Don't be so hard on politicians. Many of them are quite, quite smart. The question is, in which field does their intelligence manifest itself?
For instance, the so-called "Zodiac Killer" was very intelligent in how he selected victims, how he evaded capture, how he beguiled the police, and how he terrorized the population of a city. Mind you, his field (murder and terror) is absolutely morally reprehensible, but you can't deny that he was intelligent.
Likewise, the field of politicians (schmoozing, bullshitting, lawyering, showmanship, and, in some cases, murder and terror) is also absolutely morally reprehensible, but you can't deny that many politicans (may bees fly up their urethras and sting them for the rest of their days!) are really, really fucking smart at doing it.
But I have worked in other, less hierarchical organizations (read: "leaderless") and I will tell you that they worked better; we got more done, better, in less time, on similar tasks.
Do you think that there might be other tasks in other industries that might benefit more from a hierarchical structure, or do you believe that your positive experiences in "leaderless" organizations necessarily translate to all other tasks in all other industries?
I find your response replete with rhetoric and besmirched by values that I do not share.
Most countries only very rarely openly threaten or bully.
How would you prove this? What qualifies as "very rarely"?
There is little point in making disinterested bystanders into enemies by engaging in oafish behavior.
What qualifies as "oafish behavior"?
Foreign policy sometimes involves some empty posturing, but that is usually for internal consumption (in which case it is not diplomacy).
What is the difference between "foreign policy for internal consumption only" and "propaganda"?
Countries that feel invulnerable, like the US, tend to engage more in empty posturing than small and vulnerable countries.
First, if you can back it up (with, for example, the most effective and well-trained military in the world not to mention the world's largest nuclear arsenal), then is it really "empty" posturing? Second, doesn't posturing, empty or not, have more to do with the ability to destroy anyone you please than it does with any perceived feeling of invulnerability? Third, how does the USA "feel" invulnerable, or "feel" anything for that matter?
Cooperation is a great way achieving shared foreign policy goals.
Much like how the Stalin cooperated with Hitler to divide Poland?
In my dictionary cooperation does not involve any self-sacrifice.
Doesn't the nature of compromise involve giving up on some of your goals in order to find agreement?
those thugs are "agent provocateurs" deliberately planted
You mean *some* of those thugs are agent provocateurs. Governments are certainly not clean in this regard -- they want an excuse to disperse an unruly and highly-disliked crowd of punks as quickly as possible. Suppose the rationale is to give the cops "reason" to use brute force before something "worse" happens? Given how much I dislike anarchist punk kids, I kind of sympathize with it. Given how much I dislike right-wing pseudo-military abusive cops, I am kind of repulsed by it. It's not a black-and-white moral issue, unfortunately.
That said, my brother made a documentary about the protests of the G-8 summit in Georgia which will be entitled "Criminalizing Dissent" (and is part of his thesis for his masters degree in film). He revealed to me that he followed a "peace protestor" who, when interviewed, declared that violence, property destruction, and other forms of "direct action" (what pleasant spin that is!) is something that was *NOT* in-line with his beliefs and he does not condone it.
Later, my brother got additional footage of the exact same individual talking to some anarchists in which he instructed them to break and steal things if they had the opportunity to do so.
I think that thugs are a subset of anarchists.
I also don't like Bush, never liked him, and never voted for him, so please resist the temptation to apply black-and-white thinking to me.
That's the problem with too many Americans (and yes, I am one myself, keep that in mind when you flame me): they think that waving their dicks around and threatening/bullying the rest of the world will make us safer, when in fact it does the opposite.
I think lots of people on the Left want to think that the only reason that people hate and attack the USA is because of the USA's "bad behavior". Keep in mind that this action gives ammunition to the rabid Right-wing war hawks who call you the "blame America first crowd", but that's a side point to what I'm trying to state.
If the USA stopped "threatening/bullying", as you imply it should do, then it would be the only country on the planet that does NOT "threaten" or "bully". What one person may call "threatening" or "bullying" is what another person would simply call "looking out for one's interests" -- which is the very essence of diplomacy. Every nation is competing and standing up for their own interests, regardless of the spin that we want to put on it and pretend that everyone is "cooperating". Is China cooperating with Taiwan and Tibet? Is North Korea cooperating with anyone?
Diplomacy happens no matter what you and I may desire. (Hehe, "Diplomacy happens.") Some diplomatic decisions happens to deprive individuals of life, liberty, and property, and that precisely what I decry.
If you want to sound less like a self-indulgent teenager, then I reccomend removing "WTF?" from your vocabularly.
Do you have someone who tells you to get up every morning? Tells you to brush your teeth?
This assumes that all of the decisions made across an organization of arbitrary size (say, 300,000 people) are as trivial as decisions of personal hygiene and individual discipline.
Moreover, does your "leader" at work give you every task you must accomplish?
That's not what the parent poster's question implies. No leader can give out every task, certainly. A good leader would expect that those he leads do not need to be micromanaged. Furthermore, I think what's more important than "Who assigns the tasks?" is "Who prioritizes the tasks?" The leader's job is often to remove the bullshit from the lives of those he leads so that they can do the jobs that they excel at. The reason why those being led can't do these jobs effectively is because they're often not privy (nor *should* they be!) to the politics that would keep them from doing their jobs.
There is no reason these functions...
snip. I think you believe this because you hate someone telling you what to do. I don't blame you -- I hate it, too! That doesn't mean that the functions performed by a "leader" (the use of that word is bordering on rhetoric, both pro and con) are unnecessary. Tell me, what is your experience in working in a large organization? I'm interested in your experiences both as a leader and as one working under a leader.
You discriminator! Your alleged universal logic questions clearly discriminate against the moronically stupid. You will be sued by my team of kick-ass lawyers!
First, answer this: are you a Christian? If I assumed wrong I'll take responsiblity for it. My assumption is certainly not unwarranted since you argue like a condescending Christian, and I have argued with many, many condescending Christians. If you aren't a Christian, then why in the world are you discussing this with me? Are you a cruel person merely looking for someone to berate? I have specific goals in mind when I seek to counter Christianity, and cruelty is nowhere on my list of priorities. The questions in this paragraph are not rhetorical.
Second, the ad hominem arguments are ineffective and have been ignored. Please back off the personal attacks and return to the issues.
Third, I will respond to the points you made.
I'll ignore your failing to notice that I was speaking in the present tense and your quote is thereby irrelevant.
It is your "speaking in the present tense" which bears no relevance. The Christian god certainly *did* strike down sinners at the moment of sin. The fact that he does not do so now leaves you in the position of explaining why I could escape with graver sins and why the allegedly unchanging god would change his mind about an instant death policy.
The rules changed since the old testament.
The Christian god does not change. Explain. Did the perfect, omniscient god create rules that failed? Explain.
No,
Yes. The Christian god (I'll call it "your" god if you confirm that you are a Christian) killed for far less than I did. I already showed that Herod was killed for not praising god in Acts 12:23. The Christian god killed scores of children and infants for merely belonging to the wrong primitive tribe of people. The Christian god killed forty-two children for mocking one of his prophets (2 Kings 2:23-24). If you agree that it is just for me to claim to be god (I am Jesus Christ, bow down and worship me!) and survive the wrath of the Christian god, then explain why it is also just that children be killed by the Christian god for lesser crimes in light of the fact that scripture calls the Christian god just.
I notice that you failed to provide me with the sequence of events on the first Easter Sunday. Let me provide you with an easier challenge: how must I be saved? Please cite scripture to back up your point.
I believe that according to Christian doctrine we are all sinners and obviously God is not striking down sinners at the moment of sin.
"Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died." Acts 12:23
Herod was killed for the mere act of not praising god. I, on the other hand, can blaspheme with gross excess and survive. The only thing that is obvious to me is that your imaginary god is extreme in both his cruelty and in his inconsistency.
Your religion is a guilt-based, misanthropic religion, as evidenced by your belief that everyone is inherently evil.
Your ploy falls to a believer's argument that you are merely afforded the opportunity to one day repent.
It certainly does not, since your god killed for far less than I did. Furthermore, your god did *NOT* afford the opportunity to others who did far less evil than I did, namely because they were children and infants, murdered by the whims of your evil god.
You tried to provoke an emotion by saying something controversial,
No, I pointed out that your god is inconsistent and cruel. Futhermore, I showed that your god cannot kill me. Ever. He's too weak, too homosexual, too ineffectual, and, otherwise, too very much a figment of your wicked imagination. If I'm wrong, then I dare and defy your god to kill me where I sit, and I ask it in Jesus Christ's name.
But if you're looking for something more "intellectual" than that, then, by all means, tell me what happened on the first Easter Sunday, from sunup to sundown, without omitting anything from scripture. I dare and defy *you* to come up with something which no Christian apologist has ever been able to do: a single, consistent narrative for what happened on the most important day in all of Christendom.
I can't wait for the thoughts and comments of this door opening exactly enough to accomodate the fat ass of a pear-shaped person.
You know what I'm talking about. Sometimes you see a person who has a really fat ass. There's nothing wrong with having a big fat ass, but you still look at it. Hell, maybe you're even turned on by it. Polite society requries us not to mention it. But it's practiacally an eye-magnet. With super glue on it. And extra gravity (due to mass).
But the door, by nature not constrained to the whims of polite society, will "mention" it.
Or what if the door's sensors/algorithm fails and the person's fat ass gets stuck in the door? I suppose that would be even worse.
You had the chance to correct the parent poster and decided that "story" was the best word. "Biography" doesn't fit very well, does it?
How hypocritical given you poor reading comprehension, poor understanding of Christianity, etc.
First, what did I fail to comprehend in my reading? Nothing! Second, what about Christianity do I fail to understand? Nothing! Third, what does the "etc." refer to? Nothing! Please retract your ad-hominems. They do not belong in this conversation.
You seem as blind and bigotted as the most rabid fundi you most likely despise, you seem to merely be at the other intollerant ill-informed extreme.
You have nothing to base this on other than my general hostility to Christianity. I can likely out-class you in scripture knowledge as I have done with so many of your bretheren. And no, I don't despise fundamentalists or any human for that matter. Your religion is evil according to my values, and I will not refrain from using that to counter your attempts at witnessing.
Apparently both your logic and language fu is weak
I was capitalizing on your choice of words to describe the events surrounding Jesus Christ's life. You chose "story", not "biography". Much like Little Red Riding Hood is a story. Certainly a story can describe events that really happened, but, most frequently in context, it describes a fictionalized or fictional event.
My understanding of Che is not limitted to the tag that comes with the t-shirt, I read Che's book.
My statement was anti-Christian, not pro-Che. Forgive me if I misunderstood you. I take it as a small personal mission of mine to ensure that Christian propaganda does not go unchalleneged.
If you continue reading the story you will find out that his death was not permanent. Apologies for the spoiler.;-)
I appreciate the admission that this is a story rather than reality. We wait for you when you wish to react to what you can reason rather than what you merely hope to be true.
If I happen to be incorrect that the Christian story is merely a story, then may the Christian god strike me dead where I sit, and I ask such a thing in the name of Jesus Christ.
I don't have an opinion on Rand one way or another, really, but I remember in philosophy class that the professor mentioned that Objectivism was the first philosophy of the 20th century to be disproven.
That seems immensely shallow unless he actually went through the steps to "disprove" it. If your professor was a socialist, then it is certainly in his self-interest to disprove (or use his influence as a professor to proclaim something "disproven") a philosophy that is so very counter to everything in socialist philosophy.
The only thing I know about Rand is that The Fountainhead is a weird thing for a teenage girl to force her boyfriend to read, and I'm not dating little miss rape-fantasy anymore.
Rand did have some really dumb ideas about sexuality. She maintained that gays could not be moral, because men where "supposed" to dominate women, or something retarded like that. I feel confident in stating that most Objectivists routinely ignore her arguments on sexuality. Since I am gay, it is certainly in my self-interest to do so.:)
This documentary looks at a corporations from a psychologists perspective and finds that XXXXX corporations are sociopaths
I inserted the 'XXXXX'.
Which word should go there: "all" or "some"?
If you choose "all", then it would be trivial to prove the movie false by showing an example of a "good" corporation that could convince a sizable number of people.
If you choose "some", then this movie would come off as merely being a "public service" and not the societal change that you want it to be.
This is why I think the 'XXXXX' is null: The movie is intended to paint *ALL* corporations as inherently evil without actually giving anyone the chance to prove them wrong. It's clever propaganda that full-motion, big screen movies excel at.
Funny that all of but one of them suscribed to totalitarianism and not true communism.
What's not funny is that you don't recognize the No True Scotsman fallacy when you make it. This is the most common fallacious defense of communism when people bring up Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, etc.
I never used any kind of adjective to describe the selfishness Ayn Rand describes as a "philosophy".
Probably because you're not familiar with it. The philosophy is called Objectivism. The reason I included that quote was to indicate that what the article was describing was NOT rational self-interest, but what it was calling "ruthless self-interest" (Rand would have called it "irrational self-interest").
I am stating that Rand would never approve of theft or cruelty in her philosophy. To deprive another individual of life, liberty, or property through force or fraud is immoral. The CEOs of Enron and WorldCom are immoral. Sociopaths are immoral. The type of bad behavior that you hate is NOT consistent with Objectivism.
That is, unless you define private property as evil, in which case we will never see eye-to-eye.
I have to correct you because you do not understand what Rand's philosophy is. Read this quote from the article:
"Their ruthless pursuit of self-interest was more easily accomplished..."
Ayn Rand does NOT advocate the ruthless pursuit of self-interest. She advocates the RATIONAL pursuit of self-interest.
What this means, specifically, is that we all, by nature, are selfish creatures (divorce yourself from any perjorative meaning of "selfish" for the moment). The fact that we choose not to deprive any other individual of life, liberty, or property through force or fraud is obtained through the choice to abide by reason. Hence, rational self-interest.
That said, I believe that there are many sociopaths who have chosen to seize upon Rand's writings as a justification for their evil actions. A case in point: My partner's old employer.
My partner's old employer was a company that managed kiosks in shopping malls which sold cell phone service for a major cell phone provider. My partner worked as a regional sales manager, which meant that he had district sales managers reporting to him, store managers reporting to the district managers, and sales people reporting to the store managers.
The environment was nothing short of abusive. My partner went in with his Home Depot team-building mentality which was completely useless in that culture. The only thing that was important was SALES, SALES, SALES. The only thing that mattered was how many sales you did THAT DAY. Everyone beneath the president was called and text messaged EVERY THIRTY MINUTES with "What are your sales at?" And every day he received messages like, "All of you are terrible, worthless jerks!" (For all the abuse they dished out, they thought that saying cuss words was "unprofessional", weirdly enough.) My partner would be driving from one mall to another, get a call on the cellphone with his boss screaming at him, "Write this down! Write this down NOW!" Or, better yet, he'd be on the road and he'd get a call, "We're having a conference call NOW!"
Of course, all the messages were the same: "What are your sales at?" and "You suck!"
The company's president lied to its managers in the yearly convention. Directly. One person asked, "Why can't we send faxes to the regional office?" He replied, "There is NOTHING wrong with our fax system. If you can't get it right, then you're doing something wrong." This was after my partner was told that the area office frequently pretended that they ignored faxes.
The company glibly overlooked abuse done by the sales people. I would advise you: Never, under any circumstances, buy a cell phone from a mall kiosk! To give you an idea, salespeople would sign up a person, then after the customer left, sign up four more lines without the customer's permission on the customer's credit card, then sell those cell phones to passersby for $50 and pocket the cash! When they are abused for the sake of sales and are generally flakey employees, are you surprised that it would happen?
And the company CEO was all about "business as usual" about his evil company. To him, this was "capitalism".
So I find it unjust and underhanded that you would assume that *all* business is just as evil as this and would, in fact, impugn me with the evil done by my partner's old employer because I am a capitalist and agree with much of Rand's philosophy. My partner *left* that evil company because of its abuse and lack of ethics, and our desire is to create a good company that takes care of its people and engages in win-wins with its customers.
The happy ending of this story is that the evil company was recently severed from its cell provider due to its horrible business practices. Even more, NO OTHER CELL PROVIDERS would agree to do business with this compnay because its name was mud in the cellular world. In effect, this company is now out of business. Yes, it feels good to see the evildoers get justice.
And this is different from any other development language how?
You could have written this, "How is this different from any other development language?" but you seem to be going for the "snide and snotty" approach.
Let's actually expand your statement to include not only development languages, but also operating systems, applications, and licencing schemes. That said, how is it different?
It's a difference in degree, not kind.
OpenBSD advocates are, by far, the worst. They are the most elitist, most rude, most abusive, most cruel, and most in-your-face about it. They deserve to be marginalized and ignored. Too bad OpenBSD can be replaced by many other operating systems.
I think the second worst would be LISP advocates. They think they are smart and everyone else is stupid and backward, and they feel like they have the need to educate everyone in the true, pure way. Too bad LISP can be replaced by many other programming languages.
I would have to label CSS advocates as "third worst". Too bad CSS has failings and the insisitence of its advocates mostly amount to, "If you don't accept our way, we'll just whine louder!"
Certainly there's room for disagreement about my rankings. They are, after all, my opinion, and I don't really have a "hard" way of ranking them objectively. I will, however, defend my rankings. I think you can agree with me that Delphi advocates are not as loud, ugly, or elitist as LISP advocates, particularly considering that Delphi users grossly outnumber the handful of people who actively code in LISP for a living.
In the grand scheme of things, none of it matters one iota. I think all technological advocacy, particularly the elitist sort, is an easily-ignored waste of energy.
It is ridiculous. But it's a design decision. Tables might be the way to go to contain the major elements on your page. However, if you are serving content to users who might have small screens (cell phones, handheld units) then you might not want to use tables as it would force users with small screens to scroll right and left.
I can understand that, and I appreciate your admission that it is ridiculous rather than replying with, "Yeah, but tables are just as bad!" as others in this very thread have chosen to do.
In my situation, where I work, we are NOT designing anything for small screens. All of our designs are big and flashy and intended to be viewed at 800x600 at least. Hence, there is no benefit to using CSS in this regard in this circumstance. We *do* use CSS, but we also use tables. I.e., we have a hybrid approach, which seems to be the most popular approach to designing web pages these days.
This isn't good enough for some CSS zealots. They insist that I'm a retarded hick for using this heretical, backward approach. All I really want is for particular people to admit that CSS has failings and is not always the best approach because of those failings.
Personally I do as much with CSS as reasonably possible and then hammer something into a table if I have a major design hurdle that calls for it. I'm certainly not going to avoid tables just to say "look ma, no tables." That's for people without real work to get done.
You seem like a reasonable person. I think there are a lot of people who *do* code with the intent of showing how forward-thinking and cool they are by not using the Sinful Table approach to layout.
But CSS is a fundamentally different approach. It's about modifying the document flow to create a layout, not trying to fit stuff into a grid. There's no easy translation from one to the other because they have completely different foundations.
I would agree with this in the sense that the scope of CSS certainly exceeds that which is described as "table-based layout". That said, what is wrong with using a grid approach to layout?
Hang on a sec. They called this CSS approach kludgey and unintuitive. They didn't call table layouts non-kludgey and intuitive, at least not in the quote you provided. The description you provided does sound like a kludge and does sound unituitive. As I said above, I think that CSS is kludgey and unintuitive. But no more so than table layouts.
I don't agree with your analysis. They were trying to translate a two-column table layout into CSS layout and found it kludgey and nonintuitive. The description I provided is the best that three CSS *experts*, not laypeople, could muster when it comes to making CSS layout function on par with what tables can provide. Once again your defense of CSS comes down to bashing tables. Certainly tables are not used for what they were intended, but I don't see anything wrong with grid layouts and tables seem to do a fair job and executing that. CSS is certainly no better at doing layout than tables; in fact, it's worse. I've had another CSS defender in this very thread indicating that you have to *program* the CSS layout in JavaScript in some cases!
WTF are you talking about? I made no such claim! You included the attitude of a few bigots as a reason to avoid CSS, and I pointed out that there are bigots to every approach and that you are cutting your nose off to spite your face if you use that as a reason to avoid a technology instead of judging it on its merits.
And why would I "cut my nose off to spite my face" if not for stupidity or lack of discipline? Please explain to me why your argument is not an ad hominem, because, right now, it just looks like another "You're a dumbass because you don't use CSS in the proper way" argument. Besides, I have indicated the failures of CSS on numerous occasions in this thread, and your responses to those failures largely suck. You have 1) gone back to bashing tables, 2) bashed me, 3) characterized my complaints as irrelevant. Again, I repeat: I use CSS and think it's great, but it's not the cure-all that we want it to be. And I also dislike your snotty attitude and wish you would shape up. It certainly would improve your chances of CSS advocacy!
Read what you wrote again: CSS advocates are often times really snotty, mean, and religious about CSS... [...]...this is why I think we need to re-evaluate our use of CSS. You think that's a reasonable attitude?
That is very unfair of you. I claim responsibility for using the demonstrative pronoun "this" is a loose way, as such a thing can lead to misunderstanding. But I think your misunderstanding is deliberate. You *want* me to be unreasonable.
The "this" in that post actually refers to these two points:
1. For some layouts, CSS just can't cut it the same way that tables can. Not all layouts, just some layouts.
2. CSS syntax, behavior, and debugging are arcane and unintutive.
And "this" is why we need to re-evaluate our use of CSS. Attempting to adhere to CSS standards with rigor is folly, and I am explicitly referring to using CSS for layout instead of tables.
Now you are just putting words in my mouth.
Okay, excuse me. How about I phrase it like this: Is it acceptable for me to use tables for layout because CSS sucks in comparison in that regard?
Which works until you need to background image to stop at your header or footer. Better to use javascript to find the tallest column and make the other column the same height.
As I was saying: CSS is, at times, arcane and unintuitive. Is using JavaScript to *program* the layout somehow supposed to be superior to a table-based layout? I mean, I had troubles with CSS layout before (after 30 minutes I resorted to using tables and said troubles vanished), but I am actually quite surprised by your solution. It sounds ridiculous!
Sorry I couldn't flame you more but I felt it was more important to point out the positive side of CSS than tell you how ignorant you may or may not be on the subject.
Oh please don't apologize! I thought your post was rather positive and informative. In fact, I agree with your principal argument: CSS *is* the future of the web.
My gripe lies elsewhere. The CSS that we have today is NOT the future, nor it is even usable in some instances. The gyrations that a programmer has to go through in order to change an Evil table-based layout into a Holy CSS-based layout are sometimes downright masochistic, as some posts in this thread will reveal. All one has to do is find an experienced HTML coder to say, "Yeah well what about *this* example?" (shows off a particular table-based design) in order to reduce a CSS advocate to blubbering, "Well, I guess, it might be, easier to use, a, table, in that instance." Either that, or the CSS advocate ends up admitting that the CSS solution is just as big of a hack as using tables is.
And somehow the uglier, non-table-based hack is supposed to be better than the easier, table-based hack. Do we see what pointless, arrogant zealotry brings us? It certainly doesn't help me write a better web page.
All that said, what CSS *can* do is really nice, and I use it all the time! In time, it will get to the point where it will fix the horrible mess that "web development" has become. Either that, or Microsoft will continue to ignore standards and it will fix nothing.
Good post, though! We need more folks like you who can share facts rather than trying to snottily point out the ignorance of people they look down upon. If you can point me to a good primer on using XML + XSLT + CSS, then I'd love to see it.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, that't amazingly fast!
I agree! It's over TWICE as fast as 4000 seconds on the sample size!
Either way, there'd be no real intelligence.
Don't be so hard on politicians. Many of them are quite, quite smart. The question is, in which field does their intelligence manifest itself?
For instance, the so-called "Zodiac Killer" was very intelligent in how he selected victims, how he evaded capture, how he beguiled the police, and how he terrorized the population of a city. Mind you, his field (murder and terror) is absolutely morally reprehensible, but you can't deny that he was intelligent.
Likewise, the field of politicians (schmoozing, bullshitting, lawyering, showmanship, and, in some cases, murder and terror) is also absolutely morally reprehensible, but you can't deny that many politicans (may bees fly up their urethras and sting them for the rest of their days!) are really, really fucking smart at doing it.
But I have worked in other, less hierarchical organizations (read: "leaderless") and I will tell you that they worked better; we got more done, better, in less time, on similar tasks.
Do you think that there might be other tasks in other industries that might benefit more from a hierarchical structure, or do you believe that your positive experiences in "leaderless" organizations necessarily translate to all other tasks in all other industries?
I find your response replete with rhetoric and besmirched by values that I do not share.
Most countries only very rarely openly threaten or bully.
How would you prove this? What qualifies as "very rarely"?
There is little point in making disinterested bystanders into enemies by engaging in oafish behavior.
What qualifies as "oafish behavior"?
Foreign policy sometimes involves some empty posturing, but that is usually for internal consumption (in which case it is not diplomacy).
What is the difference between "foreign policy for internal consumption only" and "propaganda"?
Countries that feel invulnerable, like the US, tend to engage more in empty posturing than small and vulnerable countries.
First, if you can back it up (with, for example, the most effective and well-trained military in the world not to mention the world's largest nuclear arsenal), then is it really "empty" posturing? Second, doesn't posturing, empty or not, have more to do with the ability to destroy anyone you please than it does with any perceived feeling of invulnerability? Third, how does the USA "feel" invulnerable, or "feel" anything for that matter?
Cooperation is a great way achieving shared foreign policy goals.
Much like how the Stalin cooperated with Hitler to divide Poland?
In my dictionary cooperation does not involve any self-sacrifice.
Doesn't the nature of compromise involve giving up on some of your goals in order to find agreement?
those thugs are "agent provocateurs" deliberately planted
You mean *some* of those thugs are agent provocateurs. Governments are certainly not clean in this regard -- they want an excuse to disperse an unruly and highly-disliked crowd of punks as quickly as possible. Suppose the rationale is to give the cops "reason" to use brute force before something "worse" happens? Given how much I dislike anarchist punk kids, I kind of sympathize with it. Given how much I dislike right-wing pseudo-military abusive cops, I am kind of repulsed by it. It's not a black-and-white moral issue, unfortunately.
That said, my brother made a documentary about the protests of the G-8 summit in Georgia which will be entitled "Criminalizing Dissent" (and is part of his thesis for his masters degree in film). He revealed to me that he followed a "peace protestor" who, when interviewed, declared that violence, property destruction, and other forms of "direct action" (what pleasant spin that is!) is something that was *NOT* in-line with his beliefs and he does not condone it.
Later, my brother got additional footage of the exact same individual talking to some anarchists in which he instructed them to break and steal things if they had the opportunity to do so.
I think that thugs are a subset of anarchists.
I also don't like Bush, never liked him, and never voted for him, so please resist the temptation to apply black-and-white thinking to me.
That's the problem with too many Americans (and yes, I am one myself, keep that in mind when you flame me): they think that waving their dicks around and threatening/bullying the rest of the world will make us safer, when in fact it does the opposite.
I think lots of people on the Left want to think that the only reason that people hate and attack the USA is because of the USA's "bad behavior". Keep in mind that this action gives ammunition to the rabid Right-wing war hawks who call you the "blame America first crowd", but that's a side point to what I'm trying to state.
If the USA stopped "threatening/bullying", as you imply it should do, then it would be the only country on the planet that does NOT "threaten" or "bully". What one person may call "threatening" or "bullying" is what another person would simply call "looking out for one's interests" -- which is the very essence of diplomacy. Every nation is competing and standing up for their own interests, regardless of the spin that we want to put on it and pretend that everyone is "cooperating". Is China cooperating with Taiwan and Tibet? Is North Korea cooperating with anyone?
Diplomacy happens no matter what you and I may desire. (Hehe, "Diplomacy happens.") Some diplomatic decisions happens to deprive individuals of life, liberty, and property, and that precisely what I decry.
If you want to sound less like a self-indulgent teenager, then I reccomend removing "WTF?" from your vocabularly.
Do you have someone who tells you to get up every morning? Tells you to brush your teeth?
This assumes that all of the decisions made across an organization of arbitrary size (say, 300,000 people) are as trivial as decisions of personal hygiene and individual discipline.
Moreover, does your "leader" at work give you every task you must accomplish?
That's not what the parent poster's question implies. No leader can give out every task, certainly. A good leader would expect that those he leads do not need to be micromanaged. Furthermore, I think what's more important than "Who assigns the tasks?" is "Who prioritizes the tasks?" The leader's job is often to remove the bullshit from the lives of those he leads so that they can do the jobs that they excel at. The reason why those being led can't do these jobs effectively is because they're often not privy (nor *should* they be!) to the politics that would keep them from doing their jobs.
There is no reason these functions...
snip. I think you believe this because you hate someone telling you what to do. I don't blame you -- I hate it, too! That doesn't mean that the functions performed by a "leader" (the use of that word is bordering on rhetoric, both pro and con) are unnecessary. Tell me, what is your experience in working in a large organization? I'm interested in your experiences both as a leader and as one working under a leader.
You discriminator! Your alleged universal logic questions clearly discriminate against the moronically stupid. You will be sued by my team of kick-ass lawyers!
First, answer this: are you a Christian? If I assumed wrong I'll take responsiblity for it. My assumption is certainly not unwarranted since you argue like a condescending Christian, and I have argued with many, many condescending Christians. If you aren't a Christian, then why in the world are you discussing this with me? Are you a cruel person merely looking for someone to berate? I have specific goals in mind when I seek to counter Christianity, and cruelty is nowhere on my list of priorities. The questions in this paragraph are not rhetorical.
Second, the ad hominem arguments are ineffective and have been ignored. Please back off the personal attacks and return to the issues.
Third, I will respond to the points you made.
I'll ignore your failing to notice that I was speaking in the present tense and your quote is thereby irrelevant.
It is your "speaking in the present tense" which bears no relevance. The Christian god certainly *did* strike down sinners at the moment of sin. The fact that he does not do so now leaves you in the position of explaining why I could escape with graver sins and why the allegedly unchanging god would change his mind about an instant death policy.
The rules changed since the old testament.
The Christian god does not change. Explain. Did the perfect, omniscient god create rules that failed? Explain.
No,
Yes. The Christian god (I'll call it "your" god if you confirm that you are a Christian) killed for far less than I did. I already showed that Herod was killed for not praising god in Acts 12:23. The Christian god killed scores of children and infants for merely belonging to the wrong primitive tribe of people. The Christian god killed forty-two children for mocking one of his prophets (2 Kings 2:23-24). If you agree that it is just for me to claim to be god (I am Jesus Christ, bow down and worship me!) and survive the wrath of the Christian god, then explain why it is also just that children be killed by the Christian god for lesser crimes in light of the fact that scripture calls the Christian god just.
I notice that you failed to provide me with the sequence of events on the first Easter Sunday. Let me provide you with an easier challenge: how must I be saved? Please cite scripture to back up your point.
I believe that according to Christian doctrine we are all sinners and obviously God is not striking down sinners at the moment of sin.
"Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died." Acts 12:23
Herod was killed for the mere act of not praising god. I, on the other hand, can blaspheme with gross excess and survive. The only thing that is obvious to me is that your imaginary god is extreme in both his cruelty and in his inconsistency.
Your religion is a guilt-based, misanthropic religion, as evidenced by your belief that everyone is inherently evil.
Your ploy falls to a believer's argument that you are merely afforded the opportunity to one day repent.
It certainly does not, since your god killed for far less than I did. Furthermore, your god did *NOT* afford the opportunity to others who did far less evil than I did, namely because they were children and infants, murdered by the whims of your evil god.
You tried to provoke an emotion by saying something controversial,
No, I pointed out that your god is inconsistent and cruel. Futhermore, I showed that your god cannot kill me. Ever. He's too weak, too homosexual, too ineffectual, and, otherwise, too very much a figment of your wicked imagination. If I'm wrong, then I dare and defy your god to kill me where I sit, and I ask it in Jesus Christ's name.
But if you're looking for something more "intellectual" than that, then, by all means, tell me what happened on the first Easter Sunday, from sunup to sundown, without omitting anything from scripture. I dare and defy *you* to come up with something which no Christian apologist has ever been able to do: a single, consistent narrative for what happened on the most important day in all of Christendom.
I can't wait for the thoughts and comments of this door opening exactly enough to accomodate the fat ass of a pear-shaped person.
You know what I'm talking about. Sometimes you see a person who has a really fat ass. There's nothing wrong with having a big fat ass, but you still look at it. Hell, maybe you're even turned on by it. Polite society requries us not to mention it. But it's practiacally an eye-magnet. With super glue on it. And extra gravity (due to mass).
But the door, by nature not constrained to the whims of polite society, will "mention" it.
Or what if the door's sensors/algorithm fails and the person's fat ass gets stuck in the door? I suppose that would be even worse.
The grandfather post chose "story", not I.
You had the chance to correct the parent poster and decided that "story" was the best word. "Biography" doesn't fit very well, does it?
How hypocritical given you poor reading comprehension, poor understanding of Christianity, etc.
First, what did I fail to comprehend in my reading? Nothing! Second, what about Christianity do I fail to understand? Nothing! Third, what does the "etc." refer to? Nothing! Please retract your ad-hominems. They do not belong in this conversation.
You seem as blind and bigotted as the most rabid fundi you most likely despise, you seem to merely be at the other intollerant ill-informed extreme.
You have nothing to base this on other than my general hostility to Christianity. I can likely out-class you in scripture knowledge as I have done with so many of your bretheren. And no, I don't despise fundamentalists or any human for that matter. Your religion is evil according to my values, and I will not refrain from using that to counter your attempts at witnessing.
Apparently both your logic and language fu is weak
I was capitalizing on your choice of words to describe the events surrounding Jesus Christ's life. You chose "story", not "biography". Much like Little Red Riding Hood is a story. Certainly a story can describe events that really happened, but, most frequently in context, it describes a fictionalized or fictional event.
My understanding of Che is not limitted to the tag that comes with the t-shirt, I read Che's book.
My statement was anti-Christian, not pro-Che. Forgive me if I misunderstood you. I take it as a small personal mission of mine to ensure that Christian propaganda does not go unchalleneged.
If you continue reading the story you will find out that his death was not permanent. Apologies for the spoiler. ;-)
I appreciate the admission that this is a story rather than reality. We wait for you when you wish to react to what you can reason rather than what you merely hope to be true.
If I happen to be incorrect that the Christian story is merely a story, then may the Christian god strike me dead where I sit, and I ask such a thing in the name of Jesus Christ.
I don't have an opinion on Rand one way or another, really, but I remember in philosophy class that the professor mentioned that Objectivism was the first philosophy of the 20th century to be disproven.
:)
That seems immensely shallow unless he actually went through the steps to "disprove" it. If your professor was a socialist, then it is certainly in his self-interest to disprove (or use his influence as a professor to proclaim something "disproven") a philosophy that is so very counter to everything in socialist philosophy.
The only thing I know about Rand is that The Fountainhead is a weird thing for a teenage girl to force her boyfriend to read, and I'm not dating little miss rape-fantasy anymore.
Rand did have some really dumb ideas about sexuality. She maintained that gays could not be moral, because men where "supposed" to dominate women, or something retarded like that. I feel confident in stating that most Objectivists routinely ignore her arguments on sexuality. Since I am gay, it is certainly in my self-interest to do so.
This documentary looks at a corporations from a psychologists perspective and finds that XXXXX corporations are sociopaths
I inserted the 'XXXXX'.
Which word should go there: "all" or "some"?
If you choose "all", then it would be trivial to prove the movie false by showing an example of a "good" corporation that could convince a sizable number of people.
If you choose "some", then this movie would come off as merely being a "public service" and not the societal change that you want it to be.
This is why I think the 'XXXXX' is null: The movie is intended to paint *ALL* corporations as inherently evil without actually giving anyone the chance to prove them wrong. It's clever propaganda that full-motion, big screen movies excel at.
Funny that all of but one of them suscribed to totalitarianism and not true communism.
What's not funny is that you don't recognize the No True Scotsman fallacy when you make it. This is the most common fallacious defense of communism when people bring up Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, etc.
I never used any kind of adjective to describe the selfishness Ayn Rand describes as a "philosophy".
Probably because you're not familiar with it. The philosophy is called Objectivism. The reason I included that quote was to indicate that what the article was describing was NOT rational self-interest, but what it was calling "ruthless self-interest" (Rand would have called it "irrational self-interest").
I am stating that Rand would never approve of theft or cruelty in her philosophy. To deprive another individual of life, liberty, or property through force or fraud is immoral. The CEOs of Enron and WorldCom are immoral. Sociopaths are immoral. The type of bad behavior that you hate is NOT consistent with Objectivism.
That is, unless you define private property as evil, in which case we will never see eye-to-eye.
I have to correct you because you do not understand what Rand's philosophy is. Read this quote from the article:
"Their ruthless pursuit of self-interest was more easily accomplished..."
Ayn Rand does NOT advocate the ruthless pursuit of self-interest. She advocates the RATIONAL pursuit of self-interest.
What this means, specifically, is that we all, by nature, are selfish creatures (divorce yourself from any perjorative meaning of "selfish" for the moment). The fact that we choose not to deprive any other individual of life, liberty, or property through force or fraud is obtained through the choice to abide by reason. Hence, rational self-interest.
That said, I believe that there are many sociopaths who have chosen to seize upon Rand's writings as a justification for their evil actions. A case in point: My partner's old employer.
My partner's old employer was a company that managed kiosks in shopping malls which sold cell phone service for a major cell phone provider. My partner worked as a regional sales manager, which meant that he had district sales managers reporting to him, store managers reporting to the district managers, and sales people reporting to the store managers.
The environment was nothing short of abusive. My partner went in with his Home Depot team-building mentality which was completely useless in that culture. The only thing that was important was SALES, SALES, SALES. The only thing that mattered was how many sales you did THAT DAY. Everyone beneath the president was called and text messaged EVERY THIRTY MINUTES with "What are your sales at?" And every day he received messages like, "All of you are terrible, worthless jerks!" (For all the abuse they dished out, they thought that saying cuss words was "unprofessional", weirdly enough.) My partner would be driving from one mall to another, get a call on the cellphone with his boss screaming at him, "Write this down! Write this down NOW!" Or, better yet, he'd be on the road and he'd get a call, "We're having a conference call NOW!"
Of course, all the messages were the same: "What are your sales at?" and "You suck!"
The company's president lied to its managers in the yearly convention. Directly. One person asked, "Why can't we send faxes to the regional office?" He replied, "There is NOTHING wrong with our fax system. If you can't get it right, then you're doing something wrong." This was after my partner was told that the area office frequently pretended that they ignored faxes.
The company glibly overlooked abuse done by the sales people. I would advise you: Never, under any circumstances, buy a cell phone from a mall kiosk! To give you an idea, salespeople would sign up a person, then after the customer left, sign up four more lines without the customer's permission on the customer's credit card, then sell those cell phones to passersby for $50 and pocket the cash! When they are abused for the sake of sales and are generally flakey employees, are you surprised that it would happen?
And the company CEO was all about "business as usual" about his evil company. To him, this was "capitalism".
So I find it unjust and underhanded that you would assume that *all* business is just as evil as this and would, in fact, impugn me with the evil done by my partner's old employer because I am a capitalist and agree with much of Rand's philosophy. My partner *left* that evil company because of its abuse and lack of ethics, and our desire is to create a good company that takes care of its people and engages in win-wins with its customers.
The happy ending of this story is that the evil company was recently severed from its cell provider due to its horrible business practices. Even more, NO OTHER CELL PROVIDERS would agree to do business with this compnay because its name was mud in the cellular world. In effect, this company is now out of business. Yes, it feels good to see the evildoers get justice.
I would agree with you! In practice, the practical wins out over the pure. ;)
:)
I vote Libertarian. Can we still be friends?
And this is different from any other development language how?
You could have written this, "How is this different from any other development language?" but you seem to be going for the "snide and snotty" approach.
Let's actually expand your statement to include not only development languages, but also operating systems, applications, and licencing schemes. That said, how is it different?
It's a difference in degree, not kind.
OpenBSD advocates are, by far, the worst. They are the most elitist, most rude, most abusive, most cruel, and most in-your-face about it. They deserve to be marginalized and ignored. Too bad OpenBSD can be replaced by many other operating systems.
I think the second worst would be LISP advocates. They think they are smart and everyone else is stupid and backward, and they feel like they have the need to educate everyone in the true, pure way. Too bad LISP can be replaced by many other programming languages.
I would have to label CSS advocates as "third worst". Too bad CSS has failings and the insisitence of its advocates mostly amount to, "If you don't accept our way, we'll just whine louder!"
Certainly there's room for disagreement about my rankings. They are, after all, my opinion, and I don't really have a "hard" way of ranking them objectively. I will, however, defend my rankings. I think you can agree with me that Delphi advocates are not as loud, ugly, or elitist as LISP advocates, particularly considering that Delphi users grossly outnumber the handful of people who actively code in LISP for a living.
In the grand scheme of things, none of it matters one iota. I think all technological advocacy, particularly the elitist sort, is an easily-ignored waste of energy.
It is ridiculous. But it's a design decision. Tables might be the way to go to contain the major elements on your page. However, if you are serving content to users who might have small screens (cell phones, handheld units) then you might not want to use tables as it would force users with small screens to scroll right and left.
I can understand that, and I appreciate your admission that it is ridiculous rather than replying with, "Yeah, but tables are just as bad!" as others in this very thread have chosen to do.
In my situation, where I work, we are NOT designing anything for small screens. All of our designs are big and flashy and intended to be viewed at 800x600 at least. Hence, there is no benefit to using CSS in this regard in this circumstance. We *do* use CSS, but we also use tables. I.e., we have a hybrid approach, which seems to be the most popular approach to designing web pages these days.
This isn't good enough for some CSS zealots. They insist that I'm a retarded hick for using this heretical, backward approach. All I really want is for particular people to admit that CSS has failings and is not always the best approach because of those failings.
Personally I do as much with CSS as reasonably possible and then hammer something into a table if I have a major design hurdle that calls for it. I'm certainly not going to avoid tables just to say "look ma, no tables." That's for people without real work to get done.
You seem like a reasonable person. I think there are a lot of people who *do* code with the intent of showing how forward-thinking and cool they are by not using the Sinful Table approach to layout.
But CSS is a fundamentally different approach. It's about modifying the document flow to create a layout, not trying to fit stuff into a grid. There's no easy translation from one to the other because they have completely different foundations.
...this is why I think we need to re-evaluate our use of CSS. You think that's a reasonable attitude?
I would agree with this in the sense that the scope of CSS certainly exceeds that which is described as "table-based layout". That said, what is wrong with using a grid approach to layout?
Hang on a sec. They called this CSS approach kludgey and unintuitive. They didn't call table layouts non-kludgey and intuitive, at least not in the quote you provided. The description you provided does sound like a kludge and does sound unituitive. As I said above, I think that CSS is kludgey and unintuitive. But no more so than table layouts.
I don't agree with your analysis. They were trying to translate a two-column table layout into CSS layout and found it kludgey and nonintuitive. The description I provided is the best that three CSS *experts*, not laypeople, could muster when it comes to making CSS layout function on par with what tables can provide. Once again your defense of CSS comes down to bashing tables. Certainly tables are not used for what they were intended, but I don't see anything wrong with grid layouts and tables seem to do a fair job and executing that. CSS is certainly no better at doing layout than tables; in fact, it's worse. I've had another CSS defender in this very thread indicating that you have to *program* the CSS layout in JavaScript in some cases!
WTF are you talking about? I made no such claim! You included the attitude of a few bigots as a reason to avoid CSS, and I pointed out that there are bigots to every approach and that you are cutting your nose off to spite your face if you use that as a reason to avoid a technology instead of judging it on its merits.
And why would I "cut my nose off to spite my face" if not for stupidity or lack of discipline? Please explain to me why your argument is not an ad hominem, because, right now, it just looks like another "You're a dumbass because you don't use CSS in the proper way" argument. Besides, I have indicated the failures of CSS on numerous occasions in this thread, and your responses to those failures largely suck. You have 1) gone back to bashing tables, 2) bashed me, 3) characterized my complaints as irrelevant. Again, I repeat: I use CSS and think it's great, but it's not the cure-all that we want it to be. And I also dislike your snotty attitude and wish you would shape up. It certainly would improve your chances of CSS advocacy!
Read what you wrote again: CSS advocates are often times really snotty, mean, and religious about CSS... [...]
That is very unfair of you. I claim responsibility for using the demonstrative pronoun "this" is a loose way, as such a thing can lead to misunderstanding. But I think your misunderstanding is deliberate. You *want* me to be unreasonable.
The "this" in that post actually refers to these two points:
1. For some layouts, CSS just can't cut it the same way that tables can. Not all layouts, just some layouts.
2. CSS syntax, behavior, and debugging are arcane and unintutive.
And "this" is why we need to re-evaluate our use of CSS. Attempting to adhere to CSS standards with rigor is folly, and I am explicitly referring to using CSS for layout instead of tables.
Now you are just putting words in my mouth.
Okay, excuse me. How about I phrase it like this: Is it acceptable for me to use tables for layout because CSS sucks in comparison in that regard?
Which works until you need to background image to stop at your header or footer. Better to use javascript to find the tallest column and make the other column the same height.
As I was saying: CSS is, at times, arcane and unintuitive. Is using JavaScript to *program* the layout somehow supposed to be superior to a table-based layout? I mean, I had troubles with CSS layout before (after 30 minutes I resorted to using tables and said troubles vanished), but I am actually quite surprised by your solution. It sounds ridiculous!
Sorry I couldn't flame you more but I felt it was more important to point out the positive side of CSS than tell you how ignorant you may or may not be on the subject.
:)
Oh please don't apologize! I thought your post was rather positive and informative. In fact, I agree with your principal argument: CSS *is* the future of the web.
My gripe lies elsewhere. The CSS that we have today is NOT the future, nor it is even usable in some instances. The gyrations that a programmer has to go through in order to change an Evil table-based layout into a Holy CSS-based layout are sometimes downright masochistic, as some posts in this thread will reveal. All one has to do is find an experienced HTML coder to say, "Yeah well what about *this* example?" (shows off a particular table-based design) in order to reduce a CSS advocate to blubbering, "Well, I guess, it might be, easier to use, a, table, in that instance." Either that, or the CSS advocate ends up admitting that the CSS solution is just as big of a hack as using tables is.
And somehow the uglier, non-table-based hack is supposed to be better than the easier, table-based hack. Do we see what pointless, arrogant zealotry brings us? It certainly doesn't help me write a better web page.
All that said, what CSS *can* do is really nice, and I use it all the time! In time, it will get to the point where it will fix the horrible mess that "web development" has become. Either that, or Microsoft will continue to ignore standards and it will fix nothing.
Good post, though! We need more folks like you who can share facts rather than trying to snottily point out the ignorance of people they look down upon. If you can point me to a good primer on using XML + XSLT + CSS, then I'd love to see it.