there are a lot of moderate muslims. there is also a heck of a lot of extremist muslims. it's hard for the moderates to exercise restraint and power when they aren't actually fully in power
it's also hard to say "calm down" when the other guy feels fully justified in putting a bullet in your head because you are not adequately devout, of the wrong sect, too western sounding/ looking, etc.
if you want to talk media spin, here it is: when a muslim extremist kills a westerner, the western media goes apeshit. when a muslim extremist kills a moderate muslim, you don't hear about it. but eh latter happens 10-100x more than the former. because the simple truth, by orders of magnitude, is that the greatest victim of muslim extremist terrorism, is other muslims. moderate muslims. they are literally being killed off if not cowed by fear
1. islam initially spread through violent conquest (the middle east), then later through peaceful conversion (bangladesh, indonesia)
2. while christianity initially spread through peaceful conversion (the mediterranean), then later through violent conquest (south and central america)
now the christian world is increasingly peaceful, while the muslim world is increasingly violent
when will everyone figure out we should be driving around methane powered cars?
yes, fracking the marcellus shale has the potential to make us energy independent, and also to unleash the worst ecological disaster in the history of mankind, poisoning water tables for millennia. however, if we actually allow ourselves to prevail over the greed of corporations and do it right (which means more cost, which means dragging the corporations kicking and screaming into the world of smaller profit margins for the sake of of ecological integrity), why aren't the major car companies rolling out natural gas powered cars?
heck, homes are already piped in natural gas. it would be interesting if you could refuel at home, as well as the road. propbably as quickly and easily as petroleum derivatives
yes, it does seem more dangerous. volatile highly combustible gas is more frightening than volatile highly combustible liquid. but there it is: we pipe this stuff into our homes. a house blows up now and then. we live with THAT. so we can get this into our cars
i know methane powered cars already exist. but why isn't a major car company seeing the potential of the marcellus shale and preparing us, and them, for true energy independence?
wouldn't it be nice to know when the straight of hormuz gets shut off it won't mean a damn thing for our commute to work or our nation's economy or our international commitments?
intolerance of intolerance is not the same thing as intolerance itself
"i oppose you because of your skin color" is not the same as "i oppose you because you oppose people simply because of their skin color"
but in that difference, is the confusion: some social conservatives view the left as the most intolerant. because the left won't respect their homophobia, for example. "how can you say you stand for tolerance when you don't respect my right to deny someone else's right to marry?"
did you see that trick? did you see how it gets turned around?
it's the same as "if some troll somewhere makes a bad youtube video about muhammad, the honor of islam must be restored with blood from someone else from your tribe, the west"
it all comes down to: how do you deal with people who demand respect for a worldview which is essentially disrespectful
1. someone insults islam. could be erudite high culture, like salman rushdie, could be a useless troll, like the "innocence of the muslims" hatemonger. doesn't matter
2. the muslim world goes apeshit. moderate muslims say the muslims going apeshit do more damage to islam than the insult to islam. they're right. doesn't matter
3. someone from the west, or in the west, gets killed. this matters
see, it doesn't matter if you believe that you should be able to say anything you want and it doesn't give anyone else the right to kill you. because there's a large group of extremists who believe that if you insult their religion, this gives them the right, no, the duty, to kill someone, ANYONE from the west. because if some low iq asocial reject who hasn't washed in a week draws a lame cartoon or writes a bad play about muhammad in his mom's basement, this represents the entire west. the reject's basement could be in hamburg. could be in sydney. could be in vancouver. doesn't matter: the entire western "tribe" attacked the honor of the entire muslim "tribe". that's the way it works in their head. now it is ok to kill someone from that tribe, anywhere, anytime. to restore honor. that's the "logic"
yes, this is some ignorant medieval shit, i agree. but that doesn't matter. what matters is that there is a large group of medieval ignorants who can not be reasoned with who will firmly and dependably adhere to this dynamic
this will go on and on for decades. what i fear is that it accelerates and destabilizes a country into the hands of a muslim version of hitler
i try to be an optimistic person in life. that you can solve problems nonviolently. but this is a small planet, getting smaller, because of jet air travel and the internet. and not that we shouldn't aim for peace, but that peace is not possible, due to the determination of a fringe, but a fringe of enough financial backings, sympathies across large enough of a population, and over a dynamic of many decades, whereby large scale bloodshed comes, despite the best efforts of everyone sane otherwise
muslim moderates, in the muslim world and the west: you can not hide from these fools. you have to fight for your lands. this will make you targets, and a lot of you will be targeted and killed for not being properly devout. but the alternative is these dipshits come to power, and then it is large scale conflict with the west, and it will make wwii look like a tea party. please: take your lands away from these assholes. it will be very difficult. you understand the alternative is worse
not that it is especially wrong for this: everyone steal from everyone, and then improves on it. this is how creation works
which tells us how useless and ignorant intellectual property, as a concept, is
you may ask then how does the solitary inventor protect his <strike>invention</strike> incremental improvement, standing on the shoulders of others, from being ripped off by large players?
there are a number of legal ways to do this. but if you think the current system is anything but a joke that protects ONLY those large players, and consists of ridiculous wasteful absurd legal posturing games between large players where only lawyers benefit, you are an idiot. the game currently is: he with the largest legion of lawyers wins. that's it, that's the whole game
it's absurdity, and the system is profoundly broken
nobody is going to skip a needed test. or they are not a competent doctor. you do the tests you need to do to do your job
are you telling me some doctors will be like "i know i need to run test {ABC} to rule out condition {XYZ} but i'm not going to do it". because... because why? what is your logic whereby a doctor will not run this test?
i don't think it is a free market. we already have universal healthcare: if you don't pay your bill, the state or the feds bail out the hospital from bankruptcy because we need the hospital
we just pay for it in the most retarded way: rent seeking corporate parasites siphon off cash from the system and add nothing of value. so just remove them and put it all under the government
but the idea that healthcare should be an actual free market place, is fucking insane. you do understand that, right?
the USA has no experience with socialism, communism, or marxism. plenty of other countries do, and therefore properly understand what they mean. but in the usa, marxism, communism and socialism simply mean "boogey man", without rhyme or reason, applied as a smear word to someone who opposes you, if it doesn't support the strict notion that every man is a self-made island and we should all do our own surgery and build our roads and raise ourselves from infants
i wouldn't really about mobs and revolution, i worry about the lone wackjob with the bomb, sniper gun, anthrax, or ricin. most of these wingnuts are free of effective action in their entire lives, on any point. but there's a lot of them, so you do encounter the occasional one who combines this complete WHARGARBBBL of mental content, and somehow, also effective commitment to action. those are the rare few oddballs. they are real, and they do do damage
a free market in real life translates to "give as many expensive tests as we can get away with"
healthcare isn't a MARKETPLACE. it is not driven by best price, because the buyer has no control to seek the cheapest service. no knowledge of medicine. no time when he is having a heart attack to shop around
face reality: there are some issues in life, where, believe it or fucking not, market forces do not help, and make things worse
i say this as a committed capitalist. capitalism works. but i'm not a looney tune frothing at the mouth ignorant free market fundamentalist who believes the magic unicorn and rainbows marketplace is a magic elixir that solves all problems. it doesn't
but it's exactly the same issue: all sense and reason, and the track record of all other western industrialized nations, show you want:
1. universal healthcare to live longer and spend less 2. tighter controls on guns for far lower senseless death rates
so why not in the usa? because of a qausireligious group of faith-based feverish morons who believe certain ignorant things, and their minds will never see the light of day on the obvious
Slashdot Mirror
there are a lot of moderate muslims. there is also a heck of a lot of extremist muslims. it's hard for the moderates to exercise restraint and power when they aren't actually fully in power
it's also hard to say "calm down" when the other guy feels fully justified in putting a bullet in your head because you are not adequately devout, of the wrong sect, too western sounding/ looking, etc.
if you want to talk media spin, here it is: when a muslim extremist kills a westerner, the western media goes apeshit. when a muslim extremist kills a moderate muslim, you don't hear about it. but eh latter happens 10-100x more than the former. because the simple truth, by orders of magnitude, is that the greatest victim of muslim extremist terrorism, is other muslims. moderate muslims. they are literally being killed off if not cowed by fear
i always found it interesting and weird that:
1. islam initially spread through violent conquest (the middle east), then later through peaceful conversion (bangladesh, indonesia)
2. while christianity initially spread through peaceful conversion (the mediterranean), then later through violent conquest (south and central america)
now the christian world is increasingly peaceful, while the muslim world is increasingly violent
it's a weird historical contrast
when will everyone figure out we should be driving around methane powered cars?
yes, fracking the marcellus shale has the potential to make us energy independent, and also to unleash the worst ecological disaster in the history of mankind, poisoning water tables for millennia. however, if we actually allow ourselves to prevail over the greed of corporations and do it right (which means more cost, which means dragging the corporations kicking and screaming into the world of smaller profit margins for the sake of of ecological integrity), why aren't the major car companies rolling out natural gas powered cars?
heck, homes are already piped in natural gas. it would be interesting if you could refuel at home, as well as the road. propbably as quickly and easily as petroleum derivatives
yes, it does seem more dangerous. volatile highly combustible gas is more frightening than volatile highly combustible liquid. but there it is: we pipe this stuff into our homes. a house blows up now and then. we live with THAT. so we can get this into our cars
i know methane powered cars already exist. but why isn't a major car company seeing the potential of the marcellus shale and preparing us, and them, for true energy independence?
wouldn't it be nice to know when the straight of hormuz gets shut off it won't mean a damn thing for our commute to work or our nation's economy or our international commitments?
intolerance of intolerance is not the same thing as intolerance itself
"i oppose you because of your skin color" is not the same as "i oppose you because you oppose people simply because of their skin color"
but in that difference, is the confusion: some social conservatives view the left as the most intolerant. because the left won't respect their homophobia, for example. "how can you say you stand for tolerance when you don't respect my right to deny someone else's right to marry?"
did you see that trick? did you see how it gets turned around?
it's the same as "if some troll somewhere makes a bad youtube video about muhammad, the honor of islam must be restored with blood from someone else from your tribe, the west"
it all comes down to: how do you deal with people who demand respect for a worldview which is essentially disrespectful
1. someone insults islam. could be erudite high culture, like salman rushdie, could be a useless troll, like the "innocence of the muslims" hatemonger. doesn't matter
2. the muslim world goes apeshit. moderate muslims say the muslims going apeshit do more damage to islam than the insult to islam. they're right. doesn't matter
3. someone from the west, or in the west, gets killed. this matters
see, it doesn't matter if you believe that you should be able to say anything you want and it doesn't give anyone else the right to kill you. because there's a large group of extremists who believe that if you insult their religion, this gives them the right, no, the duty, to kill someone, ANYONE from the west. because if some low iq asocial reject who hasn't washed in a week draws a lame cartoon or writes a bad play about muhammad in his mom's basement, this represents the entire west. the reject's basement could be in hamburg. could be in sydney. could be in vancouver. doesn't matter: the entire western "tribe" attacked the honor of the entire muslim "tribe". that's the way it works in their head. now it is ok to kill someone from that tribe, anywhere, anytime. to restore honor. that's the "logic"
yes, this is some ignorant medieval shit, i agree. but that doesn't matter. what matters is that there is a large group of medieval ignorants who can not be reasoned with who will firmly and dependably adhere to this dynamic
this will go on and on for decades. what i fear is that it accelerates and destabilizes a country into the hands of a muslim version of hitler
i try to be an optimistic person in life. that you can solve problems nonviolently. but this is a small planet, getting smaller, because of jet air travel and the internet. and not that we shouldn't aim for peace, but that peace is not possible, due to the determination of a fringe, but a fringe of enough financial backings, sympathies across large enough of a population, and over a dynamic of many decades, whereby large scale bloodshed comes, despite the best efforts of everyone sane otherwise
muslim moderates, in the muslim world and the west: you can not hide from these fools. you have to fight for your lands. this will make you targets, and a lot of you will be targeted and killed for not being properly devout. but the alternative is these dipshits come to power, and then it is large scale conflict with the west, and it will make wwii look like a tea party. please: take your lands away from these assholes. it will be very difficult. you understand the alternative is worse
what i fear is simple: fortune favors the bold
of course, it doesn't work. but it creates a lot of suffering for a long time
there's also a lot of bad movie critics
in general, there's a lot of mindless useless negativity in the world, and especially on the internet
mod parent up
cream of the crop in quality of thinking and knowledge of this subject
it should be heavily modified, not trashed
but thanks for your prejudice
not that it is especially wrong for this: everyone steal from everyone, and then improves on it. this is how creation works
which tells us how useless and ignorant intellectual property, as a concept, is
you may ask then how does the solitary inventor protect his <strike>invention</strike> incremental improvement, standing on the shoulders of others, from being ripped off by large players?
there are a number of legal ways to do this. but if you think the current system is anything but a joke that protects ONLY those large players, and consists of ridiculous wasteful absurd legal posturing games between large players where only lawyers benefit, you are an idiot. the game currently is: he with the largest legion of lawyers wins. that's it, that's the whole game
it's absurdity, and the system is profoundly broken
nobody is going to skip a needed test. or they are not a competent doctor. you do the tests you need to do to do your job
are you telling me some doctors will be like "i know i need to run test {ABC} to rule out condition {XYZ} but i'm not going to do it". because... because why? what is your logic whereby a doctor will not run this test?
you don't understand the subject matter
patient -> healthcare system
is what we want
patient -> (useless drain for insurance CEO) -> healthcare system
is what we have
what exactly is the point of preserving that parasite? why must the USA spend gobs more cash and live shorter lives than other nations like us?
i don't think it is a free market. we already have universal healthcare: if you don't pay your bill, the state or the feds bail out the hospital from bankruptcy because we need the hospital
we just pay for it in the most retarded way: rent seeking corporate parasites siphon off cash from the system and add nothing of value. so just remove them and put it all under the government
but the idea that healthcare should be an actual free market place, is fucking insane. you do understand that, right?
the USA has no experience with socialism, communism, or marxism. plenty of other countries do, and therefore properly understand what they mean. but in the usa, marxism, communism and socialism simply mean "boogey man", without rhyme or reason, applied as a smear word to someone who opposes you, if it doesn't support the strict notion that every man is a self-made island and we should all do our own surgery and build our roads and raise ourselves from infants
nice post
no, excellent post
i wish there were some way to beam it into the brains of the feverish morons we have to share this country with
the idea is not to have a system where the doctor gets paid more to run more tests. which is what we currently have
pay the doctor the same whether he runs no tests or 100 tests and you will get the actual number of tests needed to diagnose a patient
On a personal level, you can turn down tests if you don't want to have them.
then you're fucking ignorant. are you a doctor? you honestly think this is valid advice to give lay people about their healthcare?
i wouldn't really about mobs and revolution, i worry about the lone wackjob with the bomb, sniper gun, anthrax, or ricin. most of these wingnuts are free of effective action in their entire lives, on any point. but there's a lot of them, so you do encounter the occasional one who combines this complete WHARGARBBBL of mental content, and somehow, also effective commitment to action. those are the rare few oddballs. they are real, and they do do damage
You heard wrong, propagandized moron
Please read the above, world. I have to share a country with blathering morons like this. Again, it is embarrassing, I apologize.
Dude, I am disgusted by libertarians, but you're an idiot
good, then you won't mind when a new supreme court has a new interpretation
i agree
a rural dweller should have a shotgun for security
if only there were some way to change gun laws based on population density
a free market in real life translates to "give as many expensive tests as we can get away with"
healthcare isn't a MARKETPLACE. it is not driven by best price, because the buyer has no control to seek the cheapest service. no knowledge of medicine. no time when he is having a heart attack to shop around
face reality: there are some issues in life, where, believe it or fucking not, market forces do not help, and make things worse
i say this as a committed capitalist. capitalism works. but i'm not a looney tune frothing at the mouth ignorant free market fundamentalist who believes the magic unicorn and rainbows marketplace is a magic elixir that solves all problems. it doesn't
i don't have to change the constitution. what the constitution says about gun ownership has nothing to with what certain morons believe it justifies
but it's exactly the same issue: all sense and reason, and the track record of all other western industrialized nations, show you want:
1. universal healthcare to live longer and spend less
2. tighter controls on guns for far lower senseless death rates
so why not in the usa? because of a qausireligious group of faith-based feverish morons who believe certain ignorant things, and their minds will never see the light of day on the obvious