There is an equal risk that the patent holders will attempt to extort payments from the farmers who's seed stocks have become contaminated with thier "intellectual property".
Monsanto has already done this. I'm sure that this will not be the last lawsuit of this type, and I'm also sure that the biotech companies are calculating this type of enforcement as an essential part of their income.
Yes, about 20 minutes to read newspapers and slashdot online and make a comment. Not exactly in the same realm as tv-watching.
But the problem here becomes one of an addiction to being informed and consuming information about current events and society.
I went through a one and a half year period in the early 90's where I read four newspapers a day (Two local, and two national). Admittedly, I did not read the entire paper, but I did read the national and international news, plus the editorials and letters to the editor, in all four papers, and I read all of the local news in the two papers from my town.
I easily spend as much time reading this crap as the worst TV addict spends rotting his mind with reruns of Frazer and Friends. Yes, the picture is quite different than the one I see on the glowing blue box when I encounter one, and info is definately not an "escape", but it can become as much of a time-sucker as any other media.
People here are always bitching about U.S. censorship gone awry, do you have any examples of such?
This case springs to mind. The government has prommised to stop thier harrassment for the moment, but until there is an actual ruling on this issue, I'm pretty sure that this pafrticular area of US govt. censorship is not quite dead yet.
They don't have what I purchased in their database, as I have no card. I do not lie to them, I simply tell them that I don't have one, and they use either the store card, or the clerk uses their own.
(I had misunderstood your post when I made my other response)
I'm not sure what benefit they get from non-customer-identified purchases, but the clerk that I asked said that this is standard practice, and I'm fine with it, as long as it's saving me money without my info being placed on the targeted advert market.
I think more likely a bunch of power plants will close up shop
Which is a good thing, considering that the most efficient fuel burning plants (gas turbine) are only capable of converting 45% of the available energy into electricity. The rest goes up the stack, or is dissapated as wastye heat created by the friction of the turbines. The vast majority of electrical power generation is far more wasteful than this, with approx 28% conversion for coal or diesel powered boiler plants, and 30%-35% conversion for gas powered boilers.
There has been efficient natural gas technology available for the past ten years, but the must be greater motivation for the electric producers to build new and replace thier existing plants. Natural gas fuel cells are capable of converting 85% 0f the energy contained in thier fuel to electricity. The efficiency is consistant even in small scale generating facilities, such as at biogas facilities at sewage treatment plants, on farms, and at landfills. Homes with thier own natural gas wells (as are common in Western PA) could use this to generate energy for thier home and have more than enough extra to sell back to the grid.
Greater distribution of energy production will shorten the distance from producer to consumer, making the grid more reliable and fault tolerant while lowering the cost of energy. Lower costs for energy would not likely lead to an instable energy market in the united states, as in this market, lower costs almost always lead to greater consumption. There would be an added benefit to the manufacturing sector, as the greatest cost for modern steel (and other metals) production and recyckling is the cost of the electricity to run the electric arc furnaces, at a rate of almost 1.75 to 1 when compared to the cost of labor. More manufacturing means more jobs, means everyone's happy except for the guys who own the now obsolete coal fired plant.
There's no reason that a distributed energy economy would rely entirely on solar and wind power. Plus, those technologies can add to the stability of the grid by being used to store energy in the form of hydrogen for re-conversion (using fuel cells) during peak demand.
These solutions are a lot more sensible than what is being proposed in the article, which appears to be little more than an expensive way to ensure that an outdated energy production infrastructure can stay in business.
Hell, I tell them right out that I don't have one and they do the same for me (use the store number or their own).
I beleive that the collected data from the store card is still deemed useful by the store, so they are instructed to use the store number whenever someone does not have a card, not just when you've frorgotten yours.
The tomato was declared to be legally a vegatable by the supreme court of the State of New York so that they would be subject to import tarriffs during the 1930s.
What makes a tomato a fruit, is that is the ripened ovary of a flower. Anyone who has grown their own food would tell you that a tomato is more similar to an apple than it does a carrot.
Common sense is simply a set of popular misconceptions. If you always adhere to common sense, you'll most often be wrong, but you'll never be alone.
This is not a case for "common sense" or tradition to determine. Geography and trade law are not scientific disciplines, and thus have little bearing on the question of planets and what constitutes one. You claim that planets and planetoids behave similarly, yet the author has provided a definition that makes the distincion between the two clear, and it is based on observable phenomenon. There's no reason to fall back on "common sense" in this case, as physics has provided the criteria for us.
One side (the bible-thumpers) says we cannot prove or disprove the bible, so we must accept it on faith.
Only if one is to accept it, and the depth of that acceptance, and the manner in which it is perceived is up to the individual.
that you can use the bible by itself to prove the bible is false.
Why this obsession with fact? To accept only fact into one's reality leaves you open to gross manipulation by those who would control which facts you are aware of. I suggest that you read Frazier's "The Golden Bough", Campell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", and possibly (if you are into in-depth learning) Campbell's "The Masks of God" series before you start touting yourself as arbiter of what persons other than yourself should base thier beleifs on. All perception occurs in the mind, and therefore we cannot help but live a metaphorical existance. Why do you insist that your metaphor is the only way, or that it is the metaphore(s) contained in the bible that are at fault, instead of human arrogance and greed?
It is not the text in the bible that leads to the criminal and cruel behavior that many who claim to be Christian exibit, but the tendancy of humans to believe thatr what they believe is the only possible truth, and thier tendancy to react with violence when thier strongly held beliefs are challenged. When one can move beyond literal acceptance and dogmatic adherance, then it is possible (possibly inevitable) that a person will see those meanings of which they had previously been ignorant.
You are as flawed as tghe "bible thumpers" and are simply pushing your own dogma.
Let the blocking site shoot themselves in the foot (in the end).
Talk about cutting off your nose for all the trees!
They can't see the forrest to spite their face!
[/mixed-metaphors]
It does demonstrate quite a lack of understanding of how the internet works and a complete unawareness of the benefits of links from news collecting sites.
It does seem odd that a publication that puts itself forward as an authority on techj issues would be this clueless, but if they truly desire to block any potential new readers from LinuxToday, there's nothing that can be done, and nothing that should be done, about this.
The only real harm is to their own business, and if they wish to devalue their web presence by limiting their potential readership, let them.
The story has been re-posted, with a link to the same original story, but this time the link is to the same story on a different site.
Ever hear the word before? No-one is required tio install this package in order to use Debian, get support from the mailing list, or to upgrade thier software.
This is not registration, it is not collecting personal, financial, addressbook, or browsing habit data. It's counting the software that you have installed, how often that package is used and how often it was upgraded.
Microsoft does collect this sort of data from their customers, and more.
They don't ask you if you want to participate. Whether or not you were paying attention, you did agree to it.
I like Debian's terms a whole hell of a lot better than Microsoft's, and I'm a lot happier using Debian's software as well.
That's because there are several different kernel-image packages tailored for different purposes (archetecture, processor-type, special use, etc), plus many Debian people build their own custom kernel-image packages using the kernel-package package (251st place).
we CAN demonstrate that the Bible is not the truth, and therefore anyone using it as justification for oppressing minority rights is on the wrong side of the argument.
You are disprove an article of faith, and are thus only going to create hostility among those you are attempting to convince. The issue is not a question of beleif in god versus atheism, but one of tolerance versus intolerance. It is just as possible to make an argument for oppressing or eliminating minorities from an atheist point of view as it is from a religious one.
You would be better served by pointing out that the teacher they are claiming to follow preached a message of tolerance and compassion toward those who have transgressed (preventing the stoning of Mary Magdelene for her crime of adultery), considered all men to be his "brethern" (and thus "whatsoever you do unto the least of my bretheren, thus you do unto me"), and kindness to those who's beleifs he did not share (the good Samaritan).
It is tempting to return intolerance with intolerance (as I very often find myself doing), but it does nothing but increase harm to both parties, and it places you on the same side of the real argument as those you purport to be against.
Wait... Doesn't Jesus precedes the Bible? (not trolling here, honest question from an atheist that doesn't know better)
Jesus precedes the existance of the first written versions of the "New Testament", which is a collection of stories, letters, and anecdotes about early Christianity, including four accounts of his life (these are what people call "the Gospels") as were purportedly told by people who actually knew him to the people who eventually wrote them down. They are somewhat consistant but differ in the details of his actual words and give vastly different impressions of his personality.
These differences are hardly surprising, as it is difficult to find two people who will give the same account of shared events, and even more difficult if these accounts are being told second hand. The earliest known written account of Jesus' life is beleived to have been written 84 years after his death.
Most fundamentalists (both religeous and anti-religeous) like to choose only those portions from the accounts that support their position.
The law as was and as is practiced in Judaism is the Talmud, and much of the law does come directly from the writings in the Pentateuch, but mostly it was written by rabbis over a long time and it contains extensive and complex discussions of what was intended by the scriptures as opposed to a simplistic set of rules and consequences. This is probably why there is so much debate in Judaism about what the law is and how it is to be applied. It was born out of years of debate and discussion that continued long after that Jesus fellow was put to death (by the Romans, despite the semi-hysterical rantings of a Sixteenth Century racist).
It is also likely that Jesus (He was Jewish, not Peurto Rican, despite the name.) was refering to the law as was recorded by Moses on those two stone tablets that they make so much fuss about. Another point that must be considered is the existance of two Talmuds, which are popularly refered to as the Babylonian Talmud and the Palestinian Talmud. Both of them were in existance during Jesus' life, and it is not known which he considered to be authoritative.
Nobody had gathered them up into a bible
The writings that told of the lives of the prophets, kings, and judges, along with the previously mentioned Pentateuch, were collected into the Torah, which did exist before (and after) the life of Jesus.
(which means literally, "book of books")
I thought you said you knew your Greek. "Bible" is from "biblia" (originally Greek, the word was also adopted into Latin with the same meaning. Not having your facts straight will not win you any points except among fundamentalists. (Yes, it is entirely possible for one to be a fundamentalist athiest.)
By the way, you promised that you would address the points in my other post, but you have not. In fact, I don't think that you've even read it.
It seems you intended to argue against intolerance, but your arguments are simply demonstating an intolerance toward a different target.
Now, since Jesus held the Bible to be absolute truth,
Where in the gospels does it say this?
They weren't written down until at least eighty years after the guy's death anyway, but nowhere in the gospels does is there a claim that Jesus (why does he have a Peurto Rican name? I thought he was Jewish.) believed every single word in the old testament as a literal truth.
It must also be noted that some fourty years after Jesus' death, the Romans successfully put down the on-again off-again Jewish rebellion (Which consisted mostly of suicidal missions to kill as many Roman soldiers as possible before they kill you, and massive propery destruction by persons who knew full well that they would be caught and executed. It very much resembled the situation there today.) and destroyed all known copies of the Torah. (For some reason the Talmud was not treated in the same manner.) The point here is that the Torah from which Jesus learned is not identical to the Torah of today, and it very likely resembled the text that has been found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which contain books not found in the later, recomplied Torah.
the Bible is superstitious junk, hate literature at its' most purile because of the many levels it works on
The "Old Testament" is the recorded, formerly verbal history of a people. The Psalms are the recorded poetry of thier religeon. The Gospels are four different records of one persons life, written down second hand from the stories told by those witnesses. The Acts of the Apostle's, which I have little patience for, are the collected records and stories of a person's followers spreading what was developing into a new religeon based on the teachings of that person. (I'd rather not get into a detailed discussion of Paul's letters to whomever.)
By the way, your statement contradicts itself by characterizing the Bible as simplistic (you use the word puerile) and as complex (working on many levels) at the same time.
The hatred aspect comes in when Bible-thumpers, relying on inaccurate "scripture" rather than science and common-sense, say that other people's lifestyles are offensive, and that unless they "repent", they are going to hell.
On this point, I couldn't agree with you more. I do not however assume anything about Jesus due to the intollerance and ignorance of those who claim to serve a person who preached forgiveness, charity, and love for all, especially one's enemies.
When Jesus says "believe in me and you shall be saved", he is condemning non-believers to hell.
Patently false statement. Asserting a conditional statement does not mean that the converse is true.
Whereas depriving others of equal rights degrades us all.
Wholeheartedly agree, and I'd even go so far as to say that attempting to spread hatred of others as well, even if one claims to be "supportive of their rights" and especially when one is lumping a very large and diverse set of beliefs under one label.
Microsoft-Aol-TimeWarner-Comcast-Disney?
on
Microsoft Eyeing AOL?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
If Microsoft acquires AOL/Time-Warner and Comcast acquires Disney, then Microsoft will effectively control the cable broadcasting and communications market.
The key to this deal is Microsoft's position as the largest single shareholder in Comcast owning 15% of the companies stock. Compare this to the Roberts family (Ralph Roberts, founder of Comcast, and Brian Roberts, CEO) holdings of slightly over 1% of the company.
If Comcast acquires Disney, then a voting policy dictating that the Roberts family shares are weighted in voting to = 7.5 votes per share while other shares are = to only around.85 votes per share will likely be determined to be unfair, as all shareholders that are brought along in the merger will have not been given opportunity for fair consideration of those terms.
Just think about the future that these two deals could bring us, Microsoft being in control of the vast majority of news, music and recording, movie, and print media in the United States while being capable of dictating the protocols that are used to connect to, and to filter the trafic to and from, the internet.
It's not a tin foil hat theory. It's simply the logical extension of such consolidation of communication and media marketplace under the control of one company that has a rather nasty history of not respecting the wishes of the community that they chose to do business in.
Oh yeah, Paul Allen's vompany Vulcan Northwest Inc. owns a 5% share in Microsoft, so we can probably count Charter Cable and a number of other media and telecom companies as being involved in this as well.
The Connecticut town of Lyme (Old Lyme, and East Lyme as well) is less than ten miles away accross the Long Island Sound from Plum Island (If you were ever in the Navy and pulled out from New London or the Groton Sub Base, then youve been within 150 yardsof the place).
Mycoplasma Fermentans has been detected in patients of Gulf War Syndrome, Lyme Disease, and HIV in almost all cases. It is often also detected in Multiple Sclerosis patients, and the US Army released instructions to the Veterans Administration shortly after the Korean War that all MS cases developing within two years of a serviceman returning from Korea should be considered to be service related.
There is a connection that has been noticed by doctors in that area, as well as by doctors treating patients who have lived in that area in other locations.
There is also at least one patent held by the US Army for this organism.
It's good that there's covertage of some of the mishaps that occur at these facilities, but it seems that a "mishap" might not be enough to account for the problems that have been connected to the communitioes surrounding Plum Island and are spreading through the population. (Yes, Gulf War Syndrome is contagious, and did "originate" in many veterans who never left the states.)
Should you be able to strike if you work at such a facility?
Should such a facility be run by people who will create enough hostility among the workforce that they would sabotage the equipment.
If the job is as important as the maintenance of the security and reliability of saftey and backup equipment at a disease research facility, you've got to be willing to pay.
If you take away the right to strike, then you've simply removed the legal means to protest unfair conditions. The workers will act out in other ways if the legal paths are all blocked, and at a facility such as the one in the article, that could mean something much worse than the disruption of a strike.
5. To protect oneself against excessive loss in an activity
by taking a countervailing action; as, to hedge an
investment denominated in a foreign currency by buying or
selling futures in that currency; to hedge a donation to
one political party by also donating to the opposed
political party.
[PJC]
{To hedge a bet}, to bet upon both sides; that is, after
having bet on one side, to bet also on the other, thus
guarding against loss. See hedge[5].
To erradicate all licensing agreements and patent law would remove all protections that a creator has over the work that he has created.
Lawrence Lessig is working to craft systems that increase the control that a creator has over his work, which today means working to reduce the opportunities that companies have to take that contropl away and giving creators the legal tools neccissary for them to colaborate and share without giving away all of their rights to their original work.
Eliminating licensing, copyright, and patents would benefit only those companies large enough to control large marketing and distribution systems and allow for companies and individuals to take your work out without contributing back in the way you have chosen.
The idea that those who are against centralized government or corporate control of creative works are against any form of copyright or patent law is disinformation that is spread by the companies that currently benefit most by the flawed systems that are now in effect. This "revolution" cannot be won by removing those laws, but only by working to change those laws to reflect the original intent of limited time exclusive rights being granted to creators, the right of creators to license their work however they see fit, and enforcement of those rights so that those who make use of creators works (including use by driving other works) are required to obey the licensing agreements.
In other words, he is working to make the law "more Free".
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you mean "too scary to be a joke?"
Bit of a Freudian slip there.
Now that I think about it, I guess I'm thinking both.
There is an equal risk that the patent holders will attempt to extort payments from the farmers who's seed stocks have become contaminated with thier "intellectual property".
Monsanto has already done this. I'm sure that this will not be the last lawsuit of this type, and I'm also sure that the biotech companies are calculating this type of enforcement as an essential part of their income.
Yes, about 20 minutes to read newspapers and slashdot online and make a comment. Not exactly in the same realm as tv-watching.
But the problem here becomes one of an addiction to being informed and consuming information about current events and society.
I went through a one and a half year period in the early 90's where I read four newspapers a day (Two local, and two national). Admittedly, I did not read the entire paper, but I did read the national and international news, plus the editorials and letters to the editor, in all four papers, and I read all of the local news in the two papers from my town.
I've gotten that habit under control, and now limit myself to one newspaper a day, plus the NYT on Sunday, 10-12 news stories from Google per day, and probably 15 or so stories on the BBC news site. plus I regularly check the National Security Archive for the latest updates to their collections and analysis.
I easily spend as much time reading this crap as the worst TV addict spends rotting his mind with reruns of Frazer and Friends. Yes, the picture is quite different than the one I see on the glowing blue box when I encounter one, and info is definately not an "escape", but it can become as much of a time-sucker as any other media.
People here are always bitching about U.S. censorship gone awry, do you have any examples of such?
This case springs to mind. The government has prommised to stop thier harrassment for the moment, but until there is an actual ruling on this issue, I'm pretty sure that this pafrticular area of US govt. censorship is not quite dead yet.
They don't have what I purchased in their database, as I have no card. I do not lie to them, I simply tell them that I don't have one, and they use either the store card, or the clerk uses their own.
(I had misunderstood your post when I made my other response)
I'm not sure what benefit they get from non-customer-identified purchases, but the clerk that I asked said that this is standard practice, and I'm fine with it, as long as it's saving me money without my info being placed on the targeted advert market.
Block all of all types traffic to and from AOL.
I find it rather funny that now there's a problem with spam going to AOL users.
I think more likely a bunch of power plants will close up shop
Which is a good thing, considering that the most efficient fuel burning plants (gas turbine) are only capable of converting 45% of the available energy into electricity. The rest goes up the stack, or is dissapated as wastye heat created by the friction of the turbines. The vast majority of electrical power generation is far more wasteful than this, with approx 28% conversion for coal or diesel powered boiler plants, and 30%-35% conversion for gas powered boilers.
There has been efficient natural gas technology available for the past ten years, but the must be greater motivation for the electric producers to build new and replace thier existing plants. Natural gas fuel cells are capable of converting 85% 0f the energy contained in thier fuel to electricity. The efficiency is consistant even in small scale generating facilities, such as at biogas facilities at sewage treatment plants, on farms, and at landfills. Homes with thier own natural gas wells (as are common in Western PA) could use this to generate energy for thier home and have more than enough extra to sell back to the grid.
Greater distribution of energy production will shorten the distance from producer to consumer, making the grid more reliable and fault tolerant while lowering the cost of energy. Lower costs for energy would not likely lead to an instable energy market in the united states, as in this market, lower costs almost always lead to greater consumption. There would be an added benefit to the manufacturing sector, as the greatest cost for modern steel (and other metals) production and recyckling is the cost of the electricity to run the electric arc furnaces, at a rate of almost 1.75 to 1 when compared to the cost of labor. More manufacturing means more jobs, means everyone's happy except for the guys who own the now obsolete coal fired plant.
There's no reason that a distributed energy economy would rely entirely on solar and wind power. Plus, those technologies can add to the stability of the grid by being used to store energy in the form of hydrogen for re-conversion (using fuel cells) during peak demand.
These solutions are a lot more sensible than what is being proposed in the article, which appears to be little more than an expensive way to ensure that an outdated energy production infrastructure can stay in business.
Because individual stores are rewarded for high participation rates, using the store number inflates the participation rate.
Hell, I tell them right out that I don't have one and they do the same for me (use the store number or their own).
I beleive that the collected data from the store card is still deemed useful by the store, so they are instructed to use the store number whenever someone does not have a card, not just when you've frorgotten yours.
The tomato was declared to be legally a vegatable by the supreme court of the State of New York so that they would be subject to import tarriffs during the 1930s.
What makes a tomato a fruit, is that is the ripened ovary of a flower. Anyone who has grown their own food would tell you that a tomato is more similar to an apple than it does a carrot.
Common sense is simply a set of popular misconceptions. If you always adhere to common sense, you'll most often be wrong, but you'll never be alone.
This is not a case for "common sense" or tradition to determine. Geography and trade law are not scientific disciplines, and thus have little bearing on the question of planets and what constitutes one. You claim that planets and planetoids behave similarly, yet the author has provided a definition that makes the distincion between the two clear, and it is based on observable phenomenon. There's no reason to fall back on "common sense" in this case, as physics has provided the criteria for us.
the Bill Gates building is the home of "Artificial" intelligence.
Only because they thought that iot would be inappropriate to make it the home of "Genuine" intelligence.
None of the other responses were even remotely similar to mine. You are picking off the easy targets and then claiming that the rest are identical.
One side (the bible-thumpers) says we cannot prove or disprove the bible, so we must accept it on faith.
Only if one is to accept it, and the depth of that acceptance, and the manner in which it is perceived is up to the individual.
that you can use the bible by itself to prove the bible is false.
Why this obsession with fact? To accept only fact into one's reality leaves you open to gross manipulation by those who would control which facts you are aware of. I suggest that you read Frazier's "The Golden Bough", Campell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", and possibly (if you are into in-depth learning) Campbell's "The Masks of God" series before you start touting yourself as arbiter of what persons other than yourself should base thier beleifs on. All perception occurs in the mind, and therefore we cannot help but live a metaphorical existance. Why do you insist that your metaphor is the only way, or that it is the metaphore(s) contained in the bible that are at fault, instead of human arrogance and greed?
It is not the text in the bible that leads to the criminal and cruel behavior that many who claim to be Christian exibit, but the tendancy of humans to believe thatr what they believe is the only possible truth, and thier tendancy to react with violence when thier strongly held beliefs are challenged. When one can move beyond literal acceptance and dogmatic adherance, then it is possible (possibly inevitable) that a person will see those meanings of which they had previously been ignorant.
You are as flawed as tghe "bible thumpers" and are simply pushing your own dogma.
Let the blocking site shoot themselves in the foot (in the end).
Talk about cutting off your nose for all the trees!
They can't see the forrest to spite their face!
[/mixed-metaphors]
It does demonstrate quite a lack of understanding of how the internet works and a complete unawareness of the benefits of links from news collecting sites.
It does seem odd that a publication that puts itself forward as an authority on techj issues would be this clueless, but if they truly desire to block any potential new readers from LinuxToday, there's nothing that can be done, and nothing that should be done, about this.
The only real harm is to their own business, and if they wish to devalue their web presence by limiting their potential readership, let them.
The story has been re-posted, with a link to the same original story, but this time the link is to the same story on a different site.
Ever hear the word before? No-one is required tio install this package in order to use Debian, get support from the mailing list, or to upgrade thier software.
This is not registration, it is not collecting personal, financial, addressbook, or browsing habit data. It's counting the software that you have installed, how often that package is used and how often it was upgraded.
Microsoft does collect this sort of data from their customers, and more.
They don't ask you if you want to participate. Whether or not you were paying attention, you did agree to it.
I like Debian's terms a whole hell of a lot better than Microsoft's, and I'm a lot happier using Debian's software as well.
That's because there are several different kernel-image packages tailored for different purposes (archetecture, processor-type, special use, etc), plus many Debian people build their own custom kernel-image packages using the kernel-package package (251st place).
we CAN demonstrate that the Bible is not the truth, and therefore anyone using it as justification for oppressing minority rights is on the wrong side of the argument.
You are disprove an article of faith, and are thus only going to create hostility among those you are attempting to convince. The issue is not a question of beleif in god versus atheism, but one of tolerance versus intolerance. It is just as possible to make an argument for oppressing or eliminating minorities from an atheist point of view as it is from a religious one.
You would be better served by pointing out that the teacher they are claiming to follow preached a message of tolerance and compassion toward those who have transgressed (preventing the stoning of Mary Magdelene for her crime of adultery), considered all men to be his "brethern" (and thus "whatsoever you do unto the least of my bretheren, thus you do unto me"), and kindness to those who's beleifs he did not share (the good Samaritan).
It is tempting to return intolerance with intolerance (as I very often find myself doing), but it does nothing but increase harm to both parties, and it places you on the same side of the real argument as those you purport to be against.
Wait... Doesn't Jesus precedes the Bible? (not trolling here, honest question from an atheist that doesn't know better)
Jesus precedes the existance of the first written versions of the "New Testament", which is a collection of stories, letters, and anecdotes about early Christianity, including four accounts of his life (these are what people call "the Gospels") as were purportedly told by people who actually knew him to the people who eventually wrote them down. They are somewhat consistant but differ in the details of his actual words and give vastly different impressions of his personality.
These differences are hardly surprising, as it is difficult to find two people who will give the same account of shared events, and even more difficult if these accounts are being told second hand. The earliest known written account of Jesus' life is beleived to have been written 84 years after his death.
Most fundamentalists (both religeous and anti-religeous) like to choose only those portions from the accounts that support their position.
The law as was and as is practiced in Judaism is the Talmud, and much of the law does come directly from the writings in the Pentateuch, but mostly it was written by rabbis over a long time and it contains extensive and complex discussions of what was intended by the scriptures as opposed to a simplistic set of rules and consequences. This is probably why there is so much debate in Judaism about what the law is and how it is to be applied. It was born out of years of debate and discussion that continued long after that Jesus fellow was put to death (by the Romans, despite the semi-hysterical rantings of a Sixteenth Century racist).
It is also likely that Jesus (He was Jewish, not Peurto Rican, despite the name.) was refering to the law as was recorded by Moses on those two stone tablets that they make so much fuss about. Another point that must be considered is the existance of two Talmuds, which are popularly refered to as the Babylonian Talmud and the Palestinian Talmud. Both of them were in existance during Jesus' life, and it is not known which he considered to be authoritative.
Nobody had gathered them up into a bible
The writings that told of the lives of the prophets, kings, and judges, along with the previously mentioned Pentateuch, were collected into the Torah, which did exist before (and after) the life of Jesus.
(which means literally, "book of books")
I thought you said you knew your Greek. "Bible" is from "biblia" (originally Greek, the word was also adopted into Latin with the same meaning. Not having your facts straight will not win you any points except among fundamentalists. (Yes, it is entirely possible for one to be a fundamentalist athiest.)
By the way, you promised that you would address the points in my other post, but you have not. In fact, I don't think that you've even read it.
It seems you intended to argue against intolerance, but your arguments are simply demonstating an intolerance toward a different target.
Now, since Jesus held the Bible to be absolute truth,
Where in the gospels does it say this?
They weren't written down until at least eighty years after the guy's death anyway, but nowhere in the gospels does is there a claim that Jesus (why does he have a Peurto Rican name? I thought he was Jewish.) believed every single word in the old testament as a literal truth.
It must also be noted that some fourty years after Jesus' death, the Romans successfully put down the on-again off-again Jewish rebellion (Which consisted mostly of suicidal missions to kill as many Roman soldiers as possible before they kill you, and massive propery destruction by persons who knew full well that they would be caught and executed. It very much resembled the situation there today.) and destroyed all known copies of the Torah. (For some reason the Talmud was not treated in the same manner.) The point here is that the Torah from which Jesus learned is not identical to the Torah of today, and it very likely resembled the text that has been found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which contain books not found in the later, recomplied Torah.
the Bible is superstitious junk, hate literature at its' most purile because of the many levels it works on
The "Old Testament" is the recorded, formerly verbal history of a people. The Psalms are the recorded poetry of thier religeon. The Gospels are four different records of one persons life, written down second hand from the stories told by those witnesses. The Acts of the Apostle's, which I have little patience for, are the collected records and stories of a person's followers spreading what was developing into a new religeon based on the teachings of that person. (I'd rather not get into a detailed discussion of Paul's letters to whomever.)
By the way, your statement contradicts itself by characterizing the Bible as simplistic (you use the word puerile) and as complex (working on many levels) at the same time.
The hatred aspect comes in when Bible-thumpers, relying on inaccurate "scripture" rather than science and common-sense, say that other people's lifestyles are offensive, and that unless they "repent", they are going to hell.
On this point, I couldn't agree with you more. I do not however assume anything about Jesus due to the intollerance and ignorance of those who claim to serve a person who preached forgiveness, charity, and love for all, especially one's enemies.
When Jesus says "believe in me and you shall be saved", he is condemning non-believers to hell.
Patently false statement. Asserting a conditional statement does not mean that the converse is true.
Whereas depriving others of equal rights degrades us all.
Wholeheartedly agree, and I'd even go so far as to say that attempting to spread hatred of others as well, even if one claims to be "supportive of their rights" and especially when one is lumping a very large and diverse set of beliefs under one label.
If Microsoft acquires AOL/Time-Warner and Comcast acquires Disney, then Microsoft will effectively control the cable broadcasting and communications market.
.85 votes per share will likely be determined to be unfair, as all shareholders that are brought along in the merger will have not been given opportunity for fair consideration of those terms.
The key to this deal is Microsoft's position as the largest single shareholder in Comcast owning 15% of the companies stock. Compare this to the Roberts family (Ralph Roberts, founder of Comcast, and Brian Roberts, CEO) holdings of slightly over 1% of the company.
If Comcast acquires Disney, then a voting policy dictating that the Roberts family shares are weighted in voting to = 7.5 votes per share while other shares are = to only around
Just think about the future that these two deals could bring us, Microsoft being in control of the vast majority of news, music and recording, movie, and print media in the United States while being capable of dictating the protocols that are used to connect to, and to filter the trafic to and from, the internet.
It's not a tin foil hat theory. It's simply the logical extension of such consolidation of communication and media marketplace under the control of one company that has a rather nasty history of not respecting the wishes of the community that they chose to do business in.
Oh yeah, Paul Allen's vompany Vulcan Northwest Inc. owns a 5% share in Microsoft, so we can probably count Charter Cable and a number of other media and telecom companies as being involved in this as well.
The Connecticut town of Lyme (Old Lyme, and East Lyme as well) is less than ten miles away accross the Long Island Sound from Plum Island (If you were ever in the Navy and pulled out from New London or the Groton Sub Base, then youve been within 150 yardsof the place).
Mycoplasma Fermentans has been detected in patients of Gulf War Syndrome, Lyme Disease, and HIV in almost all cases. It is often also detected in Multiple Sclerosis patients, and the US Army released instructions to the Veterans Administration shortly after the Korean War that all MS cases developing within two years of a serviceman returning from Korea should be considered to be service related.
There is a connection that has been noticed by doctors in that area, as well as by doctors treating patients who have lived in that area in other locations.
There is also at least one patent held by the US Army for this organism.
It's good that there's covertage of some of the mishaps that occur at these facilities, but it seems that a "mishap" might not be enough to account for the problems that have been connected to the communitioes surrounding Plum Island and are spreading through the population. (Yes, Gulf War Syndrome is contagious, and did "originate" in many veterans who never left the states.)
Should you be able to strike if you work at such a facility?
Should such a facility be run by people who will create enough hostility among the workforce that they would sabotage the equipment.
If the job is as important as the maintenance of the security and reliability of saftey and backup equipment at a disease research facility, you've got to be willing to pay.
If you take away the right to strike, then you've simply removed the legal means to protest unfair conditions. The workers will act out in other ways if the legal paths are all blocked, and at a facility such as the one in the article, that could mean something much worse than the disruption of a strike.
I don't know exactly what this "hedge" is.
localhost:~$ dict -d gcide hedge
5. To protect oneself against excessive loss in an activity
by taking a countervailing action; as, to hedge an
investment denominated in a foreign currency by buying or
selling futures in that currency; to hedge a donation to
one political party by also donating to the opposed
political party.
[PJC]
{To hedge a bet}, to bet upon both sides; that is, after
having bet on one side, to bet also on the other, thus
guarding against loss. See hedge[5].
To erradicate all licensing agreements and patent law would remove all protections that a creator has over the work that he has created.
Lawrence Lessig is working to craft systems that increase the control that a creator has over his work, which today means working to reduce the opportunities that companies have to take that contropl away and giving creators the legal tools neccissary for them to colaborate and share without giving away all of their rights to their original work.
Eliminating licensing, copyright, and patents would benefit only those companies large enough to control large marketing and distribution systems and allow for companies and individuals to take your work out without contributing back in the way you have chosen.
The idea that those who are against centralized government or corporate control of creative works are against any form of copyright or patent law is disinformation that is spread by the companies that currently benefit most by the flawed systems that are now in effect. This "revolution" cannot be won by removing those laws, but only by working to change those laws to reflect the original intent of limited time exclusive rights being granted to creators, the right of creators to license their work however they see fit, and enforcement of those rights so that those who make use of creators works (including use by driving other works) are required to obey the licensing agreements.
In other words, he is working to make the law "more Free".