season.
I think that the reason why Enterprise got better was 9/11. People weren't interested in watching some touchy-feely wimped out version of the future where the captain of the enterprise attempts to deal with the Klingons through whining. I actually watched most of the last season and was pleasantly suprised to see Archer transformed into a strong leader willing to do whatever was necessary to protect earth. If the show had started out that way, maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be getting the axe today.
Lee
I'd love to be locked in cargo bay with her while she goes through "pon far"
Logical? Well...my dick sure thinks so.
Lee
Admittedly recent episodes are not as bad as the first season, which was little more than a container for P.C./lefty proselytization, but that still doesn't make it a good show.
Just because something is based on Star Trek, doesn't mean it deserves a stay of execution.
Lee
The potential for "less than" being my point.
Is "not faster" a euphemism for slower?
To say that my camry is not faster than a porche 929 is a true statement when interpreted one way, but untrue when interpreted another. The use of amphiboly to lead someone to an erroneous conclusion is only different from an outright lie its craftiness.
Lee
Does anyone know why the drinking age is 21 in every state except Louisianna?
I'll tell you why. Back in the 1980's Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) lobbied congress to pass a law tying each state's federal highway funding to its drinking age. If a state wanted funding, the drinking age had to be 21.
The rationale for this law was that it would lower the incidence of drunk driving. The political truth behind this law is that it targed a segment of the population which lacked political clout or influence, namely 18 to 21 year olds. Basically a bunch of overprotective moms, unable to deal with the fact that their children were now grown, petitioned the government to impose childhood restrictions upon them a little longer. The supposed benefit of this imposition and erosion of personal freedom, fewer drunk drivers, never panned out. The rate changed 0.3%, which anyone with a knowledge of statistics will tell you is indistinguishable from white noise. Statistics also tell us that it is 23 to 25 year olds who are most likely to drive drunk, making even the excuse for this law laughable. This law costs society who knows how much money in terms of police manpower wasted persecuting college students for drinking beer. All this time and trouble are spent trying to keep people from doing something when there is no evidence that any good comes from the effort, and a whole lot of people who are innocent of any actual wrongdoing find themselves criminalized as a result. Thanks a lot moms!
It is a law which serves no purpose other than to subvert the rights and status of 18 to 21 year old's as adults. I'm frankly amazed that society allows its enforcement, let alone goes to the trouble of carding anyone who looks like they might be under 30. It just goes to show that people are always willing to infringe upon the rights of others when they know their own rights are not at risk as a result.
Lee