Linux does not even need to support Windows drivers though that would really break down a lot more barriers to it being adopted. All it needs to do is support ITS OWN drivers from past editions of the kernel.
Do you realise that Linux's desktop share is hardly much greater than it was in 1998? Why is it that could it be The elitist and arrogant attitude of most Linux developers who dont care about the common users needs? These idiots who think granny and most people are going to learn how to edit 100 configuration files and compile their own drivers?
Probably one of the reasons they dont support Linux and why no one else does is the headache of supporting its 10,000 distributions which can't agree on anything about how the system should be set up. Let's face it, making a software installer for Linux is a nightmare. This, and the lack of a stable driver interface, is why Linux remains a niche OS for a few elites who seem impressed that they are able to cope with using such a confounding and difficult operating system. Such is the mentality of Linux people, their userunfriendly behaviour, that instead of accomodating users needs, i have often heard Linux developers say that users should have to learn how to compile software, debug makefiles and C code and the million ways that software may not compile, resolve library dependancies, find out why a driver wont compile against one of 2000 different conventions on the location of Linux kernel headers, to name a few Linux useability nightmares. On Windows, you put the disk in, click install, and your hardware and software just works. No messy days trying to figure out why a kernel module wont compile or some arcane problem admist millions of lines of code. I have always said that being welcoming and making it easier for companies to make program and binary drivers that run on every Linux operating system version is key to its success, especially since it is months or years until open source drivers can appear for hardware, and also that open source drivers are often filled with bugs while the manufacturers driver is subjected to extensive quality control testing with the actual hardware. The really absurd thing is that while kernel developers continue to make it hard for companies to make a driver for Linux, allowing binary drivers would actually lead to faster creation of open source software, it would allow the vendors driver to be used in back engineering by monitoring communications with hardware devices.
In another screwup, Linux developers in order to address the risk of null pointer dereference in the kernel, blocked all applications from using address 0. In the process they blew up hundreds of applications that run on Wine, when they could have just cleared address 0 when the system goes into kernel mode and preserved compatability. Incompetence, and lack of imagination to not have come up with such a simple solution.
Linux is worth it is your time is worth nothing, but if you are doing real work you need something that does not take 10 times as long to get anything done. Most Linux developers, in my dealings with this, seem to have an elite complex and want to keep Linux hard to use, so that they can feel special in using an operating system which is only useable to 3% of computer users, it makes them feel special and superior that they can figure out such a nightmare of an OS.
As I have always said, the key to software useability is in backwards compatability, layout, and flexibility and feature richness of software. In another messup Linux developers have been making software that is so rigid and inflexible it is unuseable. One example is gnome which is a nightmare to customise. There are hundreds of cases where Linux software has been unuseable to me because some important feature was removed. Making software feature bare and inflexible does not make it useable. The key to useability is many features and lots of customisability but in layout, placing lesser used features deeper into the UI and laying out the user interface so the features can be found easily. Secondly, a system can be user and expert friendly at the same time. Software can be built in layers, with a friendly GUI interface for most users, and experts would be able to access the configuration files, source code, command line and so on at the lower layers. Everything should be able to be done by both CLI and GUI. One of the things I like about Linux is its commmand line interface and that it is possible for one to understand how the entire system works and is put together, and a modular approach is also important. There
Answer: nothing. There were no complex lifeforms in the precambrian, until the very end. The increase in the complexity of life in the Cambrian is attributed to higher levels of oxygen, it was quite a sudden increase in life complexity after 4 billion years in which very little happened. So it does seem like there were finally a threshold that was met at that time when the oxygen levels had gotten high enough.
We are destroying our planets rainforest which generates the oxygen we breath, and dumping huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Its not a very good combination.
Are you a Firefox developer. Why can;t Firefox just implement such a basic security feature as Zones, and furthermore it should be in the main browser since we all agree everyone should use it. Why not? The fact that IE has more security features than Firefox is just pathetic, quite frankly, it could be the case that IE is even safer and protects your privacy more with its Zones feature and as long as you keep it up to date. Why is Firefox so opposed to user friendliness and so ignorant of users needs?
Oh no, does this mean i have to have a seperate instance of firefox open or that i would have to completely shut down firefox just to switch from slashdot to a bank website? Youve got to be kidding me. IE will automatically apply the right settings without restarting when you go to a website, so i dont accidently visit the website with the wrong profile. With that pathetic idea on firefox i would have to completely shut down firefox and restart it with a different profile, and if i forgot to do that i would blow my entire security scheme. IE does it automatically and that is safer. So no, your idea will not work and is not safe.
This seems like this will improve firefox security. What firefox really needs however is a security zones feature that IE has had for over 10 years. You can create security zones, which contain lists of different sites and then place a site into that zone. The zone includes all settings for every possible feature a website uses, including flash and other plugins, java, javascript features, cookies, to name a few. This way you can use one database of sites for all settings rather than creating seperate lists of sites for each individual feature. This is one way that IE surpasses Firefox in security. Going to Firefox was in many ways a downgrade and has far more primitive security control.
The idiocy of refusing to allow reprocessing has always been of a shock to me, I dont think the fact it can be used for weapon is not a valid excuse, given the severity of our energy problems we need to utilise the energy source that is available and i know it can be done in a safe way. As you said, security is the solution. Reprocessing the waste would also keep it out of the environment. The idea of putting away the spent fuel into these facilities underground when they could be used to generate energy is totally insane.
The uranium is in a shortage because of the fact as with all things it is a finite resource and it is running out fast. This is a reminder that we live on a planet with limited resources and the endless, mindless consumption and the capitalistic consumption driven economic model has to be rethought and replaced with an economy that is based on efficiency and meeting human needs, not on profits and money. We are so addicted to money we have forgotten about what is really important, it is the pure greed and arrogance that drives people to purchase SUVs and throw away perfectly good things like old computers because it is not the latest and greatest.
We really need to recycle electronic waste and metals as well as the situation with those is as dangerous as it is with Uranium, a large number of metals, even iron, are being quickly depleted which we must not allow these resources to be wasted but instead need to be collected and recycled continuously. We really cant afford less than a 100% recycling rate and also we cannot afford ever increasing demand, another reason why we need to jettison our current growth based economic model and go to a steady state economy based on stable population levels and stable resource usage.
In a planet where resources are infinite, the idea that growth can be continued is insanity.
IT can be a very demanding work and the consequences of bad work tragic. It is indeed a profession. Consider debugging a million lines of code, and if one code breaks, the whole thing blows up and airplanes fall out of sky or nuclear plants explode. So programming carries great responsibility.
It would be great if NIF could produce a working fusion system within the next century, but i find it a bit doubtful. There are two other fusion technologies which have aimed to reduce the size and complexity of fusion systems, instead of building massive billion dollar generators to instead build smaller technologies. These inlcude Polywell and Focus Fusion. Both are developed by engineers and appear to be honest attempts to develop fusion power and to do it with a reasonable amount of money, under 20 years, rather than centuries. While the government has given NIF billions of dollars, the polywell has received about 8 million in funding, despite the fact that if it is possible it could save the planet. Some scientists seem so enamored by the size and complexity, and unfeasibly of such machines as ITER they seem unwilling to consider smaller, cheaper and more practical alternatives, thus fusion always remains something far off in the centuries away future, when it is desperately needed now.
Id like to see polywell, focus fusion and the NIF fully funded however, since it is possible that one may be right and the others not workable, it increases the chance of finding a solution.
I would also add i do not hear too many people trying to legitimise female genital mutilation which is equivalent to male circumcision (clitoral hood removal), with the argument that it is no different from cutting a childs hair. I think such a conclusion would be laughed at because it should be obvious that cutting off a living part of a childs body that cannot grow back is much different than cutting a childs hair which does grow back. As well, it is also unethical to give a child a tattoo, cut off their earlobes, nipples, or other "unnecessary" body parts when there is no present medical condition involving these parts, and likewise, we shouldnt amputate part of a childs genitals which are have nothing wrong with them.
The foreskin also has significant function, including half of the nerve endings (at least) of the penis being heavily loaded with pleasure sensitive nerve endings. The loss of sensivity due to circumcision due to the simple fact that the skin surface of the penis is being reduced and thus the number of nerve endings is reduced, is bound to be significant. Truly the person whose body it is is the only one who can assess the value of a body part for themselves. A body part which seems useless to be one might be considered indespensible for another, even if for simply aesthetic reasons.
Circumcision is a permenant alteration which cannot be undone, it is a surgical amputation, when commited on healthy children violates the same ethical principles that dictate that cutting off a boys nipples, earlobes, pulling out their entire fingernail, tattoo of children, removing their hair roots so their hair cannot grow back, and other irreversible surgeries and so on, are unethical.
Totally invalid comparison. 1) Hair regrows. 2) Hair is not a living part of the body. Using your flawed argument it would be ok to chop off a childs arm because this is not not different on an ethical level to cutting hair. The difference is arm, skin, parts of a boys genital flesh, and other organs are living parts of the body and do not regrow, thus cutting them off is permenant. If you removed the hair follicles from a childs scalp so the hair could not regrow, this would be an ethical problem.
It is a slippery slope. The fact that circumcision has been now been monetised as a organ harvesting adds financial reasons to continue what is essentially an unethical practice that destroys a healthy part of a little boys body, that has nothing wrong with it, a part they are born with, not to treat a current medical condition. We have ended up in a position where indeed this corporation is involved with the extraction of healthy body parts from a child's body. The fact that genital mutilation of boys began some time before does not change the fact of what is happening right now. The fact that, for instance, lets say a chinese organ recipient recieves a heart that was taken from a child, and were aware of it, the fact that they did not encourage the child to give up his heart does not absolve them of guilt for being complicit in this transaction. The fact that the corporation pays doctors to take the amputated genital organ is itself an encouragement of the practice. Even if donated, the recieving party is still involved in a crime of organ trafficking.
Trafficking amputation of genitals of children is basically one crime on top of another, genital mutilation of the child. The principle of equal protection requires that boys be given equal protection from amputation of medically normal parts of their genitals, as females are already given such protection from even the piercing of a girls genitals.
I am very concerned about the ethical issues surrounding this. If you have any education in or respect for human rights this should raise all kinds of red flags. The notion of using *healthy* tissue harvested from *unconsenting*, helpless children for sale to manufacture products raises serious ethical concerns and questions. It is treating children and their bodies like objects, like agricultural products to be harvested and exploited for the benefit of others. This is nothing less than organ trafficking, no different than the harvesting of other body parts from a child for sale on the market. This technology is already illegal (as organ trafficking) in many countries. The whole notion is pretty inhumane.
Circumcision itself is unethical (destruction of a healthy part of a childs body, without the proper justification that is required for amputation, a serious or life threatening disease requiring immediate treatment which is present and current and cannot be treated by lesser invasive means), and this just adds to the unethical nature of it. Children are not livestock for their bodies to be treated like objects, to be cut up or harvested at a whim, they are human beings with independant rights of their own, one of the most basic is a right to a whole body and to not have their bodies cut up and mutilated by others. It is already technically classified as a battery under general legal principles applying to the rights of the person. The boys and their bodies deserve equal protection as girls already enjoy from such unnecessary genital mutilations. Male circumcision can be compared to female circumcision. In fact, common male circumcision is more invasive than many types of common female circumcision such as removal of the clitoral hood which removes less tissue than male circumcision. Obviously, if female circumcision were done in sterile conditions by doctors, even out of fears of diseases the child does not have, or that it is lesser invasive than other types of circumcision, does not make it acceptable, and the same standard should apply to boys.
The ends do not justify the means as we always say in ethics, and you cannot justify crimes no matter what your excuse is. You cannot justify fondling a child or cutting off a healthy part of their body based on some claimed benefit.
The notion of using *healthy* tissue harvested from *unconsenting*, helpless children for sale to manufacture products raises serious ethical concerns and questions. It is treating children and their bodies like objects, like agricultural products to be harvested and exploited for the benefit of others. This is nothing less than organ trafficking, no different than the harvesting of other body parts from a child for sale on the market. This technology is already illegal (as organ trafficking) in many countries.
Circumcision itself is unethical (destruction of a healthy part of a childs body, without the proper justification that is required for amputation, a serious or life threatening disease requiring immediate treatment which is present and current and cannot be treated by lesser invasive means), and this just adds to the unethical nature of it. Children are not livestock for their bodies to be treated like objects, to be cut up or harvested at a whim, they are human beings with independant rights of their own, one of the most basic is a right to a whole body and to not have their bodies cut up and mutilated by others. It is already technically classified as a battery under general legal principles applying to the rights of the person. The boys and their bodies deserve equal protection as girls already enjoy from such unnecessary genital mutilations. Male circumcision can be compared to female circumcision. In fact, common male circumcision is more invasive than many types of common female circumcision such as removal of the clitoral hood which removes less tissue than male circumcision. Obviously, if female circumcision were done in sterile conditions by doctors, even out of fears of diseases the child does not have, or that it is lesser invasive than other types of circumcision, does not make it acceptable, and the same standard should apply to boys.
The catholic church could deal with the multiple species thing where other species look different, from other planets, by simple acknowledge that God has many forms and can take the form of many different species which represents different aspects and characteristics of god. God can be seen as life itself , the consciouisness and soul in all living things, the world arises from this infinite consciousness from its infinite potential to create reality. So in a sense we are living in our own collective dream. The world as such reflects our own attitudes, since we are god, however we have forgotten much of who we are as god, the world as well does not display the true nature of god, which is infinite love, kindness and compassion and which desires to see no being suffer.
There is a reason that famous people like Barack Obama has BODYGUARDS. If this argument that you have free speech and therefore you dont need anonymity were true, he wouldnt need them.
You are so wrong. You are a typical conservative with your government is the root of all problems attitude. It is not only government that could come after you, but private individuals, such as the mafia or a corporation that does not like what you said that may beat you up or attack you. It has happened before. Only a fool would think that they can safely say anything since they have a legal protection on paper. All it would take is to jump you in a back alley and they would have no idea who did it. The police cannot be everywhere.
No no no. Your wrong. Anonymity is an important and vital component of free speech. This is due to the simple fat that expressing certain views and opinions, such as in politics may get you killed. The fact is, while the government can say it prosecutes such offenses, the fact is there is little to prevent these acts from happening and in many cases the attacker may remain untraceable. The government cant be everwhere to protect everyone. As well, a lack of anonymity would allow your employer to basically trace every single thing you have ever said. If they found you had liberal views and wanted to to regulate corporations they may not hire you. Here technically no law was broken but you are being punished by speech. As long as the option for anonymity does not exist, free speech does not existant on any topic of any real world importance.
You've made the point very well. This is what ive been trying to explain to people. The dakota bakkan formation is not going to solve our problem. Its a complete fantasy put forward by some dimwit republicans. First of all, it will leave a huge hole in tghe ground, baically obliterating a large area. The peak oil would probably not be affected much, or only pushed back a few years. Its impractical, there is little net energy gain because it takes so much energy just to refine the stuff. It's a bit selfish of us dont you think to destroy a large swath of country for oil that will be long gone by the time our future generations lives, leaving them with basically this large area of moonscape? Talking about shortsighted, crazed greed. Lets deal with this with renewables rather than more of these crazy ideas of strip mining hundreds of square miles.
The thing is, you will have to basically completely obilerate a large area of the earths surface and it is highly doubtful that it would in any case be efficient enough to maintain this kind of consumption we have now. Most experts have said the oil sands is basically pie in the sky, a republican fantasy. The environmental impacts are far too great. The oil will be depleted anyway, it would only push back peak oil another decade or so. It is a little selfish of us to completely destroy a large area of the midwest to burn up this oil, leaving our future generations with no oil and a vast wasteland? Future generations will not benefit at all from this, the oil will be long gone for them.
It is extremely unlikely that there will be a magical new discovery of oil that has gone unnoticed by the intensive search by geologists. We have pretty much picked everything over already. There will be more discoveries, but too small to make a real difference. You wont find that huge new ghawar sized field tht can satisfy the hundreds of millions per year US oil consumption.
So to make this gamble will be very risky, the probability is peak oil is coming soon, and its far less destructive to risk preparing for this even if it does not come so soon, than it is to not prepare. Peak oil will come eventually, its a matter if rather than when, if we prepare a little bit early, its fine because its going to have to be done anyway.
There really is no oil in the dakotas. Its this oil sand that is basically difficult to extract, its not the stick a pipe in the ground and outcomes the oil. The oil sand is not practical since you would have to strip mine a vast area of the state .
Slashdot Mirror
Linux does not even need to support Windows drivers though that would really break down a lot more barriers to it being adopted. All it needs to do is support ITS OWN drivers from past editions of the kernel.
Do you realise that Linux's desktop share is hardly much greater than it was in 1998? Why is it that could it be The elitist and arrogant attitude of most Linux developers who dont care about the common users needs? These idiots who think granny and most people are going to learn how to edit 100 configuration files and compile their own drivers?
Probably one of the reasons they dont support Linux and why no one else does is the headache of supporting its 10,000 distributions which can't agree on anything about how the system should be set up. Let's face it, making a software installer for Linux is a nightmare. This, and the lack of a stable driver interface, is why Linux remains a niche OS for a few elites who seem impressed that they are able to cope with using such a confounding and difficult operating system. Such is the mentality of Linux people, their userunfriendly behaviour, that instead of accomodating users needs, i have often heard Linux developers say that users should have to learn how to compile software, debug makefiles and C code and the million ways that software may not compile, resolve library dependancies, find out why a driver wont compile against one of 2000 different conventions on the location of Linux kernel headers, to name a few Linux useability nightmares. On Windows, you put the disk in, click install, and your hardware and software just works. No messy days trying to figure out why a kernel module wont compile or some arcane problem admist millions of lines of code. I have always said that being welcoming and making it easier for companies to make program and binary drivers that run on every Linux operating system version is key to its success, especially since it is months or years until open source drivers can appear for hardware, and also that open source drivers are often filled with bugs while the manufacturers driver is subjected to extensive quality control testing with the actual hardware. The really absurd thing is that while kernel developers continue to make it hard for companies to make a driver for Linux, allowing binary drivers would actually lead to faster creation of open source software, it would allow the vendors driver to be used in back engineering by monitoring communications with hardware devices.
In another screwup, Linux developers in order to address the risk of null pointer dereference in the kernel, blocked all applications from using address 0. In the process they blew up hundreds of applications that run on Wine, when they could have just cleared address 0 when the system goes into kernel mode and preserved compatability. Incompetence, and lack of imagination to not have come up with such a simple solution.
Linux is worth it is your time is worth nothing, but if you are doing real work you need something that does not take 10 times as long to get anything done. Most Linux developers, in my dealings with this, seem to have an elite complex and want to keep Linux hard to use, so that they can feel special in using an operating system which is only useable to 3% of computer users, it makes them feel special and superior that they can figure out such a nightmare of an OS.
As I have always said, the key to software useability is in backwards compatability, layout, and flexibility and feature richness of software. In another messup Linux developers have been making software that is so rigid and inflexible it is unuseable. One example is gnome which is a nightmare to customise. There are hundreds of cases where Linux software has been unuseable to me because some important feature was removed. Making software feature bare and inflexible does not make it useable. The key to useability is many features and lots of customisability but in layout, placing lesser used features deeper into the UI and laying out the user interface so the features can be found easily. Secondly, a system can be user and expert friendly at the same time. Software can be built in layers, with a friendly GUI interface for most users, and experts would be able to access the configuration files, source code, command line and so on at the lower layers. Everything should be able to be done by both CLI and GUI. One of the things I like about Linux is its commmand line interface and that it is possible for one to understand how the entire system works and is put together, and a modular approach is also important. There
Answer: nothing. There were no complex lifeforms in the precambrian, until the very end. The increase in the complexity of life in the Cambrian is attributed to higher levels of oxygen, it was quite a sudden increase in life complexity after 4 billion years in which very little happened. So it does seem like there were finally a threshold that was met at that time when the oxygen levels had gotten high enough.
We are destroying our planets rainforest which generates the oxygen we breath, and dumping huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Its not a very good combination.
Are you a Firefox developer. Why can;t Firefox just implement such a basic security feature as Zones, and furthermore it should be in the main browser since we all agree everyone should use it. Why not? The fact that IE has more security features than Firefox is just pathetic, quite frankly, it could be the case that IE is even safer and protects your privacy more with its Zones feature and as long as you keep it up to date. Why is Firefox so opposed to user friendliness and so ignorant of users needs?
Oh no, does this mean i have to have a seperate instance of firefox open or that i would have to completely shut down firefox just to switch from slashdot to a bank website? Youve got to be kidding me. IE will automatically apply the right settings without restarting when you go to a website, so i dont accidently visit the website with the wrong profile. With that pathetic idea on firefox i would have to completely shut down firefox and restart it with a different profile, and if i forgot to do that i would blow my entire security scheme. IE does it automatically and that is safer. So no, your idea will not work and is not safe.
This seems like this will improve firefox security. What firefox really needs however is a security zones feature that IE has had for over 10 years. You can create security zones, which contain lists of different sites and then place a site into that zone. The zone includes all settings for every possible feature a website uses, including flash and other plugins, java, javascript features, cookies, to name a few. This way you can use one database of sites for all settings rather than creating seperate lists of sites for each individual feature. This is one way that IE surpasses Firefox in security. Going to Firefox was in many ways a downgrade and has far more primitive security control.
I meant to say that that it can be used as a weapon is not a valid excuse. But i am sure you got the idea.
The idiocy of refusing to allow reprocessing has always been of a shock to me, I dont think the fact it can be used for weapon is not a valid excuse, given the severity of our energy problems we need to utilise the energy source that is available and i know it can be done in a safe way. As you said, security is the solution. Reprocessing the waste would also keep it out of the environment. The idea of putting away the spent fuel into these facilities underground when they could be used to generate energy is totally insane.
The uranium is in a shortage because of the fact as with all things it is a finite resource and it is running out fast. This is a reminder that we live on a planet with limited resources and the endless, mindless consumption and the capitalistic consumption driven economic model has to be rethought and replaced with an economy that is based on efficiency and meeting human needs, not on profits and money. We are so addicted to money we have forgotten about what is really important, it is the pure greed and arrogance that drives people to purchase SUVs and throw away perfectly good things like old computers because it is not the latest and greatest.
We really need to recycle electronic waste and metals as well as the situation with those is as dangerous as it is with Uranium, a large number of metals, even iron, are being quickly depleted which we must not allow these resources to be wasted but instead need to be collected and recycled continuously. We really cant afford less than a 100% recycling rate and also we cannot afford ever increasing demand, another reason why we need to jettison our current growth based economic model and go to a steady state economy based on stable population levels and stable resource usage.
In a planet where resources are infinite, the idea that growth can be continued is insanity.
IT can be a very demanding work and the consequences of bad work tragic. It is indeed a profession. Consider debugging a million lines of code, and if one code breaks, the whole thing blows up and airplanes fall out of sky or nuclear plants explode. So programming carries great responsibility.
It would be great if NIF could produce a working fusion system within the next century, but i find it a bit doubtful. There are two other fusion technologies which have aimed to reduce the size and complexity of fusion systems, instead of building massive billion dollar generators to instead build smaller technologies. These inlcude Polywell and Focus Fusion. Both are developed by engineers and appear to be honest attempts to develop fusion power and to do it with a reasonable amount of money, under 20 years, rather than centuries. While the government has given NIF billions of dollars, the polywell has received about 8 million in funding, despite the fact that if it is possible it could save the planet. Some scientists seem so enamored by the size and complexity, and unfeasibly of such machines as ITER they seem unwilling to consider smaller, cheaper and more practical alternatives, thus fusion always remains something far off in the centuries away future, when it is desperately needed now.
Id like to see polywell, focus fusion and the NIF fully funded however, since it is possible that one may be right and the others not workable, it increases the chance of finding a solution.
The cage has been out for many years now. Is this the cage or is it something completely different. or a different cut of the cage?
I would also add i do not hear too many people trying to legitimise female genital mutilation which is equivalent to male circumcision (clitoral hood removal), with the argument that it is no different from cutting a childs hair. I think such a conclusion would be laughed at because it should be obvious that cutting off a living part of a childs body that cannot grow back is much different than cutting a childs hair which does grow back. As well, it is also unethical to give a child a tattoo, cut off their earlobes, nipples, or other "unnecessary" body parts when there is no present medical condition involving these parts, and likewise, we shouldnt amputate part of a childs genitals which are have nothing wrong with them.
The foreskin also has significant function, including half of the nerve endings (at least) of the penis being heavily loaded with pleasure sensitive nerve endings. The loss of sensivity due to circumcision due to the simple fact that the skin surface of the penis is being reduced and thus the number of nerve endings is reduced, is bound to be significant. Truly the person whose body it is is the only one who can assess the value of a body part for themselves. A body part which seems useless to be one might be considered indespensible for another, even if for simply aesthetic reasons.
Circumcision is a permenant alteration which cannot be undone, it is a surgical amputation, when commited on healthy children violates the same ethical principles that dictate that cutting off a boys nipples, earlobes, pulling out their entire fingernail, tattoo of children, removing their hair roots so their hair cannot grow back, and other irreversible surgeries and so on, are unethical.
Totally invalid comparison. 1) Hair regrows. 2) Hair is not a living part of the body. Using your flawed argument it would be ok to chop off a childs arm because this is not not different on an ethical level to cutting hair. The difference is arm, skin, parts of a boys genital flesh, and other organs are living parts of the body and do not regrow, thus cutting them off is permenant. If you removed the hair follicles from a childs scalp so the hair could not regrow, this would be an ethical problem.
It is a slippery slope. The fact that circumcision has been now been monetised as a organ harvesting adds financial reasons to continue what is essentially an unethical practice that destroys a healthy part of a little boys body, that has nothing wrong with it, a part they are born with, not to treat a current medical condition. We have ended up in a position where indeed this corporation is involved with the extraction of healthy body parts from a child's body. The fact that genital mutilation of boys began some time before does not change the fact of what is happening right now. The fact that, for instance, lets say a chinese organ recipient recieves a heart that was taken from a child, and were aware of it, the fact that they did not encourage the child to give up his heart does not absolve them of guilt for being complicit in this transaction. The fact that the corporation pays doctors to take the amputated genital organ is itself an encouragement of the practice. Even if donated, the recieving party is still involved in a crime of organ trafficking.
Trafficking amputation of genitals of children is basically one crime on top of another, genital mutilation of the child. The principle of equal protection requires that boys be given equal protection from amputation of medically normal parts of their genitals, as females are already given such protection from even the piercing of a girls genitals.
I am very concerned about the ethical issues surrounding this. If you have any education in or respect for human rights this should raise all kinds of red flags. The notion of using *healthy* tissue harvested from *unconsenting*, helpless children for sale to manufacture products raises serious ethical concerns and questions. It is treating children and their bodies like objects, like agricultural products to be harvested and exploited for the benefit of others. This is nothing less than organ trafficking, no different than the harvesting of other body parts from a child for sale on the market. This technology is already illegal (as organ trafficking) in many countries. The whole notion is pretty inhumane.
Circumcision itself is unethical (destruction of a healthy part of a childs body, without the proper justification that is required for amputation, a serious or life threatening disease requiring immediate treatment which is present and current and cannot be treated by lesser invasive means), and this just adds to the unethical nature of it. Children are not livestock for their bodies to be treated like objects, to be cut up or harvested at a whim, they are human beings with independant rights of their own, one of the most basic is a right to a whole body and to not have their bodies cut up and mutilated by others. It is already technically classified as a battery under general legal principles applying to the rights of the person. The boys and their bodies deserve equal protection as girls already enjoy from such unnecessary genital mutilations. Male circumcision can be compared to female circumcision. In fact, common male circumcision is more invasive than many types of common female circumcision such as removal of the clitoral hood which removes less tissue than male circumcision. Obviously, if female circumcision were done in sterile conditions by doctors, even out of fears of diseases the child does not have, or that it is lesser invasive than other types of circumcision, does not make it acceptable, and the same standard should apply to boys.
The ends do not justify the means as we always say in ethics, and you cannot justify crimes no matter what your excuse is. You cannot justify fondling a child or cutting off a healthy part of their body based on some claimed benefit.
The notion of using *healthy* tissue harvested from *unconsenting*, helpless children for sale to manufacture products raises serious ethical concerns and questions. It is treating children and their bodies like objects, like agricultural products to be harvested and exploited for the benefit of others. This is nothing less than organ trafficking, no different than the harvesting of other body parts from a child for sale on the market. This technology is already illegal (as organ trafficking) in many countries.
Circumcision itself is unethical (destruction of a healthy part of a childs body, without the proper justification that is required for amputation, a serious or life threatening disease requiring immediate treatment which is present and current and cannot be treated by lesser invasive means), and this just adds to the unethical nature of it. Children are not livestock for their bodies to be treated like objects, to be cut up or harvested at a whim, they are human beings with independant rights of their own, one of the most basic is a right to a whole body and to not have their bodies cut up and mutilated by others. It is already technically classified as a battery under general legal principles applying to the rights of the person. The boys and their bodies deserve equal protection as girls already enjoy from such unnecessary genital mutilations. Male circumcision can be compared to female circumcision. In fact, common male circumcision is more invasive than many types of common female circumcision such as removal of the clitoral hood which removes less tissue than male circumcision. Obviously, if female circumcision were done in sterile conditions by doctors, even out of fears of diseases the child does not have, or that it is lesser invasive than other types of circumcision, does not make it acceptable, and the same standard should apply to boys.
The catholic church could deal with the multiple species thing where other species look different, from other planets, by simple acknowledge that God has many forms and can take the form of many different species which represents different aspects and characteristics of god. God can be seen as life itself , the consciouisness and soul in all living things, the world arises from this infinite consciousness from its infinite potential to create reality. So in a sense we are living in our own collective dream. The world as such reflects our own attitudes, since we are god, however we have forgotten much of who we are as god, the world as well does not display the true nature of god, which is infinite love, kindness and compassion and which desires to see no being suffer.
There is a reason that famous people like Barack Obama has BODYGUARDS. If this argument that you have free speech and therefore you dont need anonymity were true, he wouldnt need them.
You are so wrong. You are a typical conservative with your government is the root of all problems attitude. It is not only government that could come after you, but private individuals, such as the mafia or a corporation that does not like what you said that may beat you up or attack you. It has happened before. Only a fool would think that they can safely say anything since they have a legal protection on paper. All it would take is to jump you in a back alley and they would have no idea who did it. The police cannot be everywhere.
No no no. Your wrong. Anonymity is an important and vital component of free speech. This is due to the simple fat that expressing certain views and opinions, such as in politics may get you killed. The fact is, while the government can say it prosecutes such offenses, the fact is there is little to prevent these acts from happening and in many cases the attacker may remain untraceable. The government cant be everwhere to protect everyone. As well, a lack of anonymity would allow your employer to basically trace every single thing you have ever said. If they found you had liberal views and wanted to to regulate corporations they may not hire you. Here technically no law was broken but you are being punished by speech. As long as the option for anonymity does not exist, free speech does not existant on any topic of any real world importance.
You've made the point very well. This is what ive been trying to explain to people. The dakota bakkan formation is not going to solve our problem. Its a complete fantasy put forward by some dimwit republicans. First of all, it will leave a huge hole in tghe ground, baically obliterating a large area. The peak oil would probably not be affected much, or only pushed back a few years. Its impractical, there is little net energy gain because it takes so much energy just to refine the stuff. It's a bit selfish of us dont you think to destroy a large swath of country for oil that will be long gone by the time our future generations lives, leaving them with basically this large area of moonscape? Talking about shortsighted, crazed greed. Lets deal with this with renewables rather than more of these crazy ideas of strip mining hundreds of square miles.
The thing is, you will have to basically completely obilerate a large area of the earths surface and it is highly doubtful that it would in any case be efficient enough to maintain this kind of consumption we have now. Most experts have said the oil sands is basically pie in the sky, a republican fantasy. The environmental impacts are far too great. The oil will be depleted anyway, it would only push back peak oil another decade or so. It is a little selfish of us to completely destroy a large area of the midwest to burn up this oil, leaving our future generations with no oil and a vast wasteland? Future generations will not benefit at all from this, the oil will be long gone for them.
It is extremely unlikely that there will be a magical new discovery of oil that has gone unnoticed by the intensive search by geologists. We have pretty much picked everything over already. There will be more discoveries, but too small to make a real difference. You wont find that huge new ghawar sized field tht can satisfy the hundreds of millions per year US oil consumption.
So to make this gamble will be very risky, the probability is peak oil is coming soon, and its far less destructive to risk preparing for this even if it does not come so soon, than it is to not prepare. Peak oil will come eventually, its a matter if rather than when, if we prepare a little bit early, its fine because its going to have to be done anyway.
There really is no oil in the dakotas. Its this oil sand that is basically difficult to extract, its not the stick a pipe in the ground and outcomes the oil. The oil sand is not practical since you would have to strip mine a vast area of the state .