So now that my degree and experience allows me to have a high income, I don't mind paying state and federal taxes so other people can have the same opportunity.
And what about people who managed to earn their degree without taking plundered money from the government? Should they be forced to pay as well?
I figure while they are studying hard and later getting their high income, they won't be stealing my hubcaps.
This statement implies that anyone going to public school is not going to be a criminal. Unfortunately for your argument, people graduate from government schools without the ability to read. People also drop out of government schools. People who are stupid and make bad choices often turn to crime. In these cases, government school failed (and perhaps harmed) those people, so the taxpayers' money is wasted.
Maybe it depends on whether you are always noticing what others take from you rather than what others give to you.
The typical "You're selfish!" accusation that flows easily and frequently from the mouths of Christians and Leftists. I hate to break this to you, but there is no action that you will do or have ever done that did not contain a self-serving element.
It is incumbent upon universities that call themselves places of learning, open-minded, bastions of science, to refuse money that comes attached with any strings.
Universities can call themselves whatever they want. It will not change two inherent facts about universities:
1. Universities are businesses with bottom lines. 2. Universities are run by fallible humans who are subject to the temptations of money and power.
I don't think it is reasonable to ask or expect that University officials be any more moral or principled than the average corporation or labor union.
I tried replying to this a couple of days ago, but/. kept choking on it. Here's another try:
Huh? You must be refering to someone else. I just entered this discussion so I have no exaggerations to remove from any claims.
My sloth led to my false accusation. Please accept my apology.
I'm asking you independent of the previous discussion to explain why NPR is guilty of the things you say they are. I'm not saying I'll disagree, but I would like to hear what leads you to believe the things you said.
I hadn't listened to NPR in years, and my accusations were based on my previous opinions before I stopped listening. I did a web search, figuring that my point would be easy to justify. I was wrong. In both cases ("NPR is Leftist" and "NPR is a whipping boy of the powerful Jewish lobby") I was quickly able to google information which countered both of my claims. How embarrassing!
Okay, now it's your turn to provide evidence. "Objective and rational sources for your position" would be appreciated.
What kind of "objective and rational sources" would you accept for something which is obviously a highly subjective opinion? If you want me to explain why that is my opinion, I would be happy to. Otherwise, I would like you to do the first thing I asked you to do: remove the exaggerations from your claims and explain to me why you believe them. Posting Leftist propaganda isn't going to cut it with me.
And I notice that you've found it easier to attack me than to actually defend your position with intelligece and reason. It's awfully telling.
1st Pasture beef & Lamb are actually cheaper than feedlot beef & lamb.
Forgive my ignorance, but I don't know what "1st pasture" and "feedlot" mean in this context. Furthermore, I wasn't asking which was cheaper. I was asking for evidence that US Beef was unhealthy for consumption.
Huge amounts of expensive anti-biotics & hormones are need as the cattle have to cope with living waist high in shit.
I requested that you remove the exaggerations. What part of that request did you fail to understand?
Ontop of which there's the huge enviromental cleanup costs
The concept of "protecting the environment" is subjective.
the cattle have spent most of their lives waist high in shit & it's embedded into every pore of their skins.
I asked you to remove, not repeat, your exaggerations. As if every cow has every pore filled with feces. How would one know? Do we examine every pore on every cow for feces? Or could it be that emotional arguments are more fitting to support your position than rational arguments?
Here's some linkage
The New York Times has about as much credibility as the World Weekly News. It is a spokespaper for Leftist agenda. The New York Times recently added itself among the ranks of some of the most evil corporations in the country: those who abuse eminent domain NPR is also a Leftist mouthpiece and whipping boy of the powerful Jewish lobby. You need to come up with more objective and rational sources for your position.
Ironic, right. Did you think that I would have such an outrageous.sig and not be prepared to defend my skepticism?
Answer me this: why do "African AIDS" and "North American AIDS" have completely different infectious patterns? If you need more information to answer, allow me to elaborate. In North America, AIDS has remained almost completely confined to its original risk groups: promiscuous gay men and IV drug users. In Africa, AIDS is largely a heterosexual problem. What accounts for the difference? The answer that the High Priests of AIDS give is largely this: "Those niggers over there in Africa just can't stop fucking each other." What will your answer be? Will it be as racist as the one given by the AIDS establishment?
Here's another question for you to answer: does HIV kill T-cells? Be extra careful who you might contradict in your answer.
If you're gong to stand by the evil lie that "HIV==AIDS", then you have some explaining to do.
cows can't normally live knee high in shit unless pumped full of a million chemicals
Your use of hyperbole damages your argument. I highly doubt that beef cattle are living "knee-high in shit" and I completely doubt that beef cattle are injected with "a million chemicals".
Americans would be eating nice healthy free-range local, Oz & Latin American beef instead
Here you are implying that US Beef is unhealthy. What evidence do you have to support this? Do not claim "heart disease" becuase I think that is a function of obesity (which is caused by too many carbohydrates in our died). It seems to me that more people die of cigarettes and misuse of automobiles than they do of US Beef.
Note that I've never said you were wrong. I may, in fact, agree with your real argument (that the state of US Beef cattle is unhealthy for consumption), but you need to remove the exaggerations first.
And you know what? I bet 19 out of 20 people make the frozen lasagna instead.
You mean 19 out of 20 Americans. I'm not saying Americans are bad, stupid, or uncultured. I'm saying that it's not common in American society to devote a lot of time toward eating well, and it has been that way for decades. Becuase of this, most Americans don't know what eating well is. It's changing for the better, though.
I'm American, by the way. And I make my own lasagna.
I took the liberty to delete all of your ad hominems.
...and I think you have a major chip on your shoulder that you aren't willing to acknowledge, otherwise you'd spit a lot less when you respond to simple messages.
I wouldn't call it a chip on my sholder. I would instead call it lack of tolerance for Mac users' never-ending expressions of outright arrogance.
otherwise you'd spit a lot less when you respond to simple messages.
Compared to how I usually respond to condescending Mac users who make unintelligent arguments, I thought I was downright generous!:)
Here's the bottom line, my sunny friend: people who compare Macs and PCs tend to compare them on price (i.e. "I can get a XXX PC for what I'd pay for that iMac")
Which is a completely fair comparison. Consumers compare things on price all the time.
while completely ignoring the fact that each one offers a very different user experience than the other.
You claim that the user experience between one and the other is "very different". This is subjective, of course, and I happen to disagree with your analysis. I think the user experience between PCs and MVS (the OS used on IBM mainframes) is "very different". The user experience between PCs and Macs is fairly similar, as they run many of the same apps, use the same UI design (WIMP), have the same I/O devices, etc. I don't think you can disagree with me that these many similarities lend to the two systems' being similar rather than "very different".
Let me explain what I mean when I say that MVS is "very different" from PCs. I was working at my old job as a network engineer. I had to talk to one of the IBM techs. I was talking about UNIX and something he would need to do. I started to say, "Okay, first of all, cd to the directory-". He cut me off, asking, "What's a directory?" Mind you, he was a very skilled and competent technician. MVS happens to have no concept of directories. (It is actually the job of the cataloger, not any kind of directory hierarchy, to store and keep track of data sets.) I realized that our concepts of "computing" were both very large and had few intersecting components.
I can only guess you don't actually use Macs, because if you did you'd know how different the user experience truly is compared to PCs.
I've used Macs on many different occasions. I dislike the mile-high toolbar, though I agree that it is useful for people who aren't very good using a mouse. Mac users often trumpet their "superior UI" and how it "conforms to standards" without acutally paying attention to legitimate criticisms that apply to all UI design regardless of platform (such as any dialog with the "yes, no, cancel" buttons -- I hate those). I haven't used OSX yet, though I liked what I saw of it. Being a *IX fan, I was particularly eager to try it but found the price prohibitive.
Price isn't going to sway someone into getting something they won't enjoy using.
And yet, high price will always discourage someone from something they do enjoy. If Apple computers were less expensive, then more people would use them. There are some, if not many, people who like Macs but choose not to buy them because they are too expensive.
My comparison of Palm devices to ring-binder planners is a perfect analogy
What part of "All analogies are flawed" did you fail to understand? If you want to convince me to your point of view, then you're going to have to come up with an argument that doesn't rely on necessarily-invalid analogies.
Let's get something out of the way right up front: a Mac is a Mac and a PC is a PC.
Yet they both run Office, Photoshop, IE, various e-mail programs, and hundreds of other software programs that can be compared. They both function in pretty much the same way (using a cpu, memory, hard drives, a bus, removable media, etc.). They both have very similar input and output devices (mouse, keyboard, monitor). They both have similar user interfaces (WIMP). They are both used to perform very similar tasks. Your suggestion that the two are incomparable is excrement.
Comparing Apple computers to PCs is like comparing Palm devices to ring-binder planner systems
And here you prop up your poor argument with an analogy. All analogies are flawed. If your argument is really truly good, then you won't need a necessarily invalid analogy to support it; it should stand on its own merits. If you disagree that all analogies are flawed, then take the time to list the differences between an apple computer and a palm PDA. Then take the time to list the differences between a PC and a ring-binder planner.
I find the whole Mac vs. PC debate silly for the reasons described above.
I find your argument weak for the reasons described above. You are stating that the two cannot be compared when, in fact, people compare them all the time. I think you are actually upset that people aren't choosing your favorite computer and even moreso because people can state valid reasons for not doing so (namely, that the price/performance ratio is too high).
Really, really small. Christians everywhere brag about their "personal relationship" with Jesus, but everyone knows how one-sided the conversation really is. I think most people are conditioned not to point that out for fear of offending someone's religious beliefs.
I wonder how much useless and damaging superstition our society would be freed from if it became acceptable to publicly criticize irrational and/or harmful beliefs and practices in other religions.
But then the issue is one of resources, pure and simple. So when government agencies and public institutions (like my buddy's university) have their networks go down, this is a direct result of underfunding. And underfunding is your tax cuts at work (your jurisdictional mileage may vary).
First, you are shooting yourself in the foot every time you make an argument and label it "simple". If the issue were really so simple, then its simplicity would be self-evident and you wouldn't need to label it as such. The very fact that you feel compelled to tell someone that it's "simple" generally means that it is anything but. (The same thing goes for arguments labeled "clear" or "obvious".)
Second, a government organization which lacks resources may lack resources do to poor budgeting (i.e., money going towards pork rather than to that which makes government function). Government at all levels spends money on pork. After tax cuts, governments could have reworked their budgets (you know, like us regular folk who don't have the power to plunder at whim have to do) and cut out pork, redundency, overspending, etc. But, then again, what about all those precious votes? I'm sure there's plenty of politicians who are compeletly willing to let their server farms crash if that means saving their favorite vote-buying programs.
and how many switched after Code Red? ILoveYou? the countless others? Those who got inffected either had someone take care of it or just reinstalled the system. This is what they are trained to do and expect it with computers.
I agree with your premise and disagree with your conclusion.
Microsoft has trained people to think that "computers are unstable" and "computers need to be rebooted frequently to fix problems". This is what they are trained to do and expect it with computers.
Viruses are different. People can understand needing to "turn it off and turn it on again" to fix a problem. Viruses are scary. Viruses will "erase your hard drive"! People have been hearing for the past two days that viruses affect "any computer running Microsoft", and people are also aware that there are alternatives to Microsoft.
I think repeated virus attacks will drive people away from Microsoft in greater numbers than Microsoft-imposed instability ever did.
There's a lot of gloating here today, but I think that the SCO execs got what they wanted, the lawyers got rich, and everyone else would have benifited from this never happening in the first place.
You stopped short! Here, I'll finish it for you:
"Linux received more mention in the press than it has received in practically all of its lifespan, and those who view Linux as a competitor were shown that litigation is not the way to compete with Linux."
It's not all bad. SCO execs may win, and Linux may win, too.
They are trying to differentiate it from an "email virus." They are labeling it because of it's entry point, not OS.
I think you may be right. If the worm spread itself solely due to a flaw in Microsoft Outlook (I know, perish the thought!), then would the mainstream press have labeled it as an "e-mail virus" or a "Micorosoft Outlook virus"? My guess is that it would be the former with the real culprit mentioned as an afterthought.
It doesn't matter how fast a patch is released if people don't download and install the patches. Again, both Windows and Linux are identical in this respect.
What you are arguing here is, "It's the users' fault": you are arguing that the users shirked their responsibility in keeping up with security updates and patching their systems as necessary.
The problem with your argument is that it contradicts the notion that Windows (in any of its forms) is "easy to use", and that has been a selling point for Microsoft's operating systems.
In other words, you can't blame the user. If the operating system is truly "easy to use", then I can't see how you can make the argument that an end-user (the vast majority of users of Microsoft's operating systems are end-users) must understand the highly technical, nebulous, ever-evolving notion of "computer security". The one to blame is Microsoft for lying that their systems are "easy to use".
First, your posting is of the tone, "If you don't like it, fix it yourself!" I have heard this from many different developers whom I thought would be generally happy that I was giving them honest feedback about using their software. Many of them simply have no time nor interest in helping their users, and they've made that very clear in their insulting, childish, and condescending responses. You ask that we "offer up fixes" to developers. I've seen how far practically *any* communication with developers has gotten me on multiple occasions, so you can take your "you owe them" attitude and stuff it right up your ass. I'm through with being polite and helpful to developers who have no desire to be polite and helpful in return. The fact that they are writing software is not a license to be an asshole.
Second, there is no such thing as altruism. Every act that a human being chooses to do has a selfish component. There may be many reasons why a person chooses to do something, many of them that don't have a selfish interest. I contend that one of them *must* be a selfish interest or else the person in question will not choose the action.
Third, you have a poor understanding of the selfishness Ayn Rand advocated. It's called "rational self-interest". It is NOT what I call "self-importance", which, to me, implies that my desires take precedence over others' rights, that others (not I) should suffer the negative consequences of my actions, and that I (not others) should suffer the positive rewards of others' actions.
Totally false. Emotions and sentimentality have value.
My statement is not "totally false", as you allege. In fact, I agree with you that emotions and sentimantality have value. They have subjective value. How much is an emotion worth? How do you measure it?
You are confusing replacement costs of an item with the value placed on them by an individual. They are very different concepts. If that person is willing to pay $50,000 for those photographs, then they are worth $50,000 to them! End of story.
Withhold your instructive tone. I am confusing nothing, as I agree with you that the concept of the replacement cost of an item is different from the sentimental value placed on them by an individual (not "value placed on them by an individual", as you wrote, as such may be tied directly to the market value of the item and not necessarily have any sentimental value, such as a DVD player). I was arguing against the concept that "everything can be assigned a dollar value" which implied that everything can be assigned a market dollar value (which excludes those items that are valuable to individuals for sentimental reasons).
To tell the truth, UPS should not care about replacement costs. It should have a schedule of insurance values for various values and let the sender determine how much the package is worth to them.
Are you saying that UPS should honor people's sentimental value in the claims it pays?
The important point, however, is not that some things cannot be assigned a dollar value (as you tried to argue). It is simply that people assign different values to different things.
Some things cannot be assigned a dollar value in certain contexts (such as claims payment). I agree that people assign different values to different things (as if I needed you to state the obvious).
Capitalism, however, leverages the disparity in valuations to create wealth. Whenever you and I engage in a capitalist transaction, we both end up richer as a result of the transaction because we are giving up things we value less for things we value more.
I agree! Notice that this does not necessarily imply sentimental value.
Everything can be assigned a dollar value. EVERYTHING.
This is true for items that do not carry sentimental value. Allow me to illustrate:
I work in a UPS Store. A customer comes in and wants to ship some photographs. How much should the customer insure that package for? The photographs could very well be irreplaceable. More often than not, they are. The person may very well be willing to play $50,000 for those photographs (if they were in such a position). Does that mean that UPS should be obligated to pay $50,000 if the person insures them for that much?
($50,000 happens to be the largest claim that UPS will pay for consumer shipping.)
Boom, instant feedback for application developers. This option is not available for Linux that I know of.
Keep in mind that Microsoft controls the foundation that all these application developers must develop within as well as some applications that compete with software that some of these developers write. Of what benefit is it to Microsoft to send information to Intuit, makers of Quicken and direct competitor to their own software package Money?
It seems to me that this "feedback" that Microsoft gives to application developers would be much more useful to Microsoft as enacting "cooperation" from certain application developers than as some sort of kind gesture to application developers (or, god forbid, actual end users).
Microsoft charging for Windows Updates is analogous to Ford charging their customers extra for basic safety features which should be free in the first place!
You've drawn an analogy between a company that makes automobiles (Ford) and a company that makes software (Microsoft). Your analogy rests on the similarity that the products of both companies should include "basic safety features" (and we'll ignore the fact that this term is nebulous and context-dependant).
The problem with your analogy is that there are many, many differences between "automobiles" and "operating systems". You can't drive an operating system (using "drive" in the sense of "driving a car"). You can't run an application on a truck (providing that you're not running the application on a computer that might come with the truck). I can name the differences between these two ideas all day long. I'm sure you can, too.
The point? All analogies are flawed because they make the statement "X is like Y" even though there will be lots and lots of ways in which X is NOT like Y.
If you think that it is unethical for Microsoft to charge for software updates, then you should be able to make your case without relying on analogies that are necessarily flawed.
The virus was isolated from peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC),cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)and lymph nodes of 3 AIDS patients by coculture with PBMC stimulated by PHA for 72 hours from uninfected donor.
I read the pathetic, sad little article, and I notice that it doesn't say how the virus was isolated, only that it was.
we conducted a comprehensive analysis of the replication properties of nine drug-resistant and nine drug-susceptible viral isolates derived from patients with primary HIV-1 infection
I read this pathetic, sad little article, too. I noticed that it didn't say how the virus was isolated, only that they had isolates.
Why is this important? Because all methods that have been claimed to isolate HIV are complete garbage. Here is what I require in order to believe that HIV has been isolated:
1.Culture of putatively infected tissue.
2. Purification of specimens by density gradient ultracentrifugation.
3. Electron micrographs of particles exhibiting the morfological characteristics and dimensions (100-120 nm) of retroviral particles at the sucrose (or percoll) density of 1.16 gm/ml and containing nothing else, not even particles of other morphologies or dimensions.
4. Proof that the particles contain reverse transcriptase.
5. Analysis of the particles' proteins and RNA and proof that these are unique.
6. Proof that 1-5 are a property only of putatively infected tissues and can not be induced in control cultures. These are identical cultures, that is, tissues obtained from matched, unhealthy subjects and cultured under identical conditions differing only in that they are not putatively infected with a retrovirus.
7. Proof that the particles are infectious, that is when PURE particles are introduced into an uninfected culture or animal, the identical particle is obtained as shown by repeating steps 1-5.
Now, considering that AIDS is the single most well-funded disease in the history of humanity on a per-sufferer basis, certainly there would be some money to fulfill these rules, wouldn't there?
The HIV virus has been isolated and much research has been done on it. Do a quick search on PubMed and you'll find plenty of abstracts.
You are claiming that "HIV exists and causes AIDS". I'm asking you to prove it to me. So far, you have given me two articles that merely claim that HIV has been isolated, but provide no evidence that HIV actually was, in fact, successfully isolated.
I can read only so many lies from health professionals before I'm going to stop digging and demand that they pony up the proper evidence, and I reached that point a long time ago. So, no, I'm not going to go searching for more articles that are going to say, "We isolated HIV". If you're so convinced of your position, then why don't you show me why you believe it?
If I had HIV/AIDS, the virus replication would be slowed. Side effects would include not dying as quickly as people before AZT was used.
I noticed you dodged my questions. They were not rhetorical. I will ask them again. Maybe this time I will get an aswer:
If you start the standard dosage of AZT given to AIDS sufferers, 1. How long do you think you will live? 2. What side effects will you suffer from?
Now, to respond to your points:
First, you can't claim that "virus replication would be slowed" becuase you can't come up with a virus, much less its replication. Remember, the "HIV test" does not test for HIV. It tests for antibodies that scientists magically claim exists in the presence of a virus whose existence they cannot show.
Second, you ignore the fact that practically no one (that means scientists and health professionals) any more claims that AZT prolongs life. (Just what do you think the protease inhibitors were replacing?) If AZT doesn't prolong life, then it either has no effect or diminishes it. Considering that AZT was shelved sev
Republicans speak for employers, Democrats speak for employees.
Democrats don't care about employees unless they are voting for Democrats. The easiest way for them to ensure voters is to take money from people whose votes they don't need and pass it off as "social services". Social Security is the biggest and most effective of all the vote-buying schemes (outside of the impending and inevitable prescription drug benefit scheme) because all politicians know that old people vote in droves. Why else do you think that the "small government" Republicans are tripping over themselves to outdo the Democrats in this prescription drug benefit income-redistribution scheme?
As for your sig - go inject yourself with some HIV and see what happens.
Sure thing, but you'll have to find some HIV first. The virus has never been isolated?
How about this: why don't you start taking the standard dosage of AZT that many "AIDS sufferers" took? How long do you think you will live? What side effects do you think you will encounter.
Money is not sentient and cannot be the culprit behind anything. Greed is a completely subjective notion and cannot be the culprit behind anything.
And who embodies better money and greed than croporations, who themselves are bigger than many countries?
If I were to accept your notion that there is some level of money and/or power that an entity could obtain that would suddenly push it over the mythical "greedy" barrier, then I would say that governments beat out corporations any day of the year. Governments, in their quest for money and power, have killed millions, destroyed lives, taken over businesses, forced people into labor, forced people into slavery, taken people's life savings, forced people to have abortions, the list goes on and on. More people have been killed by their own governments than they have by anything else in the history of humanity. You seem to think that possession of money is evidential of evil. I think that the destuction of life, liberty, and property is evidential of evil.
The robber barons of yesteryear must be staring in stupendous awe from hell!!!
Slashdot Mirror
So now that my degree and experience allows me to have a high income, I don't mind paying state and federal taxes so other people can have the same opportunity.
And what about people who managed to earn their degree without taking plundered money from the government? Should they be forced to pay as well?
I figure while they are studying hard and later getting their high income, they won't be stealing my hubcaps.
This statement implies that anyone going to public school is not going to be a criminal. Unfortunately for your argument, people graduate from government schools without the ability to read. People also drop out of government schools. People who are stupid and make bad choices often turn to crime. In these cases, government school failed (and perhaps harmed) those people, so the taxpayers' money is wasted.
Maybe it depends on whether you are always noticing what others take from you rather than what others give to you.
The typical "You're selfish!" accusation that flows easily and frequently from the mouths of Christians and Leftists. I hate to break this to you, but there is no action that you will do or have ever done that did not contain a self-serving element.
It is incumbent upon universities that call themselves places of learning, open-minded, bastions of science, to refuse money that comes attached with any strings.
Universities can call themselves whatever they want. It will not change two inherent facts about universities:
1. Universities are businesses with bottom lines.
2. Universities are run by fallible humans who are subject to the temptations of money and power.
I don't think it is reasonable to ask or expect that University officials be any more moral or principled than the average corporation or labor union.
That's when you snap your suspenders, scratch your beard,
You forgot, "rub your fat belly,".
I tried replying to this a couple of days ago, but /. kept choking on it. Here's another try:
Huh? You must be refering to someone else. I just entered this discussion so I have no exaggerations to remove from any claims.
My sloth led to my false accusation. Please accept my apology.
I'm asking you independent of the previous discussion to explain why NPR is guilty of the things you say they are. I'm not saying I'll disagree, but I would like to hear what leads you to believe the things you said.
I hadn't listened to NPR in years, and my accusations were based on my previous opinions before I stopped listening. I did a web search, figuring that my point would be easy to justify. I was wrong. In both cases ("NPR is Leftist" and "NPR is a whipping boy of the powerful Jewish lobby") I was quickly able to google information which countered both of my claims. How embarrassing!
Hence, I retract what I claimed about NPR.
Okay, now it's your turn to provide evidence. "Objective and rational sources for your position" would be appreciated.
What kind of "objective and rational sources" would you accept for something which is obviously a highly subjective opinion? If you want me to explain why that is my opinion, I would be happy to. Otherwise, I would like you to do the first thing I asked you to do: remove the exaggerations from your claims and explain to me why you believe them. Posting Leftist propaganda isn't going to cut it with me.
And I notice that you've found it easier to attack me than to actually defend your position with intelligece and reason. It's awfully telling.
1st Pasture beef & Lamb are actually cheaper than feedlot beef & lamb.
Forgive my ignorance, but I don't know what "1st pasture" and "feedlot" mean in this context. Furthermore, I wasn't asking which was cheaper. I was asking for evidence that US Beef was unhealthy for consumption.
Huge amounts of expensive anti-biotics & hormones are need as the cattle have to cope with living waist high in shit.
I requested that you remove the exaggerations. What part of that request did you fail to understand?
Ontop of which there's the huge enviromental cleanup costs
The concept of "protecting the environment" is subjective.
the cattle have spent most of their lives waist high in shit & it's embedded into every pore of their skins.
I asked you to remove, not repeat, your exaggerations. As if every cow has every pore filled with feces. How would one know? Do we examine every pore on every cow for feces? Or could it be that emotional arguments are more fitting to support your position than rational arguments?
Here's some linkage
The New York Times has about as much credibility as the World Weekly News. It is a spokespaper for Leftist agenda. The New York Times recently added itself among the ranks of some of the most evil corporations in the country: those who abuse eminent domain NPR is also a Leftist mouthpiece and whipping boy of the powerful Jewish lobby. You need to come up with more objective and rational sources for your position.
One might argue that your argument is damaged by
.sig and not be prepared to defend my skepticism?
Ironic, right. Did you think that I would have such an outrageous
Answer me this: why do "African AIDS" and "North American AIDS" have completely different infectious patterns? If you need more information to answer, allow me to elaborate. In North America, AIDS has remained almost completely confined to its original risk groups: promiscuous gay men and IV drug users. In Africa, AIDS is largely a heterosexual problem. What accounts for the difference? The answer that the High Priests of AIDS give is largely this: "Those niggers over there in Africa just can't stop fucking each other." What will your answer be? Will it be as racist as the one given by the AIDS establishment?
Here's another question for you to answer: does HIV kill T-cells? Be extra careful who you might contradict in your answer.
If you're gong to stand by the evil lie that "HIV==AIDS", then you have some explaining to do.
cows can't normally live knee high in shit unless pumped full of a million chemicals
Your use of hyperbole damages your argument. I highly doubt that beef cattle are living "knee-high in shit" and I completely doubt that beef cattle are injected with "a million chemicals".
Americans would be eating nice healthy free-range local, Oz & Latin American beef instead
Here you are implying that US Beef is unhealthy. What evidence do you have to support this? Do not claim "heart disease" becuase I think that is a function of obesity (which is caused by too many carbohydrates in our died). It seems to me that more people die of cigarettes and misuse of automobiles than they do of US Beef.
Note that I've never said you were wrong. I may, in fact, agree with your real argument (that the state of US Beef cattle is unhealthy for consumption), but you need to remove the exaggerations first.
And you know what? I bet 19 out of 20 people make the frozen lasagna instead.
You mean 19 out of 20 Americans. I'm not saying Americans are bad, stupid, or uncultured. I'm saying that it's not common in American society to devote a lot of time toward eating well, and it has been that way for decades. Becuase of this, most Americans don't know what eating well is. It's changing for the better, though.
I'm American, by the way. And I make my own lasagna.
I took the liberty to delete all of your ad hominems.
...and I think you have a major chip on your shoulder that you aren't willing to acknowledge, otherwise you'd spit a lot less when you respond to simple messages.
:)
I wouldn't call it a chip on my sholder. I would instead call it lack of tolerance for Mac users' never-ending expressions of outright arrogance.
otherwise you'd spit a lot less when you respond to simple messages.
Compared to how I usually respond to condescending Mac users who make unintelligent arguments, I thought I was downright generous!
Here's the bottom line, my sunny friend: people who compare Macs and PCs tend to compare them on price (i.e. "I can get a XXX PC for what I'd pay for that iMac")
Which is a completely fair comparison. Consumers compare things on price all the time.
while completely ignoring the fact that each one offers a very different user experience than the other.
You claim that the user experience between one and the other is "very different". This is subjective, of course, and I happen to disagree with your analysis. I think the user experience between PCs and MVS (the OS used on IBM mainframes) is "very different". The user experience between PCs and Macs is fairly similar, as they run many of the same apps, use the same UI design (WIMP), have the same I/O devices, etc. I don't think you can disagree with me that these many similarities lend to the two systems' being similar rather than "very different".
Let me explain what I mean when I say that MVS is "very different" from PCs. I was working at my old job as a network engineer. I had to talk to one of the IBM techs. I was talking about UNIX and something he would need to do. I started to say, "Okay, first of all, cd to the directory-". He cut me off, asking, "What's a directory?" Mind you, he was a very skilled and competent technician. MVS happens to have no concept of directories. (It is actually the job of the cataloger, not any kind of directory hierarchy, to store and keep track of data sets.) I realized that our concepts of "computing" were both very large and had few intersecting components.
I can only guess you don't actually use Macs, because if you did you'd know how different the user experience truly is compared to PCs.
I've used Macs on many different occasions. I dislike the mile-high toolbar, though I agree that it is useful for people who aren't very good using a mouse. Mac users often trumpet their "superior UI" and how it "conforms to standards" without acutally paying attention to legitimate criticisms that apply to all UI design regardless of platform (such as any dialog with the "yes, no, cancel" buttons -- I hate those). I haven't used OSX yet, though I liked what I saw of it. Being a *IX fan, I was particularly eager to try it but found the price prohibitive.
Price isn't going to sway someone into getting something they won't enjoy using.
And yet, high price will always discourage someone from something they do enjoy. If Apple computers were less expensive, then more people would use them. There are some, if not many, people who like Macs but choose not to buy them because they are too expensive.
My comparison of Palm devices to ring-binder planners is a perfect analogy
What part of "All analogies are flawed" did you fail to understand? If you want to convince me to your point of view, then you're going to have to come up with an argument that doesn't rely on necessarily-invalid analogies.
Let's get something out of the way right up front: a Mac is a Mac and a PC is a PC.
Yet they both run Office, Photoshop, IE, various e-mail programs, and hundreds of other software programs that can be compared. They both function in pretty much the same way (using a cpu, memory, hard drives, a bus, removable media, etc.). They both have very similar input and output devices (mouse, keyboard, monitor). They both have similar user interfaces (WIMP). They are both used to perform very similar tasks. Your suggestion that the two are incomparable is excrement.
Comparing Apple computers to PCs is like comparing Palm devices to ring-binder planner systems
And here you prop up your poor argument with an analogy. All analogies are flawed. If your argument is really truly good, then you won't need a necessarily invalid analogy to support it; it should stand on its own merits. If you disagree that all analogies are flawed, then take the time to list the differences between an apple computer and a palm PDA. Then take the time to list the differences between a PC and a ring-binder planner.
I find the whole Mac vs. PC debate silly for the reasons described above.
I find your argument weak for the reasons described above. You are stating that the two cannot be compared when, in fact, people compare them all the time. I think you are actually upset that people aren't choosing your favorite computer and even moreso because people can state valid reasons for not doing so (namely, that the price/performance ratio is too high).
I wonder how big his personal network is...
Really, really small. Christians everywhere brag about their "personal relationship" with Jesus, but everyone knows how one-sided the conversation really is. I think most people are conditioned not to point that out for fear of offending someone's religious beliefs.
I wonder how much useless and damaging superstition our society would be freed from if it became acceptable to publicly criticize irrational and/or harmful beliefs and practices in other religions.
But then the issue is one of resources, pure and simple. So when government agencies and public institutions (like my buddy's university) have their networks go down, this is a direct result of underfunding. And underfunding is your tax cuts at work (your jurisdictional mileage may vary).
First, you are shooting yourself in the foot every time you make an argument and label it "simple". If the issue were really so simple, then its simplicity would be self-evident and you wouldn't need to label it as such. The very fact that you feel compelled to tell someone that it's "simple" generally means that it is anything but. (The same thing goes for arguments labeled "clear" or "obvious".)
Second, a government organization which lacks resources may lack resources do to poor budgeting (i.e., money going towards pork rather than to that which makes government function). Government at all levels spends money on pork. After tax cuts, governments could have reworked their budgets (you know, like us regular folk who don't have the power to plunder at whim have to do) and cut out pork, redundency, overspending, etc. But, then again, what about all those precious votes? I'm sure there's plenty of politicians who are compeletly willing to let their server farms crash if that means saving their favorite vote-buying programs.
and how many switched after Code Red? ILoveYou? the countless others? Those who got inffected either had someone take care of it or just reinstalled the system. This is what they are trained to do and expect it with computers.
I agree with your premise and disagree with your conclusion.
Microsoft has trained people to think that "computers are unstable" and "computers need to be rebooted frequently to fix problems". This is what they are trained to do and expect it with computers.
Viruses are different. People can understand needing to "turn it off and turn it on again" to fix a problem. Viruses are scary. Viruses will "erase your hard drive"! People have been hearing for the past two days that viruses affect "any computer running Microsoft", and people are also aware that there are alternatives to Microsoft.
I think repeated virus attacks will drive people away from Microsoft in greater numbers than Microsoft-imposed instability ever did.
There's a lot of gloating here today, but I think that the SCO execs got what they wanted, the lawyers got rich, and everyone else would have benifited from this never happening in the first place.
You stopped short! Here, I'll finish it for you:
"Linux received more mention in the press than it has received in practically all of its lifespan, and those who view Linux as a competitor were shown that litigation is not the way to compete with Linux."
It's not all bad. SCO execs may win, and Linux may win, too.
They are trying to differentiate it from an "email virus." They are labeling it because of it's entry point, not OS.
I think you may be right. If the worm spread itself solely due to a flaw in Microsoft Outlook (I know, perish the thought!), then would the mainstream press have labeled it as an "e-mail virus" or a "Micorosoft Outlook virus"? My guess is that it would be the former with the real culprit mentioned as an afterthought.
It doesn't matter how fast a patch is released if people don't download and install the patches. Again, both Windows and Linux are identical in this respect.
What you are arguing here is, "It's the users' fault": you are arguing that the users shirked their responsibility in keeping up with security updates and patching their systems as necessary.
The problem with your argument is that it contradicts the notion that Windows (in any of its forms) is "easy to use", and that has been a selling point for Microsoft's operating systems.
In other words, you can't blame the user. If the operating system is truly "easy to use", then I can't see how you can make the argument that an end-user (the vast majority of users of Microsoft's operating systems are end-users) must understand the highly technical, nebulous, ever-evolving notion of "computer security". The one to blame is Microsoft for lying that their systems are "easy to use".
First, your posting is of the tone, "If you don't like it, fix it yourself!" I have heard this from many different developers whom I thought would be generally happy that I was giving them honest feedback about using their software. Many of them simply have no time nor interest in helping their users, and they've made that very clear in their insulting, childish, and condescending responses. You ask that we "offer up fixes" to developers. I've seen how far practically *any* communication with developers has gotten me on multiple occasions, so you can take your "you owe them" attitude and stuff it right up your ass. I'm through with being polite and helpful to developers who have no desire to be polite and helpful in return. The fact that they are writing software is not a license to be an asshole.
Second, there is no such thing as altruism. Every act that a human being chooses to do has a selfish component. There may be many reasons why a person chooses to do something, many of them that don't have a selfish interest. I contend that one of them *must* be a selfish interest or else the person in question will not choose the action.
Third, you have a poor understanding of the selfishness Ayn Rand advocated. It's called "rational self-interest". It is NOT what I call "self-importance", which, to me, implies that my desires take precedence over others' rights, that others (not I) should suffer the negative consequences of my actions, and that I (not others) should suffer the positive rewards of others' actions.
Totally false. Emotions and sentimentality have value.
My statement is not "totally false", as you allege. In fact, I agree with you that emotions and sentimantality have value. They have subjective value. How much is an emotion worth? How do you measure it?
You are confusing replacement costs of an item with the value placed on them by an individual. They are very different concepts. If that person is willing to pay $50,000 for those photographs, then they are worth $50,000 to them! End of story.
Withhold your instructive tone. I am confusing nothing, as I agree with you that the concept of the replacement cost of an item is different from the sentimental value placed on them by an individual (not "value placed on them by an individual", as you wrote, as such may be tied directly to the market value of the item and not necessarily have any sentimental value, such as a DVD player). I was arguing against the concept that "everything can be assigned a dollar value" which implied that everything can be assigned a market dollar value (which excludes those items that are valuable to individuals for sentimental reasons).
To tell the truth, UPS should not care about replacement costs. It should have a schedule of insurance values for various values and let the sender determine how much the package is worth to them.
Are you saying that UPS should honor people's sentimental value in the claims it pays?
The important point, however, is not that some things cannot be assigned a dollar value (as you tried to argue). It is simply that people assign different values to different things.
Some things cannot be assigned a dollar value in certain contexts (such as claims payment). I agree that people assign different values to different things (as if I needed you to state the obvious).
Capitalism, however, leverages the disparity in valuations to create wealth. Whenever you and I engage in a capitalist transaction, we both end up richer as a result of the transaction because we are giving up things we value less for things we value more.
I agree! Notice that this does not necessarily imply sentimental value.
Everything can be assigned a dollar value. EVERYTHING.
This is true for items that do not carry sentimental value. Allow me to illustrate:
I work in a UPS Store. A customer comes in and wants to ship some photographs. How much should the customer insure that package for? The photographs could very well be irreplaceable. More often than not, they are. The person may very well be willing to play $50,000 for those photographs (if they were in such a position). Does that mean that UPS should be obligated to pay $50,000 if the person insures them for that much?
($50,000 happens to be the largest claim that UPS will pay for consumer shipping.)
Boom, instant feedback for application developers. This option is not available for Linux that I know of.
Keep in mind that Microsoft controls the foundation that all these application developers must develop within as well as some applications that compete with software that some of these developers write. Of what benefit is it to Microsoft to send information to Intuit, makers of Quicken and direct competitor to their own software package Money?
It seems to me that this "feedback" that Microsoft gives to application developers would be much more useful to Microsoft as enacting "cooperation" from certain application developers than as some sort of kind gesture to application developers (or, god forbid, actual end users).
Microsoft charging for Windows Updates is analogous to Ford charging their customers extra for basic safety features which should be free in the first place!
You've drawn an analogy between a company that makes automobiles (Ford) and a company that makes software (Microsoft). Your analogy rests on the similarity that the products of both companies should include "basic safety features" (and we'll ignore the fact that this term is nebulous and context-dependant).
The problem with your analogy is that there are many, many differences between "automobiles" and "operating systems". You can't drive an operating system (using "drive" in the sense of "driving a car"). You can't run an application on a truck (providing that you're not running the application on a computer that might come with the truck). I can name the differences between these two ideas all day long. I'm sure you can, too.
The point? All analogies are flawed because they make the statement "X is like Y" even though there will be lots and lots of ways in which X is NOT like Y.
If you think that it is unethical for Microsoft to charge for software updates, then you should be able to make your case without relying on analogies that are necessarily flawed.
The virus was isolated from peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC),cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)and lymph nodes of 3 AIDS patients by coculture with PBMC stimulated by PHA for 72 hours from uninfected donor.
I read the pathetic, sad little article, and I notice that it doesn't say how the virus was isolated, only that it was.
we conducted a comprehensive analysis of the replication properties of nine drug-resistant and nine drug-susceptible viral isolates derived from patients with primary HIV-1 infection
I read this pathetic, sad little article, too. I noticed that it didn't say how the virus was isolated, only that they had isolates.
Why is this important? Because all methods that have been claimed to isolate HIV are complete garbage. Here is what I require in order to believe that HIV has been isolated:
1.Culture of putatively infected tissue.
2. Purification of specimens by density gradient ultracentrifugation.
3. Electron micrographs of particles exhibiting the morfological characteristics and dimensions (100-120 nm) of retroviral particles at the sucrose (or percoll) density of 1.16 gm/ml and containing nothing else, not even particles of other morphologies or dimensions.
4. Proof that the particles contain reverse transcriptase.
5. Analysis of the particles' proteins and RNA and proof that these are unique.
6. Proof that 1-5 are a property only of putatively infected tissues and can not be induced in control cultures. These are identical cultures, that is, tissues obtained from matched, unhealthy subjects and cultured under identical conditions differing only in that they are not putatively infected with a retrovirus.
7. Proof that the particles are infectious, that is when PURE particles are introduced into an uninfected culture or animal, the identical particle is obtained as shown by repeating steps 1-5.
Now, considering that AIDS is the single most well-funded disease in the history of humanity on a per-sufferer basis, certainly there would be some money to fulfill these rules, wouldn't there?
The HIV virus has been isolated and much research has been done on it. Do a quick search on PubMed and you'll find plenty of abstracts.
You are claiming that "HIV exists and causes AIDS". I'm asking you to prove it to me. So far, you have given me two articles that merely claim that HIV has been isolated, but provide no evidence that HIV actually was, in fact, successfully isolated.
I can read only so many lies from health professionals before I'm going to stop digging and demand that they pony up the proper evidence, and I reached that point a long time ago. So, no, I'm not going to go searching for more articles that are going to say, "We isolated HIV". If you're so convinced of your position, then why don't you show me why you believe it?
If I had HIV/AIDS, the virus replication would be slowed. Side effects would include not dying as quickly as people before AZT was used.
I noticed you dodged my questions. They were not rhetorical. I will ask them again. Maybe this time I will get an aswer:
If you start the standard dosage of AZT given to AIDS sufferers, 1. How long do you think you will live? 2. What side effects will you suffer from?
Now, to respond to your points:
First, you can't claim that "virus replication would be slowed" becuase you can't come up with a virus, much less its replication. Remember, the "HIV test" does not test for HIV. It tests for antibodies that scientists magically claim exists in the presence of a virus whose existence they cannot show.
Second, you ignore the fact that practically no one (that means scientists and health professionals) any more claims that AZT prolongs life. (Just what do you think the protease inhibitors were replacing?) If AZT doesn't prolong life, then it either has no effect or diminishes it. Considering that AZT was shelved sev
Republicans speak for employers, Democrats speak for employees.
Democrats don't care about employees unless they are voting for Democrats. The easiest way for them to ensure voters is to take money from people whose votes they don't need and pass it off as "social services". Social Security is the biggest and most effective of all the vote-buying schemes (outside of the impending and inevitable prescription drug benefit scheme) because all politicians know that old people vote in droves. Why else do you think that the "small government" Republicans are tripping over themselves to outdo the Democrats in this prescription drug benefit income-redistribution scheme?
As for your sig - go inject yourself with some HIV and see what happens.
Sure thing, but you'll have to find some HIV first. The virus has never been isolated?
How about this: why don't you start taking the standard dosage of AZT that many "AIDS sufferers" took? How long do you think you will live? What side effects do you think you will encounter.
The real culprit is money and greed.
Money is not sentient and cannot be the culprit behind anything. Greed is a completely subjective notion and cannot be the culprit behind anything.
And who embodies better money and greed than croporations, who themselves are bigger than many countries?
If I were to accept your notion that there is some level of money and/or power that an entity could obtain that would suddenly push it over the mythical "greedy" barrier, then I would say that governments beat out corporations any day of the year. Governments, in their quest for money and power, have killed millions, destroyed lives, taken over businesses, forced people into labor, forced people into slavery, taken people's life savings, forced people to have abortions, the list goes on and on. More people have been killed by their own governments than they have by anything else in the history of humanity. You seem to think that possession of money is evidential of evil. I think that the destuction of life, liberty, and property is evidential of evil.
The robber barons of yesteryear must be staring in stupendous awe from hell!!!
Hell is a superstitious belief.