The purpose of the EC is to prevent the tyranny of the majority.
False. Read your history.
The math of the Electoral College, along with the 3/5ths Compromise, was a purely political compromise to balance the SLAVE STATES vs FREE STATES. The electoral college was founded purely on the basis of SLAVE POLITICS, not as some noble brilliant plan to grant people in Wyoming more than four times the vote of Texans to protect minority Wyomings from the tyranny of the democratic vote of more populous Texans.
The electoral math absolutely does NOT in any way protect a minority from the tyranny of a majority. What it does do is arbitrarily grant some people several times the votes, and simply changes the math so that a different set of people - a minority - to obtain the exact identical "tyranny" power over a majority.
And to point out just how absurd it is, well lets look at California. It has 55 electoral votes... it's the biggest state. But you know what? It's a silly-big state. It's TOO big. We never should have made it one humongous state when it was created and added to the country. We could have carved it up into smaller pieces as lots of little states. In fact we could carve California up into 70 small states with the same population as Wyoming. So if we do that, now the 70 states worth of Californians would get 210 votes in the electoral college.
Actually you know what? The fricking TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD where I happen to live in NY happens to have a far bigger population than the entire state of Wyoming. We should just make the Town of Hempstead into a state. Then me and my neighbors could get THREE electoral votes all to ourselves. Pulling Hempstead out of NY state would only reduce NY's electoral votes by 1, but would give us 3 electoral votes, for a net gain of 2 electoral votes magically appearing out of thin air.
Sweet deal! Dontchya think? No, you probably don't think so, because all of this would be inconvenient to your personal political preferences. The Electoral College math is only some sort of "vitally important democratic principle" when it is applied in a way that aids your political preferences to impose a tyranny of your minority against the majority.
No, if you check your history the Electoral College is purely product of slavery politics. It is purely a convenient fiction of partisan politics to claim that it is some brilliant noble plan to give some people extra votes against some "tyranny of the majority". The Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court and other mechanisms are there to protect ALL minorities against the tyranny of ANY and ALL majorities.
And installing a president to rubber stamp this Democratic Congress that received a 9% approval rating is the wrong direction.
LMAO. Awwwww..... poor baby. I have news for you. This is not about the evil city dwellers imposing some tyranny. Based on the latest state poll restults an election today would be an Electoral College landslide for Obama... either Obama 364 to McCain 174, or Obama 349 to McCain 189 (North Carolina is currently coming in at a dead tie). And results of the latest debate show Obama only moving further ahead, although it will take another two days or so for new state polls to be done and come in reflecting that. A one-point-something percent shift would put the Electoral results at 375 vs 163.
So whatever delusions you have about how evil Obama may be, well too bad. The Electoral College is coming down TWO TO ONE for Obama. Mccain is going to lose in a landslide unless Jesus comes down and personally plants a glowing halo on Mccain's head. Barring, that, by any conceivable measure, the country is deciding you are wrong and that Obama is better for the Nation than Mccain.
Masterminds are another word that comes up all the time. You keep hearing about these terrorists masterminds that get killed in the middle east. Terrorists masterminds. Mastermind is sort of a lofty way to describe what these guys do, don't you think? They're not masterminds. "OK, you take bomb, right? And you put in your backpack. And you get on bus and you blow yourself up. Alright?" "Why do I have to blow myself up? Why can't I just:" "Who's the fucking mastermind here? Me or you?"
They are saying he is part muslin and part something else. Silk possibly? It isn't entirely clear why they might say he is made of cloth, but the spelling is fine.
The key is the half-breed part. In the Bible, Leviticus declares that homosexuality, shellfish, and mixed fiber clothing, are all abominations. By calling Obama a half-breed muslin they are obviously citing Leviticus and calling Obama an abomination to God.
I don't live in the US, but have read heaps about this topic. My real question is why the subject is even being considered being added to the US school curriculum.
There have been many other good replies, but I would like to add two critical points to the mix.
(1) One flaw in the Constitutional design of our election system is that it mathematically locks in on a winner-takes-all two party elections. One of our two parties caters-to / exploits the religious evangelicals. Evangelicals make up around 20% of the overall population. They also tend to be fanatically dedicated and motivated, and can be rallied to vote at a higher rate than the general public. So that 20% of the population is almost exclusively concentrated in the Republican Party - meaning they are maybe 40% of the Republican party. And then with increased voter turnout they represent more than 50% of the Republican vote. That turns into winner-take-all control of the presidency by the Republicans (when they win), and the evangelicals are responsible for more than 50% of the power in selecting and electing that candidate. So this minority group can wield power WAY out of proportion to their numbers. They are distributed in a number of regionally concentrations, in some areas approaching 100%, meaning they completely elect and completely make up the local and state government. They can pull all sorts of religious-fundie stunts in schools and local government and in state legislatures, and it only gets smacked down when it gets dragged up to the US Supreme Court.
(2) The United States is really big. It's HUUUUUUGE. It sounds like a silly point, but those square miles really matter - a lot. I think it was last weak I ran some of the math. There was a threat talking about Denmark and comparisons with conservatism. The US average population density worked out some 13.7 or 14.7 times lower than that of Denmark. Compared to any other First World country, the US is pretty well made up of remote frontier villages in the middle of nowhereland. The US has vast extremely rural areas, vast segments of our population are extremely isolated, hundreds and hundreds of miles from even the slightest urbanism. People literally a thousand kilometers from any coastline or international border. The US political divide is almost complete determined by population density. Rural areas vote Red in even the Bluest of states, and urban/suburban areas vote Blue even in the Reddest of states. There are essentially none of these religious evangelicals in any of our urban or suburban areas. This religious evangelical culture is in isolated rural areas. Areas where everyone you know goes to the same one church in the middle of town, where that church powerfully defines the community, where that church is the authority defining what is socially acceptable or not. Where they have never met anyone of another religion. Where they have the illusion that everyone follows the one-and-only unquestionable religion, that anyone who doesn't follow their religion are freak aliens on some other planet. Where they have never met anyone from another country. Areas where everyone is deeply saturated in conforming to the one and only acceptable social and cultural norm. Where someone of asian or other ethnic decent is some strange alien they have never seen in person. Where an open homosexual is a freakish alien, defying church authority and defying the one-and-only acceptable social norm. Where people and different ideas do not flow easily.
Isolated social conformity and intolerance. Isolated deep religious faith unchallenged by the fact that they do not possess some Magical Unquestionable One Truth. They are generally blissfully clueless just how badly their One True Understanding of the Bible conflicts with the One True Teaching in many of their fellow evangelical churches. They have absolute unchallenged faith in their Inerrant Universal religious Truth. No experience and no idea that even other "Good Christians" reject much of their Inerrant Universal religious Truth, not to mention no experience facing and reasonably dealing with people of other major religions.
However, I don't think either theory should be taught in science classes.
And they don't think the sun-centered solar system should be taught in science class either.
Science should be taught not unprovable theories. No one can prove Evolution nor can anyone prove Creation.
Sure.... lets not teach students ANY science at all. Lets not teach the theory of gravity. Lets not teach atomic theory. Lets not teach electromagnetic theory. Lets not teach the theory of optics. Lets not teach any science at all.
Lets not even teach the heliocentric theory of the solar system.
All evidence indicates that heliocentrism is the best most accurate explanation for the solar system. All evidence indicates that evolution is the best most accurate explanation for the diversity of life on earth.
All attempts to refute heliocentric theory have failed based on the evidence. All attempts to refute evolutionary theory have failed based on the evidence.
Heliocentrism makes predictions, and those predictions have been endlessly tested and confirmed. Evolution makes predictions, and those predictions have been endlessly tested and confirmed.
It is impossible to "prove" that the sun goes around the sun, just as it is impossible to "prove" evolution or anything else in science. However no one has ever come up with any remotely sane alternative that is even remotely compatible with the evidence. Every alternative ever suggested by anyone has been refuted by the evidence.
If they're to be taught in school, put it under Literature like where I learned the Mayan's version of the creation of life.
The solar system and electromagnetic theory and atomic theory and everything else should be taught in literature class?
The only problem here is that you have the idea that evolution is wrong, that some people have told you that the evidence establishing evolution does not exist, that you have the idea that evolution is not as powerfully established by the evidence as every other field of science, that you have the idea that evolution is not actually a field of science just like every other field of science. Those things are all wrong.
If you want to study science, great! There are entire libraries filled with evidence "proving" evolution is true. If you have any interest in learning science, in learning what evolution actually says and how it works and learning what sort of evidence there really is to back it up, great! I'd be more than happy to help, if you have an honest interest in the science and evidence.
If you don't know any of the science, and you have no interest in learning the science, then I suggest you listen to actual mainstream professional scientists who are experts on the subject. And actual mainstream professional scientists who are experts on evolution unanimously say that evolution is fundamentally right and that it is overwhelmingly established based on all known evidence from every conceivable direction.
And I suggest you stop listening to non-scientific activist groups running public relations campaigns pushing misinformation that there's no evidence smoking causes cancer, or pushing misinformation that there's no evidence supporting evolution. The anti-evolution activists are nothing more than public relations campaigns spewing factually false information.
It is easy to convince someone that evolution is right - - - IF they are at all reasonable and rational and willing to honestly consider the evidence. If you want to take me up on that claim, please first indicate if you are a Young Earth Creationist. It is much faster and easier to address the age of the earth, much faster and easier to establish if you are willing to honestly consider the evidence in reasonable rational manner.
Logic failure - how did evolution come into being? Who or what created it? It obviously did not evolve from evolution -- circular logic. So someone or something must have created it.
Logic failure - how did rain come into being? Who or what created it? It obviously did not come from rain -- circular logic. So someone or something must have created it.
You don't quite directly say it, but you seem to have the impression that evolution = atheism. Chemistry does not equal atheism. quantum mechanics does not equal atheism. Evolution does not equal atheism. The theory of relativity does not equal atheism. They all describe how the physical world operates. None of them say anything about God. None of them say God does or does not exist. If there is a God, then the science optics explains God's chosen mechanism for creating rainbows. If there is a God, then the science of evolution explains God's chosen mechanism for creating the diversity of life on earth. If there is a God, then the heliocentric solar system explains God's chosen mechanism for creating day and night and the seasons of the earth.
I can only yield before the impenetrable power of your post. The logic and analysis you present is nearly as formidable as the ruling of the judge himself.
Funny, the judge which I don't think anyone would argue knows a lot more about the law than you do, disagrees with you.
Funny, the judges in the prior cases ruled the opposite way.
The judge gave his reason he was ruling contrary to those prior cases. He went do the list of cases he was contradicting, and repeatedly said he was overruling all of that prior case law because he found this speech more vulgar. In the instant case, there can be no doubt that the speech used is vulgar and lewd. The profile contains words such as "fucking," "bitch," "fagass," "dick," "tight ass," and "dick head".
That was the rule he INVENTED to decide when a principal can or cannot suspend a student for speech outside of school.
This was not about libel. The word libel does not even appear in the damn ruling. It does not appear in the ruling because it was not libel.
This case was not about a student being disruptive in school, or any other valid basis for school discipline of a student.
According to the ruling the EXACT webpage written by the student would have been fine and protected against such action by the principal.... had the page not contained so many vulgar swear words.
That is a dumbfuck ruling. That is a dumbfuck rule to define when a principal can or cannot penalize a student for non-shcool related speech. If the student's speech has too many naughty naughty swear words like "dick" and "bitch", then principals can punish kids for their non-school speech.
I'd also like for you to show me the law that says he can't 'abuse his power'.
The law grants powers. He had no lawful authority to do what he did.
But he's not going to go to charged with a criminal offense because it isn't a criminal offsense.
He's not going to be charged with a criminal offense. It is a civil case against the school district. The student was improperly denied the education he is lawfully entitled to. This is about damages and court costs and expunging this from his transcript and a court order that it was improper and that this school not repeat such unlawful disciplinary action against students and additional precedent that other schools not do so and it is about the validation of this student's civil rights and all of our civil rights.
The bus driver was not imprisoned for preventing Rosa Parks from sitting at the front of the bus, but the court ruling affirming her civil rights was vitally important nonetheless.
As I said, do the same thing for your boss, see how long you stay employeed.
My boss is not the government. The principal is an official agent of the government.
My boss does not have a legal obligation to provide me with a job. The principal does have a legal obligation to provide students with an education.
My does does have the right to end our employment arrangement for most any discretionary reason. The principal does not have recessionary authority to discipline or suspend students from school except as necessary to carry out the lawful duties of his government position.
Intent doesn't matter.
Yes, intent often matters in law. It is possible to get hit for libel without intent, but the bar is higher and the penalties lower.
And here intent doesn't much matter because the text was BLATANT fiction. It was not libel.
The principal is not calling it libel, the judge is not calling it libel, the article is not calling it libel. NO ONE is calling it libel except half the rabble here on Slashdot. This is not about libel.
What if the principle slandered her
What if the principal punched her in the nose?
Oh wait, she never punched the principal in the nose, so that's a silly irrelevant question.
But ok... if the principal slandered her then she should sue the principal.
From your own link: In law, defamation (also called vilification, slander, and libel) is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressively stated or implied to be factual
Hustler Magazine did the exact same thing this girl did, except they published it in a national magazine. They published an ad containing an "interview" with Jerry Fallwell, where they have Fallwell say that he lost his virginity with his mother in an outhouse. They were mocking Fallell, exactly as this girl was mocking the principal. The court threw the libel charge out because it was not presented as a factual allegation. Anyone with half a brain reading it would know that it was not in fact Fallwell speaking, and would know that it was not in fact an allegation presented as factual.
And anyone with half a brain should realize that that OBVIOUS FICTION cannot constitute libel. The harm in libel comes from the deception of convincing people that the target actually committed some offensive act.
The judge was completely correct in his ruling.
The judge did not say it was libel. The entire ruling does not even contain the word libel. Why? Because it was not libel.
The judge's ruling went down a list of prior cases all ruled in the exact opposite direction, and the judge repeatedly saying essentially "I find this language really VULGAR, therefore I'm going to rule the opposite way".
In justifying his ruling the judge said "In the instant case, there can be no doubt that the speech used is vulgar and lewd. The profile contains words such as "fucking," "bitch," "fagass," "dick," "tight ass," and "dick head."
It has absolutely NOTHING to do with libel or anything else. The fact the text contains words like "fucking" and "bitch" is completely unconnected to the issue of whether the principal has any right to eject a student for off-campus speech. This is not a case of "it's libel so the principal can do it", this is not a case of "it was disrupting school therefore the principal can do it". The judge here is saying he would have ruled for the student and against the principal had the webpage been exactly the same but with less swear words in it. The judge is ruling that principals can punish students for outside speech on the basis that a student uses to many swear words.
That is a dubmfuck ruling.
Judges are supposed to rule based on the law and set aside their personal feelings. But judges are human and sometimes they let emotion and their feelings towards the parties slant their rulings. This judge clearly has a stick up his ass about foul language, and he was offended, and he didn't like the student, so he went down the list of previous cases ruling in the opposite direction and came up with the brilliant excuse that this kid has a foul mouth as a basis to ignore and reverse all of those rulings, just because that is the way he wanted to rule.
Go ahead. Read the goddamn ruling. Not one damn word about libel. The judge harps on about the foul language as his justification.
There is still freedom of speech and there is no freedom from consequences.
Freedom of Speech is about protection against retribution by the government for speech.
This is a case of a principal abusing his power to prosecute a personal vendetta against a student for something outside of school. This is a case of a judge failing to rule protecting the student from that abusive violation of Free Speech protections.
And I damn well hope they make the effort to appeal, because there's no way in hell a ruling based on the swear word count is going to hold up as the defining line for when a principal can and cannot punish students for speech unconnected to school.
First of all slander is verbal. Libel is the one about published materials.
And as the other poster said, she committed no crime. She did not commit libel. She made no false accusations presented as factually true.
You would have to be a brain damaged moron to think that it was the principal actually speaking when the page starts with: yes. It's your oh so wonderful, hairy, expressionless, sex addict, fagass, put on this world with a small dick PRINCIPAL
And you would have to be a brain damaged moron to thin that "small dick" or anything else on the page was a presented-as-fact allegation.
There was no libel. There was no crime at all.
Just like Hustler magazine was won on all counts all the way up to the Supereme Court when they published an ad with a fictional interview with Jerry Fallwell saying that he lost his virginity in an outhouse with his mother. No reasonable rational person seeing that ad would interpret it as a representation of factual truth.
Why do stupid statements like this get marked insightful?
Because he was RIGHT.
It is unlawful for a principal to abuse his school position to pursue some outside vendetta against someone. Unlawful. Period.
he abused his power and let her off FAR EASIER than if he'd followed the 'proper' method you suggest
First of all that is absolutely no justification for this judge to throw the law out the window and issue a ruling contrary to law and contrary to previous cases. The teacher did abuse his authority, and this idiot judge ignored it and ruled to the contrary because the judge was fucking offended by the vulgarity level of the language.
Secondly, there was no libel. If I write "Hi I'm BitZtream and I'm a poopiehead and I have a tiny dick and I kidnap babies to steal their candy and watch them cry", that is not libel. No reasonable person would think that I was actually you, and no reasonable person would take that as an actual presented-as-factual-accusation that you committed felony kidnapping. I had no intent for anyone to take it as a presented-as-fact accusation that you kidnap babies. That is not libel.
The legal avenue was that the principal could have tried for harassment, and based on the facts even that wouldn't hold up. Harassment is when you communicate threats or other speech to a target with intent to harass, and in this case there is no indication that the student intended the text as a harassing communication to the principal, and in fact everything indicates it was intended as a humor to be read by other students. Not only did the student not bring the page to the principal's attention, the student belatedly changed the page to "private" and was restricting access to other friend students. There was no libel, and there wasn't even intent to harass. The student mocked the principal and wrote some vulgar language in an entirely outside school humorous text intended for her friends to laugh over.
There was no libel. The most they could come up with was maybe the principal could try for harassment. The judge ruled contrary to numerous other cases, and he repeatedly cites the level of vulgarity in this case as his basis for ruling to the contrary.
The judge was a cock sucking motherfucking asshole with two butt-fucking-spermcells for a brain. And according to him foul language is justification for throwing the law out the window and ruling against anyone who uses language that he feels is naughty.
There's really nothing more plausible and therefore more damaging she could have said.
The page opened with: yes. It's your oh so wonderful, hairy, expressionless, sex addict, fagass, put on this world with a small dick PRINCIPAL
One would have to be pretty much brain damaged to imagine that it was the principal speaking, or to believe that "small dick" or anything else on the page was a presented-as-true-factual-allegation.
maybe teachers have a right to refuse to teach little bitches who spout crap about them.
Teachers are certainly free to quit their job, but aside from that students have a legal obligation to attend school and teachers have a legal job obligation to teach them.
Teachers and principals most certainly do not have any right to abuse their official government powers to pursue personal vendettas against students for outside-school matters.
Since the principal is unknown to most of the World (as is the scope of MySpace), it's probably not obvious that the writings are a joke or even what the joke is.
(1) The site that opened with: yes. It's your oh so wonderful, hairy, expressionless, sex addict, fagass, put on this world with a small dick PRINCIPAL One would have to be almost brain damaged to read that fail to find it obvious that something not-literally-factual is going on.
(2) Libel requires a malicious intent to harm, in particular by knowingly making false allegations presented as factually true with intent to deceive others. This was not libel. There was no intent to deceive, and no reasonable person would have believed that the "small dick" or anything else were allegations of fact.
(3) People immune from against being ridicule, mockery, insults, parody, just because they're not "famous enough".
(4) The page did not even have the principal's name, pretty much only someone explicitly brought in on the "joke" would ever see it and would ever make any connection to the principal.
(5) Even if the page WERE 100% libelous, a public school principal has no right to hijack the powers of his position to single handedly pursue and punish personal vendettas. If the kid next door hits a baseball through your window you can sue him for damages. If you are a principal and the kid next door happens to be a student in your school, you do not get to abuse your office to address your personal non-school issues by expelling the student. If the student is disruptive on school property and breaks school windows or somesuch, then you can expel him as part of your duties to provide and protect the education of other students.
If I wanted to get you fired and I put up on my MySpace page a malicious lie alleging that you raped me, that would be libel.
If I put up a MySpace page saying: Hi! I'm jorghis (1000092) and I'm a big fat poopiehead with a tiny dick. My mommy wears army boots and dresses me funny. I like to kidnap little children just to steal their candy and watch them cry.
then that is mockery. There is no intent to deceive people into thinking I am actually you speaking, and there is no allegation-presented-as-true that you actually committed a felony of baby-kidnapping.
Since he is unknown to the public, there is no expectation that a reasonable person could deduce the MySpace content as parody.
No. Fame is a ridiculously narrow basis for identifying parody and similar speech.
Just to cite the opening, the MySpace page began as follows:
yes. It's your oh so wonderful, hairy, expressionless, sex addict, fagass, put on this world with a small dick PRINCIPAL
No reasonable person would have be deceived into believing it was actually the principal speaking. There was no intent by the student to deceive people into thinking it was actually the principal speaking. No, mocking the principal like that does not constitute allegations-presented-as-true that the principal actually has a small dick. That does not constitute an allegation-presented-as-true to deceive people into believing that the principal actually committed any felony.
That is expressing an opinion. That is mocking someone. That is not defamation.
Slashdot Mirror
The purpose of the EC is to prevent the tyranny of the majority.
False. Read your history.
The math of the Electoral College, along with the 3/5ths Compromise, was a purely political compromise to balance the SLAVE STATES vs FREE STATES. The electoral college was founded purely on the basis of SLAVE POLITICS, not as some noble brilliant plan to grant people in Wyoming more than four times the vote of Texans to protect minority Wyomings from the tyranny of the democratic vote of more populous Texans.
The electoral math absolutely does NOT in any way protect a minority from the tyranny of a majority. What it does do is arbitrarily grant some people several times the votes, and simply changes the math so that a different set of people - a minority - to obtain the exact identical "tyranny" power over a majority.
And to point out just how absurd it is, well lets look at California. It has 55 electoral votes... it's the biggest state. But you know what? It's a silly-big state. It's TOO big. We never should have made it one humongous state when it was created and added to the country. We could have carved it up into smaller pieces as lots of little states. In fact we could carve California up into 70 small states with the same population as Wyoming. So if we do that, now the 70 states worth of Californians would get 210 votes in the electoral college.
Actually you know what? The fricking TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD where I happen to live in NY happens to have a far bigger population than the entire state of Wyoming. We should just make the Town of Hempstead into a state. Then me and my neighbors could get THREE electoral votes all to ourselves. Pulling Hempstead out of NY state would only reduce NY's electoral votes by 1, but would give us 3 electoral votes, for a net gain of 2 electoral votes magically appearing out of thin air.
Sweet deal! Dontchya think? No, you probably don't think so, because all of this would be inconvenient to your personal political preferences. The Electoral College math is only some sort of "vitally important democratic principle" when it is applied in a way that aids your political preferences to impose a tyranny of your minority against the majority.
No, if you check your history the Electoral College is purely product of slavery politics. It is purely a convenient fiction of partisan politics to claim that it is some brilliant noble plan to give some people extra votes against some "tyranny of the majority". The Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court and other mechanisms are there to protect ALL minorities against the tyranny of ANY and ALL majorities.
And installing a president to rubber stamp this Democratic Congress that received a 9% approval rating is the wrong direction.
LMAO. Awwwww..... poor baby. I have news for you. This is not about the evil city dwellers imposing some tyranny. Based on the latest state poll restults an election today would be an Electoral College landslide for Obama... either Obama 364 to McCain 174, or Obama 349 to McCain 189 (North Carolina is currently coming in at a dead tie). And results of the latest debate show Obama only moving further ahead, although it will take another two days or so for new state polls to be done and come in reflecting that. A one-point-something percent shift would put the Electoral results at 375 vs 163.
So whatever delusions you have about how evil Obama may be, well too bad. The Electoral College is coming down TWO TO ONE for Obama. Mccain is going to lose in a landslide unless Jesus comes down and personally plants a glowing halo on Mccain's head. Barring, that, by any conceivable measure, the country is deciding you are wrong and that Obama is better for the Nation than Mccain.
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Masterminds are another word that comes up all the time.
You keep hearing about these terrorists masterminds that get killed in the middle east.
Terrorists masterminds.
Mastermind is sort of a lofty way to describe what these guys do, don't you think?
They're not masterminds.
"OK, you take bomb, right? And you put in your backpack. And you get on bus and you blow yourself up. Alright?"
"Why do I have to blow myself up? Why can't I just:"
"Who's the fucking mastermind here? Me or you?"
Chuckle.
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>(half-breed muslin? wtf?).
They are saying he is part muslin and part something else. Silk possibly?
It isn't entirely clear why they might say he is made of cloth, but the spelling is fine.
The key is the half-breed part. In the Bible, Leviticus declares that homosexuality, shellfish, and mixed fiber clothing, are all abominations. By calling Obama a half-breed muslin they are obviously citing Leviticus and calling Obama an abomination to God.
Quite obvious, really.
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Yeah, sure would. Kucinich all the way.
I'd gladly help build a UFO landing pad on the Whitehouse front lawn just to see more of that redhead FLILF wife.
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COme on! How naive do they think we are?
Ummmm, enough to reelect Bush?
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something that occurs so often it really needs an acronym.
Stosoirnaa.
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We're the sick glowing heartless [expletive deleted] at IOC, thankyouverymuch.
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Geeze I'm from Texas and I know the Canadian Anthem
They should join the US.
Ummm, and the Canadians too, if they want.
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Shortly after its foundation the US Congress passed legislation granting immediate automatic accptance of Canada if it requested it.
I couldn't find it with a brief googling. Do you have a link?
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Any joke distinguishable from reality is insufficently advanced.
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I don't live in the US, but have read heaps about this topic. My real question is why the subject is even being considered being added to the US school curriculum.
There have been many other good replies, but I would like to add two critical points to the mix.
(1) One flaw in the Constitutional design of our election system is that it mathematically locks in on a winner-takes-all two party elections. One of our two parties caters-to / exploits the religious evangelicals. Evangelicals make up around 20% of the overall population. They also tend to be fanatically dedicated and motivated, and can be rallied to vote at a higher rate than the general public. So that 20% of the population is almost exclusively concentrated in the Republican Party - meaning they are maybe 40% of the Republican party. And then with increased voter turnout they represent more than 50% of the Republican vote. That turns into winner-take-all control of the presidency by the Republicans (when they win), and the evangelicals are responsible for more than 50% of the power in selecting and electing that candidate. So this minority group can wield power WAY out of proportion to their numbers. They are distributed in a number of regionally concentrations, in some areas approaching 100%, meaning they completely elect and completely make up the local and state government. They can pull all sorts of religious-fundie stunts in schools and local government and in state legislatures, and it only gets smacked down when it gets dragged up to the US Supreme Court.
(2) The United States is really big. It's HUUUUUUGE. It sounds like a silly point, but those square miles really matter - a lot. I think it was last weak I ran some of the math. There was a threat talking about Denmark and comparisons with conservatism. The US average population density worked out some 13.7 or 14.7 times lower than that of Denmark. Compared to any other First World country, the US is pretty well made up of remote frontier villages in the middle of nowhereland. The US has vast extremely rural areas, vast segments of our population are extremely isolated, hundreds and hundreds of miles from even the slightest urbanism. People literally a thousand kilometers from any coastline or international border. The US political divide is almost complete determined by population density. Rural areas vote Red in even the Bluest of states, and urban/suburban areas vote Blue even in the Reddest of states. There are essentially none of these religious evangelicals in any of our urban or suburban areas. This religious evangelical culture is in isolated rural areas. Areas where everyone you know goes to the same one church in the middle of town, where that church powerfully defines the community, where that church is the authority defining what is socially acceptable or not. Where they have never met anyone of another religion. Where they have the illusion that everyone follows the one-and-only unquestionable religion, that anyone who doesn't follow their religion are freak aliens on some other planet. Where they have never met anyone from another country. Areas where everyone is deeply saturated in conforming to the one and only acceptable social and cultural norm. Where someone of asian or other ethnic decent is some strange alien they have never seen in person. Where an open homosexual is a freakish alien, defying church authority and defying the one-and-only acceptable social norm. Where people and different ideas do not flow easily.
Isolated social conformity and intolerance. Isolated deep religious faith unchallenged by the fact that they do not possess some Magical Unquestionable One Truth. They are generally blissfully clueless just how badly their One True Understanding of the Bible conflicts with the One True Teaching in many of their fellow evangelical churches. They have absolute unchallenged faith in their Inerrant Universal religious Truth. No experience and no idea that even other "Good Christians" reject much of their Inerrant Universal religious Truth, not to mention no experience facing and reasonably dealing with people of other major religions.
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I subscribe to the Creation theory.
And there are people who subscribe to Geocentric Theory.
However, I don't think either theory should be taught in science classes.
And they don't think the sun-centered solar system should be taught in science class either.
Science should be taught not unprovable theories. No one can prove Evolution nor can anyone prove Creation.
Sure.... lets not teach students ANY science at all.
Lets not teach the theory of gravity. Lets not teach atomic theory. Lets not teach electromagnetic theory. Lets not teach the theory of optics. Lets not teach any science at all.
Lets not even teach the heliocentric theory of the solar system.
All evidence indicates that heliocentrism is the best most accurate explanation for the solar system.
All evidence indicates that evolution is the best most accurate explanation for the diversity of life on earth.
All attempts to refute heliocentric theory have failed based on the evidence. All attempts to refute evolutionary theory have failed based on the evidence.
Heliocentrism makes predictions, and those predictions have been endlessly tested and confirmed.
Evolution makes predictions, and those predictions have been endlessly tested and confirmed.
It is impossible to "prove" that the sun goes around the sun, just as it is impossible to "prove" evolution or anything else in science. However no one has ever come up with any remotely sane alternative that is even remotely compatible with the evidence. Every alternative ever suggested by anyone has been refuted by the evidence.
If they're to be taught in school, put it under Literature like where I learned the Mayan's version of the creation of life.
The solar system and electromagnetic theory and atomic theory and everything else should be taught in literature class?
The only problem here is that you have the idea that evolution is wrong, that some people have told you that the evidence establishing evolution does not exist, that you have the idea that evolution is not as powerfully established by the evidence as every other field of science, that you have the idea that evolution is not actually a field of science just like every other field of science. Those things are all wrong.
If you want to study science, great! There are entire libraries filled with evidence "proving" evolution is true. If you have any interest in learning science, in learning what evolution actually says and how it works and learning what sort of evidence there really is to back it up, great! I'd be more than happy to help, if you have an honest interest in the science and evidence.
If you don't know any of the science, and you have no interest in learning the science, then I suggest you listen to actual mainstream professional scientists who are experts on the subject. And actual mainstream professional scientists who are experts on evolution unanimously say that evolution is fundamentally right and that it is overwhelmingly established based on all known evidence from every conceivable direction.
And I suggest you stop listening to non-scientific activist groups running public relations campaigns pushing misinformation that there's no evidence smoking causes cancer, or pushing misinformation that there's no evidence supporting evolution. The anti-evolution activists are nothing more than public relations campaigns spewing factually false information.
It is easy to convince someone that evolution is right - - - IF they are at all reasonable and rational and willing to honestly consider the evidence. If you want to take me up on that claim, please first indicate if you are a Young Earth Creationist. It is much faster and easier to address the age of the earth, much faster and easier to establish if you are willing to honestly consider the evidence in reasonable rational manner.
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Logic failure - how did evolution come into being? Who or what created it? It obviously did not evolve from evolution -- circular logic. So someone or something must have created it.
Logic failure - how did rain come into being? Who or what created it? It obviously did not come from rain -- circular logic. So someone or something must have created it.
You don't quite directly say it, but you seem to have the impression that evolution = atheism. Chemistry does not equal atheism. quantum mechanics does not equal atheism. Evolution does not equal atheism. The theory of relativity does not equal atheism. They all describe how the physical world operates. None of them say anything about God. None of them say God does or does not exist. If there is a God, then the science optics explains God's chosen mechanism for creating rainbows. If there is a God, then the science of evolution explains God's chosen mechanism for creating the diversity of life on earth. If there is a God, then the heliocentric solar system explains God's chosen mechanism for creating day and night and the seasons of the earth.
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4 out of about 4000 apps have been rejected so far.
Wow. I had no idea that Slashdot had an official policy of hunting down and publishing on the front page every single iPhone app rejection.
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I can only yield before the impenetrable power of your post. The logic and analysis you present is nearly as formidable as the ruling of the judge himself.
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You should take their crayons away until they learn to stop scribbling everywhere.
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Funny, the judge which I don't think anyone would argue knows a lot more about the law than you do, disagrees with you.
Funny, the judges in the prior cases ruled the opposite way.
The judge gave his reason he was ruling contrary to those prior cases. He went do the list of cases he was contradicting, and repeatedly said he was overruling all of that prior case law because he found this speech more vulgar.
In the instant case, there can be no doubt that the speech used is vulgar and lewd. The profile contains words such as "fucking," "bitch," "fagass," "dick," "tight ass," and "dick head".
That was the rule he INVENTED to decide when a principal can or cannot suspend a student for speech outside of school.
This was not about libel. The word libel does not even appear in the damn ruling. It does not appear in the ruling because it was not libel.
This case was not about a student being disruptive in school, or any other valid basis for school discipline of a student.
According to the ruling the EXACT webpage written by the student would have been fine and protected against such action by the principal.... had the page not contained so many vulgar swear words.
That is a dumbfuck ruling. That is a dumbfuck rule to define when a principal can or cannot penalize a student for non-shcool related speech. If the student's speech has too many naughty naughty swear words like "dick" and "bitch", then principals can punish kids for their non-school speech.
I'd also like for you to show me the law that says he can't 'abuse his power'.
The law grants powers.
He had no lawful authority to do what he did.
But he's not going to go to charged with a criminal offense because it isn't a criminal offsense.
He's not going to be charged with a criminal offense.
It is a civil case against the school district. The student was improperly denied the education he is lawfully entitled to. This is about damages and court costs and expunging this from his transcript and a court order that it was improper and that this school not repeat such unlawful disciplinary action against students and additional precedent that other schools not do so and it is about the validation of this student's civil rights and all of our civil rights.
The bus driver was not imprisoned for preventing Rosa Parks from sitting at the front of the bus, but the court ruling affirming her civil rights was vitally important nonetheless.
As I said, do the same thing for your boss, see how long you stay employeed.
My boss is not the government.
The principal is an official agent of the government.
My boss does not have a legal obligation to provide me with a job.
The principal does have a legal obligation to provide students with an education.
My does does have the right to end our employment arrangement for most any discretionary reason.
The principal does not have recessionary authority to discipline or suspend students from school except as necessary to carry out the lawful duties of his government position.
Intent doesn't matter.
Yes, intent often matters in law. It is possible to get hit for libel without intent, but the bar is higher and the penalties lower.
And here intent doesn't much matter because the text was BLATANT fiction. It was not libel.
The principal is not calling it libel, the judge is not calling it libel, the article is not calling it libel. NO ONE is calling it libel except half the rabble here on Slashdot. This is not about libel.
What if the principle slandered her
What if the principal punched her in the nose?
Oh wait, she never punched the principal in the nose, so that's a silly irrelevant question.
But ok... if the principal slandered her then she should sue the principal.
claiming that he is a pedo
She did not call him a pedo. Not any more than Hu
From your own link:
In law, defamation (also called vilification, slander, and libel) is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressively stated or implied to be factual
Hustler Magazine did the exact same thing this girl did, except they published it in a national magazine. They published an ad containing an "interview" with Jerry Fallwell, where they have Fallwell say that he lost his virginity with his mother in an outhouse. They were mocking Fallell, exactly as this girl was mocking the principal. The court threw the libel charge out because it was not presented as a factual allegation. Anyone with half a brain reading it would know that it was not in fact Fallwell speaking, and would know that it was not in fact an allegation presented as factual.
And anyone with half a brain should realize that that OBVIOUS FICTION cannot constitute libel. The harm in libel comes from the deception of convincing people that the target actually committed some offensive act.
The judge was completely correct in his ruling.
The judge did not say it was libel. The entire ruling does not even contain the word libel. Why? Because it was not libel.
The judge's ruling went down a list of prior cases all ruled in the exact opposite direction, and the judge repeatedly saying essentially "I find this language really VULGAR, therefore I'm going to rule the opposite way".
In justifying his ruling the judge said "In the instant case, there can be no doubt that the speech used is vulgar and lewd. The profile contains words such as "fucking," "bitch," "fagass," "dick," "tight ass," and "dick head."
It has absolutely NOTHING to do with libel or anything else. The fact the text contains words like "fucking" and "bitch" is completely unconnected to the issue of whether the principal has any right to eject a student for off-campus speech. This is not a case of "it's libel so the principal can do it", this is not a case of "it was disrupting school therefore the principal can do it". The judge here is saying he would have ruled for the student and against the principal had the webpage been exactly the same but with less swear words in it. The judge is ruling that principals can punish students for outside speech on the basis that a student uses to many swear words.
That is a dubmfuck ruling.
Judges are supposed to rule based on the law and set aside their personal feelings. But judges are human and sometimes they let emotion and their feelings towards the parties slant their rulings. This judge clearly has a stick up his ass about foul language, and he was offended, and he didn't like the student, so he went down the list of previous cases ruling in the opposite direction and came up with the brilliant excuse that this kid has a foul mouth as a basis to ignore and reverse all of those rulings, just because that is the way he wanted to rule.
Go ahead. Read the goddamn ruling. Not one damn word about libel. The judge harps on about the foul language as his justification.
There is still freedom of speech and there is no freedom from consequences.
Freedom of Speech is about protection against retribution by the government for speech.
This is a case of a principal abusing his power to prosecute a personal vendetta against a student for something outside of school. This is a case of a judge failing to rule protecting the student from that abusive violation of Free Speech protections.
And I damn well hope they make the effort to appeal, because there's no way in hell a ruling based on the swear word count is going to hold up as the defining line for when a principal can and cannot punish students for speech unconnected to school.
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>There is no issue here, she committed no crime.
It's called libel/slander.
First of all slander is verbal. Libel is the one about published materials.
And as the other poster said, she committed no crime. She did not commit libel. She made no false accusations presented as factually true.
You would have to be a brain damaged moron to think that it was the principal actually speaking when the page starts with:
yes. It's your oh so wonderful, hairy,
expressionless, sex addict, fagass, put on this world
with a small dick PRINCIPAL
And you would have to be a brain damaged moron to thin that "small dick" or anything else on the page was a presented-as-fact allegation.
There was no libel. There was no crime at all.
Just like Hustler magazine was won on all counts all the way up to the Supereme Court when they published an ad with a fictional interview with Jerry Fallwell saying that he lost his virginity in an outhouse with his mother. No reasonable rational person seeing that ad would interpret it as a representation of factual truth.
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Why do stupid statements like this get marked insightful?
Because he was RIGHT.
It is unlawful for a principal to abuse his school position to pursue some outside vendetta against someone. Unlawful. Period.
he abused his power and let her off FAR EASIER than if he'd followed the 'proper' method you suggest
First of all that is absolutely no justification for this judge to throw the law out the window and issue a ruling contrary to law and contrary to previous cases. The teacher did abuse his authority, and this idiot judge ignored it and ruled to the contrary because the judge was fucking offended by the vulgarity level of the language.
Secondly, there was no libel.
If I write "Hi I'm BitZtream and I'm a poopiehead and I have a tiny dick and I kidnap babies to steal their candy and watch them cry", that is not libel. No reasonable person would think that I was actually you, and no reasonable person would take that as an actual presented-as-factual-accusation that you committed felony kidnapping. I had no intent for anyone to take it as a presented-as-fact accusation that you kidnap babies. That is not libel.
The legal avenue was that the principal could have tried for harassment, and based on the facts even that wouldn't hold up. Harassment is when you communicate threats or other speech to a target with intent to harass, and in this case there is no indication that the student intended the text as a harassing communication to the principal, and in fact everything indicates it was intended as a humor to be read by other students. Not only did the student not bring the page to the principal's attention, the student belatedly changed the page to "private" and was restricting access to other friend students. There was no libel, and there wasn't even intent to harass. The student mocked the principal and wrote some vulgar language in an entirely outside school humorous text intended for her friends to laugh over.
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Bull. Libel is decidedly not within the law.
There was no libel. The most they could come up with was maybe the principal could try for harassment. The judge ruled contrary to numerous other cases, and he repeatedly cites the level of vulgarity in this case as his basis for ruling to the contrary.
The judge was a cock sucking motherfucking asshole with two butt-fucking-spermcells for a brain. And according to him foul language is justification for throwing the law out the window and ruling against anyone who uses language that he feels is naughty.
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There's really nothing more plausible and therefore more damaging she could have said.
The page opened with:
yes. It's your oh so wonderful, hairy,
expressionless, sex addict, fagass, put on this world
with a small dick PRINCIPAL
One would have to be pretty much brain damaged to imagine that it was the principal speaking, or to believe that "small dick" or anything else on the page was a presented-as-true-factual-allegation.
maybe teachers have a right to refuse to teach little bitches who spout crap about them.
Teachers are certainly free to quit their job, but aside from that students have a legal obligation to attend school and teachers have a legal job obligation to teach them.
Teachers and principals most certainly do not have any right to abuse their official government powers to pursue personal vendettas against students for outside-school matters.
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Since the principal is unknown to most of the World (as is the scope of MySpace), it's probably not obvious that the writings are a joke or even what the joke is.
(1) The site that opened with:
yes. It's your oh so wonderful, hairy,
expressionless, sex addict, fagass, put on this world
with a small dick PRINCIPAL
One would have to be almost brain damaged to read that fail to find it obvious that something not-literally-factual is going on.
(2) Libel requires a malicious intent to harm, in particular by knowingly making false allegations presented as factually true with intent to deceive others. This was not libel. There was no intent to deceive, and no reasonable person would have believed that the "small dick" or anything else were allegations of fact.
(3) People immune from against being ridicule, mockery, insults, parody, just because they're not "famous enough".
(4) The page did not even have the principal's name, pretty much only someone explicitly brought in on the "joke" would ever see it and would ever make any connection to the principal.
(5) Even if the page WERE 100% libelous, a public school principal has no right to hijack the powers of his position to single handedly pursue and punish personal vendettas. If the kid next door hits a baseball through your window you can sue him for damages. If you are a principal and the kid next door happens to be a student in your school, you do not get to abuse your office to address your personal non-school issues by expelling the student. If the student is disruptive on school property and breaks school windows or somesuch, then you can expel him as part of your duties to provide and protect the education of other students.
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She was libeling her principle.
No she wasn't.
If I wanted to get you fired and I put up on my MySpace page a malicious lie alleging that you raped me, that would be libel.
If I put up a MySpace page saying:
Hi! I'm jorghis (1000092) and I'm a big fat poopiehead with a tiny dick. My mommy wears army boots and dresses me funny. I like to kidnap little children just to steal their candy and watch them cry.
then that is mockery. There is no intent to deceive people into thinking I am actually you speaking, and there is no allegation-presented-as-true that you actually committed a felony of baby-kidnapping.
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Since he is unknown to the public, there is no expectation that a reasonable person could deduce the MySpace content as parody.
No. Fame is a ridiculously narrow basis for identifying parody and similar speech.
Just to cite the opening, the MySpace page began as follows:
yes. It's your oh so wonderful, hairy,
expressionless, sex addict, fagass, put on this world
with a small dick PRINCIPAL
No reasonable person would have be deceived into believing it was actually the principal speaking. There was no intent by the student to deceive people into thinking it was actually the principal speaking. No, mocking the principal like that does not constitute allegations-presented-as-true that the principal actually has a small dick. That does not constitute an allegation-presented-as-true to deceive people into believing that the principal actually committed any felony.
That is expressing an opinion. That is mocking someone. That is not defamation.
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