Not to mention the fact that since most Americans will end up with more money in their pockets (no IRS), charitable giving is likely to rise. It is the vast outpouring of charitable gifts from individual Americans that often do the best to actually help the citizens of other countries as opposed to their governments. With this money, wells are dug, farms are planted, and children receive education and proper nutrition. This results in a much better long term picture for third world countries.
I find it interesting how the meaning of the smiley has changed from this idea. I see it used frequently now as a way of softening a message or adding extra warmth rather than making it comical. The humorous tag has been replaced by the wink which I believe is actually a far better indicator than the original smiley.
Emoticons are actually very beneficial in typed communication as I have come to learn in my work-from-home job where 90% of my communication with co-workers takes place either on e-mail or instant messenger. There is so much that you miss in the tone of the voice or visual facial cues that emoticons have really become invaluable to convey the tone of your conversation.
He probably deserved to be Tasered because he was resisting arrest, but he didn't deserve to be taken away from the mic.
This is indeed the problem -- why did they drag him away in the first place? He was grandstanding a bit, but it was not excessive, and he had just finished his question. His "speech" lasted only one minute and thirty seconds -- not exactly a monopoly on the proceedings. If you watch the video, you see that he basically had concluded his message when the police stepped up and took hold of him. It seems that a simple touch on the shoulder and a gesture toward his seat would have been adequate to inform him that he had overstayed his welcome. Instead, they almost seemed to be encouraging him to resist by physically taking hold of him and dragging him away. He had made no threatening move toward them, and even in his initial resisting, he simply wanted them to let go.
I am not a police office or security guard, so I do not know the pressures involved, but it seems to me they could have taken better care to avoid a confrontation.
Finally, it should be noted that Kerry did say that it was "ok", and he was willing to answer the question. This incident really cannot be blamed on Kerry.
Boomers start wars. Gen X and Y have to actually fight them. You can understand some resentment.
Not to mention neglecting their children, undermining the education system, off-shoring their jobs, and wracking up a national debt that their great-grandchildren will be trying to pay off. They continue to ignore the problems of Social Security and Medicare and had the gall to add on prescription drugs to an already massively overburdened Medicare budget. When faced with the terrible reality of the mess that the boomers are leaving behind for their children, it is hard to stomach their ego and rose-colored view of history.
The sad thing is that the baby-boomers will quite likely die as the loneliest generation. Years of striving after their careers and their perfect retirement while leaving the kids alone at home after school to fend for themselves means that no one will really care about them when they are invalid in the nursing homes. In addition, we are facing a huge nursing shortage in this country which means that they will likely not receive proper medical care and the minimal amount of interaction they might receive from their medical staff. All of the money in the world cannot replace the lack of friends and family that they will face.
While it is easy for me to get worked up about their faults, their upcoming future leaves me only with pity.
You can try to make excuses or cloud the issue in ambiguity, but there is one unquestionable fact: abortion kills babies. It is a willful act of cruel, inhumane brutality against an innocent life. Just as we denounce the slaughter of innocent civilians and genocide, so we should denounce this reprehensible act. We condemn slavery, but we actively slaughter our own children. We are upset about invading Iraq, but we invade the bodies of little babies and destroy them in the womb. Think about that.
If that is the best you can do, then I guess it validates my argument. The answer, of course, is neither unless the miscarriage occurred as the direct consequence of the mother's actions or that of another. For example, if someone struck a woman and she miscarried her baby, I would consider that manslaughter. If the woman deliberately took action to cause a miscarriage, that would be murder.
Of course, you were just trolling and hiding behind your cowardice. You probably don't actually care that there is a reasoned response.
the right of a mother to have full control over her own reproductive system.
And to hell with the rights of the unborn to live! Tell me, what is the difference between a baby who is in the womb at 34 weeks gestation and one who has just been born. Answer: nothing. But if you kill the baby who is outside of the womb, it is murder. If you kill the baby who is still in the womb, it is conveniently called choice. This is morally reprehensible and repugnant. It is to our eternal shame that we have slaughtered an entire generation -- over 40 million babies -- in the last forty years. Forget the holocaust. Forget Stalin's purges. We have eclipsed them both in our barbarous campaign for "choice".
I challenge any one who is pro-abortion to go visit a neo-natal unit. My wife just gave birth to a very premature baby (he was born at 28 weeks gestation -- three months early). He weighed only 3 lbs, but he was perfect with tiny hands, feet, and beautiful blue eyes. He is now a healthy four month old who weighs over 9 lbs. However, according to the law, he was not a human until he left the womb. Some even say that they are not capable of pain, but I can assure you from his crying that he knew what pain was. So, visit a neo-natal unit. Tell those parents to their face that that tiny baby in their arms is not human.
The Declaration of Independence listed three inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (emphasis added). The first and most important of these is life. Don't cloak the real issue here by talking about a woman's control of her body -- that is a bogus and vile argument. The baby is a separate living being that happens to be growing inside a woman's body. Just because it cannot be seen or heard does not make it any less human. Also forgotten in all of this is the tremendous pain and guilt that the mothers often feel after taking the life of their child. No, really all that matters is that the abortion money machine remains in place.
I may have infused too much anger into this post, but I wonder if that is what is necessary. We are talking about people's lives not which team we are going to root for in the Super Bowl. We are not talking about what we are going to have for dinner but the entire future of another person's life. Just as we have the Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court to protect the minorities, so they should also protected the silent minority -- the unborn.
If you listen to his speeches and read more about him, you will see that he is staunchly against any regulation of the Internet. He believes that the government should try to stay out of the lives of the individual as much as possible. Check out his stance on personal liberty. He is also the only Republican candidate against the war in Iraq. He opposed it from the very beginning because he felt that we must actually declare war if we are to invade another country. He basically is calling for a return to a government dictated by the constitution -- namely that any powers not specifically given to congress by the constitution should be left to the states.
If you want to learn more, you can search for Ron Paul on YouTube and see his campaign speeches. I think you will see that he is quite a bit different than most of the Republican candidates -- especially the front runners.
No need to vote 3rd party: vote for Ron Paul. He is basically a libertarian running as a Republican. The more I listen to the guy, the more I like him.
In fact, my husband and I have started avoiding trailers for much-anticipated movies, because even that spoils our enjoyment some.
An example of a good trailer was the original Matrix trailer. It showed a little bit of action and the Gothic look and ended with the enigmatic "Unfortunately, I can't tell you what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself." Awesome. I will never forget the first time I saw the film in wonder at the things that Trinity was doing as she fled the cops or the shock of the interrogation scene with the "bug".
Pixar also usually does it right (at least before the final trailers... then, not so much). Introduce the characters and the basic feel... but what is the movie about? No idea, but I want to see it. Too bad more studios don't learn some lessons here.
For starters, there is _NO_ ubuntu christian edition.
Actually, there is. It looks to basically be Ubuntu with some free Bible and other related software included. The link that the grandparent posted was a mock site.
Thus there was an advantage to ID biologist who would have the opinion, 'cells are an incredible biological computer with beautiful design, this is great fun reverse engineering it all, and there won't be Junk DNA because that goes against God creating life, so lets keep looking for its purpose'
For those who may not know what you are referring to, Francis Collins, the leader of the Human Genome Project, is a believer in Christianity. There was a really good writeup about him recently in National Geographic where he discusses how his scientific research and religious beliefs can work together.
But how can there be an immutable, unquestionable Truth, when the universe that we inhabit is dynamic, ceaselessly changing?
Is not empiricism based upon the fact that there are laws that do not change? Science rests of the belief that what we saw and observed will continue to behave the same way today; that once we understand and know all of these laws, we will be able to predict future events based on current observations (ie. an airplane will fly if designed properly). The idea of a Truth is not foreign to such a world, but it is possible that simply relying on the empirical realm will not allow you to discover all Truths. In other words, there are some things that may not be able to be explained by empirical means.
We don't give our children free rein, so that they don't go play in the freeway.
No, but eventually we do let them leave our house and protection and make their own way in the world. If we want our kids to truly excel in life, we know that we need to let them go. We cannot control their decisions or tell them what to do. They need to make those decisions on their own, and we just hope that we instilled enough values and good principles in them to keep them from harm.
I don't know why God designed things this way. But I find it amazing that before He even created us, He not only knew that we would rebel against Him, but that by creating us, it meant that He Himself would eventually have to come down, live a life of pain and misery, and die on a cross to give us a way to come back to Him.
The simple refutation to this argument is that if he wanted us to enjoy Him, as our creator, he could have made us predisposed to do so.
What makes you think that we aren't? This is why nearly every person on this planet is religious. We are all looking for God or a god. Some look for God in nature. Some look for God in science and reason. Others look for God in established religions, be it Islam, Hinduism, or Christianity.
The problem is that if we were to actually find the true God, we would find that we might actually have to do what he says. That would require us to make our will subservient to His in obedience, and we do not want to do this. It is not that we are not predisposed to enjoy Him, it is that we don't want to give up freedom to do so, even if it means settling for things that are vastly inferior.
Do you have kids of your own? I find myself frustrated when I want to give them something really neat -- say, a new and exciting experience of going to the beach. But they don't understand and so are content with playing in their sand box. They fight and scream and end up spending the afternoon in their bedroom -- we never make it to the beach. I think this is very much what it is like for God.
"Tolerance" isn't just some blanket value which lets everything go. It goes hand-in-hand with a kind of skepticism about dogmatic claims and the absence of a moral teleology (that is, the idea that there is one way people were "meant" to live.) It doesn't mean you have to accept absurd or contradictory ideas, or lifestyles that are actively hostile and dangerous to your own.
But wait a minute -- who decides what is absurd or contradictory? To say that any idea is absurd or wrong means that you believe that there must in fact be ideas that are right and ideas that are wrong. This in turn implies that there may in fact be such a thing as a Truth*. This is an anathema to today's thinking that truth is relative to the individual. By what standards do you measure truth? What is the criteria you would use? Once you have established this criteria (let us call it dogma - a system of principles or tenets), you now have made yourself intolerant of anyone who does not agree with your criteria for determining Truth or, perhaps more accurately, the Truth that your criteria points towards.
You see, we are in a bit of a quandary. If there is no Truth, then you cannot judge anyone for anything. If there is Truth, then anyone who upholds this Truth will be labeled intolerant, but to not do so would be lunacy. So which is it? Is there such a thing as Truth, or is it all relative requiring a tolerance of other views? This is the big question of our day that no one really wants to think about, because if there is Truth, then we must be subservient to it even if it is inconvenient.
* I capitalize Truth to emphasize the idea of a fact that is inalienable and unquestionable.
That got me thinking, if the caller was upset about the "me first" generation then he should certainly have a problem with the biggest "me first"er of them all: God. After all, God says that there will be only one God, him (her/it/whatever), that you must follow his rules and you must give thanks to him. If that isn't self-centered, I don't know what is.
Off topic, yes, but it is an interesting question. What do you do when you find something that you really like? For example, what if you just saw the most amazing movie ever made? Wouldn't you immediately tell your friends about it and want them to see it? Now if they had the choice between seeing that amazing film or another vastly inferior film, would you want them to waste their time with the lesser?
Suppose for a minute that God is exactly what the Bible claims: an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect being. He is supremely beautiful and wonderful -- the best thing in all of existence. He would be remiss if He did not try to get us to enjoy Him since anything else would be vastly inferior to Himself. He is self-centered because He is the greatest thing in the universe -- to say that anything else is greater would be lunacy. Does that make sense?
Because when religion is allowed to overshadow history, inevitably religion is used to harm. Every single Luxembourg law was a propel edict. Every single thing that the Nazis did to Jews were decreed by a Pope as the appropriate thing to do. It was Christians who designed using a star and argued Jews should be tagged. It was Christians who said Jews should be eradicated. This is why Christians were so silent in the war: the Nazis were doing exactly what was said to be correct about the history of the Jews.
This is completely untrue. Maybe you should recheck your facts. While the Pope was wrong in not condemning the atrocities, there is a big difference between not speaking out against and decreeing them "as the appropriate thing to do". The problem that paralyzed the world is that no one could believe that the Germans could really do such a thing. Europeans were supposed to be above all that atrocity stuff, right? They forgot that we are all human and therefore all capable of great evil no matter what our skin color is or where we have come from. No one culture has a monopoly on doing evil.
Antisemitism in so-called Christians comes from an ignorance of both religion and history. Any Christian who knows anything about the Bible realizes that all of the apostles were Jewish as was Jesus Christ himself. Paul, in Romans, speaks of how he would give up his own salvation if it meant that his people (the Jews) could be saved. The Bible, if anything, supports a wholehearted support and love for the Jewish people. People who believe that the Jews should be killed have no place to call themselves Christians. And you have no place to categorically blame Christians for the holocaust. After all, Stalin (an atheist) killed 20 million people in the Soviet Union, but you can't blame all atheists for his actions.
No, it is not, and that is part of the problem. Often when a teacher issues detention, the parents do not allow their children to stay for it. Either because it is an inconvenience for them or because they cannot believe that their child is a perfect little angel. Giving an "F" will certainly raise the hackles of parents. Remember, this is a world where even red ink is considered abusive. The problems with discipline in the schools starts with a lack of discipline in the home. This is then translated to the class room where the parents get upset if the teacher tries any type of discipline.
Well, one MAJOR difference (and I'm not of either of these religions) is that Christianity gladly and freely makes its gospels and religious texts available for you to read, such as Gideons in hotel rooms, plethoras of organizations willing to mail you free bibles, etc. Of course these organizations have their own reasons for doing this beyond pure altruism, such as hoping you'll convert, and either donate money or services back to them.
It is a bit off-topic, but I wanted to point out that Gideon International is a non-profit organization, and nearly all of its donations go directly to the cost of producing and shipping Bibles to locations all around the world. Nearly all of the members are volunteer businessmen, and they certainly do not work for Gideon International to make make money or get services. Sometimes just wanting to do good for your fellow men is enough incentive, and they believe that by distributing Bibles to as many people as possible they are doing just that.
One famous manager (I don't remember who exactly though) once said, that if the company's leader performs mere employee's duties then either he does not understand his role or there is something terribly wrong with the way the company operates.
Personally, I find that line of thinking very elitist and in the end self-destructive. Managers who look upon their employees as "mere employees" will not be able to get the most out of those employees. I believe that true management is serving those under you to enable them to do their best.
Regardless, there is a certain point to that statement. The key here is not what Steve Jobs did but what changes will occur in the company to see that he doesn't have to do this again. It is all well and good that he is able to provide good support, but if all of the other support employees fail, it could eventually sink the company.
* Fix the schools. Put money into the system (gosh, there's tax again) especially in the poor areas. You NEED those scientists and business folk who drive you economy - and if they don't get a decent education because they were born poor, black, Hispanic, Muslim, female (or any of the other sins of America), you won't get them
While I agree with most of your post, I cannot agree with this part. We currently are putting a whole lot of money into education with little to show for it. Currently, the United States is spending in excess of $20,000 per student per year on education. Many private schools do a better job of education at less than half that. We don't need more money into education; we need to spend what we are spending more effectively. Also, one of the biggest problems in schools across America today is that teacher's are not allowed to keep discipline in the classroom. Parents don't want to hear that little Johnny is a little bully. Their kids can do no wrong, and the teachers are powerless to stop bad behavior.
Really, when it comes right down to it, while you have good points, none of them will make a bit of difference in "fixing" America. This is because all of them are surface changes. The fix that is required needs to be done at a much deeper level. The heart and soul of the nation is where the problem lies. Americans need to reclaim personal responsibility -- your mistakes are your fault not society's. Americans need to reclaim our charitable and noble spirit.
Whenever someone talks about fixing problems with legislation, they forget that if the morals of the individuals in a society do not match the legislation, then those laws are due to fail. Despite what some may say, every law is a moral one. They are morals to which a society agrees. When you say that you cannot legislate morality, what you really should be saying is that you cannot legislate morals that are opposed to those held by society. In essence, until the society can agree that clean power generation, responsibility, and the desire to do what is good in the world are worth the sacrifice and hard work they will require, no number of laws will ever make a difference.
This has absolutely nothing to do with who is "smarter" than the other, and I am so sick of seeing this tripe about women's superiority to men that it makes me sick. If this post were reversed, there would be an uproar and lawsuits, but if you denegrate men, well, then you get a prize.
The fact is that in general men are risk takers. Women, on the other hand, tend to favor things that give them security. Thus, to women, many of the things that men do seem ridiculous... even "stupid"... because they are not safe and secure. Does this mean that we as a society should just roll over and play it safe and secure to make the women happy? I submit that this is exactly what we are doing today. We are no longer taking risks. Instead we always take the safe and easy way. We are more concerned with being secure than being free. We are more concerned about losing soldiers than trying to find solutions to the world's problems. We are more concerned about preserving our lives than stopping a rampaging madman from killing our friends. (I am probably being too harsh here, but the incident in Virginia Tech has really made me think of what I would have done and what I should have done had I been there -- and they are unfortunately probably not the same thing). We have grown so worried about our self preservation that we won't even take action as we watch our nation and world sink into the abyss of violence and hatred.
This is not to say that men are better than women either. We need that check from the women to keep us from the brink when we take risks that we really should not be taking. Women also, because of their drive for safe and secure, create the best environment to raise kids. When they are young, kids need to feel safe, comfortable, and loved -- right down the mother's alley. As they get older, they need to be taught by their father to take those risks that will eventually get them out on their own -- but they always have their mother to comfort them when things go wrong.
What am I saying here? I am saying that men and women are wonderously different. Neither one is smarter or better than the other. Sometimes you need to take risks to survive and sometimes you need to play it safe to avoid catastrophe. Unfortunately, we as a society and a country have favored the latter too much. We need to remember that often success only comes by taking risks.
Back on topic, I think that women are fleeing IT jobs because they are not the jobs that they really enjoyed in the first place. IT is not generally the field of choice for those who are social in nature, but if you thrive on the challenge of working with computers and technology, it can be very rewarding. Should we be concerned that women are leaving the field? I'm not. I trust that they are finding jobs that they enjoy more or possibly (*gasp*) they are deciding to raise a family. I could start another rant on how our society has looked down upon traditional homemakers (WHY?!), but I think this post has enough ranting already.:-)
I can't even imagine why one person would want five PCs.
Easy. I have five computers in my house including two laptops. One laptop is for work. One laptop is for my wife, and I also use it when I am watching the kids (I don't usually watch them in my office). One is my file server. One is my primary home machine for things like Quicken and hobby development. My last computer (the admittedly frivolous one) is basically just used for LAN computer games. Here very soon it will be setup to host my children's computer games.
There is also another old computer currently sitting in my closet that once was (and hopefully will soon be again) a little web server.
If you own a computer hardware company and can afford to have five high quality computers in your house (especially considering he would get them at almost no cost), why not have five computers?
We used to joke about people moving to Montana to pay the scenery tax. Short answer, you're probably not going to get rich there.
Wow. This thread already started with a high degree of ignorance, and you just added some more. You obviously have been out of the state for a while.
Back in the late nineties, Bill Gates apparently said in a meeting "If you want to get rich, I have two words for you: Bozeman, Montana." Since that time, Bozeman has more than doubled in population and the property values have skyrocketed. There are several computer companies in the Bozeman area (ChoicePoint (Bridger Insight), Right Now Technologies, Zoot Enterprises, Xionetic Technologies), and I know of quite a few other software companies in other major cities in Montana (BTW, "major" means > 25,000 people... this is Montana after all). Montana has high speed Internet and a strong C.S. program at both Montana State University in Bozeman and the University of Montana in Missoula (though who would want to go to that dancing school;-) ).
Montana is not the barren wasteland that everyone thinks that it is. It is scarcely populated, but there is actually quite a bit of technology in the state. You might want to visit it sometime.
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Not to mention the fact that since most Americans will end up with more money in their pockets (no IRS), charitable giving is likely to rise. It is the vast outpouring of charitable gifts from individual Americans that often do the best to actually help the citizens of other countries as opposed to their governments. With this money, wells are dug, farms are planted, and children receive education and proper nutrition. This results in a much better long term picture for third world countries.
I find it interesting how the meaning of the smiley has changed from this idea. I see it used frequently now as a way of softening a message or adding extra warmth rather than making it comical. The humorous tag has been replaced by the wink which I believe is actually a far better indicator than the original smiley.
Emoticons are actually very beneficial in typed communication as I have come to learn in my work-from-home job where 90% of my communication with co-workers takes place either on e-mail or instant messenger. There is so much that you miss in the tone of the voice or visual facial cues that emoticons have really become invaluable to convey the tone of your conversation.
This is indeed the problem -- why did they drag him away in the first place? He was grandstanding a bit, but it was not excessive, and he had just finished his question. His "speech" lasted only one minute and thirty seconds -- not exactly a monopoly on the proceedings. If you watch the video, you see that he basically had concluded his message when the police stepped up and took hold of him. It seems that a simple touch on the shoulder and a gesture toward his seat would have been adequate to inform him that he had overstayed his welcome. Instead, they almost seemed to be encouraging him to resist by physically taking hold of him and dragging him away. He had made no threatening move toward them, and even in his initial resisting, he simply wanted them to let go.
I am not a police office or security guard, so I do not know the pressures involved, but it seems to me they could have taken better care to avoid a confrontation.
Finally, it should be noted that Kerry did say that it was "ok", and he was willing to answer the question. This incident really cannot be blamed on Kerry.
Not to mention neglecting their children, undermining the education system, off-shoring their jobs, and wracking up a national debt that their great-grandchildren will be trying to pay off. They continue to ignore the problems of Social Security and Medicare and had the gall to add on prescription drugs to an already massively overburdened Medicare budget. When faced with the terrible reality of the mess that the boomers are leaving behind for their children, it is hard to stomach their ego and rose-colored view of history.
The sad thing is that the baby-boomers will quite likely die as the loneliest generation. Years of striving after their careers and their perfect retirement while leaving the kids alone at home after school to fend for themselves means that no one will really care about them when they are invalid in the nursing homes. In addition, we are facing a huge nursing shortage in this country which means that they will likely not receive proper medical care and the minimal amount of interaction they might receive from their medical staff. All of the money in the world cannot replace the lack of friends and family that they will face.
While it is easy for me to get worked up about their faults, their upcoming future leaves me only with pity.
You can try to make excuses or cloud the issue in ambiguity, but there is one unquestionable fact: abortion kills babies. It is a willful act of cruel, inhumane brutality against an innocent life. Just as we denounce the slaughter of innocent civilians and genocide, so we should denounce this reprehensible act. We condemn slavery, but we actively slaughter our own children. We are upset about invading Iraq, but we invade the bodies of little babies and destroy them in the womb. Think about that.
If that is the best you can do, then I guess it validates my argument. The answer, of course, is neither unless the miscarriage occurred as the direct consequence of the mother's actions or that of another. For example, if someone struck a woman and she miscarried her baby, I would consider that manslaughter. If the woman deliberately took action to cause a miscarriage, that would be murder.
Of course, you were just trolling and hiding behind your cowardice. You probably don't actually care that there is a reasoned response.
And to hell with the rights of the unborn to live! Tell me, what is the difference between a baby who is in the womb at 34 weeks gestation and one who has just been born. Answer: nothing. But if you kill the baby who is outside of the womb, it is murder. If you kill the baby who is still in the womb, it is conveniently called choice. This is morally reprehensible and repugnant. It is to our eternal shame that we have slaughtered an entire generation -- over 40 million babies -- in the last forty years. Forget the holocaust. Forget Stalin's purges. We have eclipsed them both in our barbarous campaign for "choice".
I challenge any one who is pro-abortion to go visit a neo-natal unit. My wife just gave birth to a very premature baby (he was born at 28 weeks gestation -- three months early). He weighed only 3 lbs, but he was perfect with tiny hands, feet, and beautiful blue eyes. He is now a healthy four month old who weighs over 9 lbs. However, according to the law, he was not a human until he left the womb. Some even say that they are not capable of pain, but I can assure you from his crying that he knew what pain was. So, visit a neo-natal unit. Tell those parents to their face that that tiny baby in their arms is not human.
The Declaration of Independence listed three inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (emphasis added). The first and most important of these is life. Don't cloak the real issue here by talking about a woman's control of her body -- that is a bogus and vile argument. The baby is a separate living being that happens to be growing inside a woman's body. Just because it cannot be seen or heard does not make it any less human. Also forgotten in all of this is the tremendous pain and guilt that the mothers often feel after taking the life of their child. No, really all that matters is that the abortion money machine remains in place.
I may have infused too much anger into this post, but I wonder if that is what is necessary. We are talking about people's lives not which team we are going to root for in the Super Bowl. We are not talking about what we are going to have for dinner but the entire future of another person's life. Just as we have the Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court to protect the minorities, so they should also protected the silent minority -- the unborn.
If you listen to his speeches and read more about him, you will see that he is staunchly against any regulation of the Internet. He believes that the government should try to stay out of the lives of the individual as much as possible. Check out his stance on personal liberty. He is also the only Republican candidate against the war in Iraq. He opposed it from the very beginning because he felt that we must actually declare war if we are to invade another country. He basically is calling for a return to a government dictated by the constitution -- namely that any powers not specifically given to congress by the constitution should be left to the states.
If you want to learn more, you can search for Ron Paul on YouTube and see his campaign speeches. I think you will see that he is quite a bit different than most of the Republican candidates -- especially the front runners.
No need to vote 3rd party: vote for Ron Paul. He is basically a libertarian running as a Republican. The more I listen to the guy, the more I like him.
An example of a good trailer was the original Matrix trailer. It showed a little bit of action and the Gothic look and ended with the enigmatic "Unfortunately, I can't tell you what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself." Awesome. I will never forget the first time I saw the film in wonder at the things that Trinity was doing as she fled the cops or the shock of the interrogation scene with the "bug".
Pixar also usually does it right (at least before the final trailers... then, not so much). Introduce the characters and the basic feel... but what is the movie about? No idea, but I want to see it. Too bad more studios don't learn some lessons here.
Actually, there is. It looks to basically be Ubuntu with some free Bible and other related software included. The link that the grandparent posted was a mock site.
For those who may not know what you are referring to, Francis Collins, the leader of the Human Genome Project, is a believer in Christianity. There was a really good writeup about him recently in National Geographic where he discusses how his scientific research and religious beliefs can work together.
Is not empiricism based upon the fact that there are laws that do not change? Science rests of the belief that what we saw and observed will continue to behave the same way today; that once we understand and know all of these laws, we will be able to predict future events based on current observations (ie. an airplane will fly if designed properly). The idea of a Truth is not foreign to such a world, but it is possible that simply relying on the empirical realm will not allow you to discover all Truths. In other words, there are some things that may not be able to be explained by empirical means.
No, but eventually we do let them leave our house and protection and make their own way in the world. If we want our kids to truly excel in life, we know that we need to let them go. We cannot control their decisions or tell them what to do. They need to make those decisions on their own, and we just hope that we instilled enough values and good principles in them to keep them from harm.
I don't know why God designed things this way. But I find it amazing that before He even created us, He not only knew that we would rebel against Him, but that by creating us, it meant that He Himself would eventually have to come down, live a life of pain and misery, and die on a cross to give us a way to come back to Him.
What makes you think that we aren't? This is why nearly every person on this planet is religious. We are all looking for God or a god. Some look for God in nature. Some look for God in science and reason. Others look for God in established religions, be it Islam, Hinduism, or Christianity.
The problem is that if we were to actually find the true God, we would find that we might actually have to do what he says. That would require us to make our will subservient to His in obedience, and we do not want to do this. It is not that we are not predisposed to enjoy Him, it is that we don't want to give up freedom to do so, even if it means settling for things that are vastly inferior.
Do you have kids of your own? I find myself frustrated when I want to give them something really neat -- say, a new and exciting experience of going to the beach. But they don't understand and so are content with playing in their sand box. They fight and scream and end up spending the afternoon in their bedroom -- we never make it to the beach. I think this is very much what it is like for God.
But wait a minute -- who decides what is absurd or contradictory? To say that any idea is absurd or wrong means that you believe that there must in fact be ideas that are right and ideas that are wrong. This in turn implies that there may in fact be such a thing as a Truth*. This is an anathema to today's thinking that truth is relative to the individual. By what standards do you measure truth? What is the criteria you would use? Once you have established this criteria (let us call it dogma - a system of principles or tenets), you now have made yourself intolerant of anyone who does not agree with your criteria for determining Truth or, perhaps more accurately, the Truth that your criteria points towards.
You see, we are in a bit of a quandary. If there is no Truth, then you cannot judge anyone for anything. If there is Truth, then anyone who upholds this Truth will be labeled intolerant, but to not do so would be lunacy. So which is it? Is there such a thing as Truth, or is it all relative requiring a tolerance of other views? This is the big question of our day that no one really wants to think about, because if there is Truth, then we must be subservient to it even if it is inconvenient.
* I capitalize Truth to emphasize the idea of a fact that is inalienable and unquestionable.
Off topic, yes, but it is an interesting question. What do you do when you find something that you really like? For example, what if you just saw the most amazing movie ever made? Wouldn't you immediately tell your friends about it and want them to see it? Now if they had the choice between seeing that amazing film or another vastly inferior film, would you want them to waste their time with the lesser?
Suppose for a minute that God is exactly what the Bible claims: an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect being. He is supremely beautiful and wonderful -- the best thing in all of existence. He would be remiss if He did not try to get us to enjoy Him since anything else would be vastly inferior to Himself. He is self-centered because He is the greatest thing in the universe -- to say that anything else is greater would be lunacy. Does that make sense?
This is completely untrue. Maybe you should recheck your facts. While the Pope was wrong in not condemning the atrocities, there is a big difference between not speaking out against and decreeing them "as the appropriate thing to do". The problem that paralyzed the world is that no one could believe that the Germans could really do such a thing. Europeans were supposed to be above all that atrocity stuff, right? They forgot that we are all human and therefore all capable of great evil no matter what our skin color is or where we have come from. No one culture has a monopoly on doing evil.
Antisemitism in so-called Christians comes from an ignorance of both religion and history. Any Christian who knows anything about the Bible realizes that all of the apostles were Jewish as was Jesus Christ himself. Paul, in Romans, speaks of how he would give up his own salvation if it meant that his people (the Jews) could be saved. The Bible, if anything, supports a wholehearted support and love for the Jewish people. People who believe that the Jews should be killed have no place to call themselves Christians. And you have no place to categorically blame Christians for the holocaust. After all, Stalin (an atheist) killed 20 million people in the Soviet Union, but you can't blame all atheists for his actions.
No, it is not, and that is part of the problem. Often when a teacher issues detention, the parents do not allow their children to stay for it. Either because it is an inconvenience for them or because they cannot believe that their child is a perfect little angel. Giving an "F" will certainly raise the hackles of parents. Remember, this is a world where even red ink is considered abusive. The problems with discipline in the schools starts with a lack of discipline in the home. This is then translated to the class room where the parents get upset if the teacher tries any type of discipline.
It is a bit off-topic, but I wanted to point out that Gideon International is a non-profit organization, and nearly all of its donations go directly to the cost of producing and shipping Bibles to locations all around the world. Nearly all of the members are volunteer businessmen, and they certainly do not work for Gideon International to make make money or get services. Sometimes just wanting to do good for your fellow men is enough incentive, and they believe that by distributing Bibles to as many people as possible they are doing just that.
Personally, I find that line of thinking very elitist and in the end self-destructive. Managers who look upon their employees as "mere employees" will not be able to get the most out of those employees. I believe that true management is serving those under you to enable them to do their best.
Regardless, there is a certain point to that statement. The key here is not what Steve Jobs did but what changes will occur in the company to see that he doesn't have to do this again. It is all well and good that he is able to provide good support, but if all of the other support employees fail, it could eventually sink the company.
While I agree with most of your post, I cannot agree with this part. We currently are putting a whole lot of money into education with little to show for it. Currently, the United States is spending in excess of $20,000 per student per year on education. Many private schools do a better job of education at less than half that. We don't need more money into education; we need to spend what we are spending more effectively. Also, one of the biggest problems in schools across America today is that teacher's are not allowed to keep discipline in the classroom. Parents don't want to hear that little Johnny is a little bully. Their kids can do no wrong, and the teachers are powerless to stop bad behavior.
Really, when it comes right down to it, while you have good points, none of them will make a bit of difference in "fixing" America. This is because all of them are surface changes. The fix that is required needs to be done at a much deeper level. The heart and soul of the nation is where the problem lies. Americans need to reclaim personal responsibility -- your mistakes are your fault not society's. Americans need to reclaim our charitable and noble spirit.
Whenever someone talks about fixing problems with legislation, they forget that if the morals of the individuals in a society do not match the legislation, then those laws are due to fail. Despite what some may say, every law is a moral one. They are morals to which a society agrees. When you say that you cannot legislate morality, what you really should be saying is that you cannot legislate morals that are opposed to those held by society. In essence, until the society can agree that clean power generation, responsibility, and the desire to do what is good in the world are worth the sacrifice and hard work they will require, no number of laws will ever make a difference.
This has absolutely nothing to do with who is "smarter" than the other, and I am so sick of seeing this tripe about women's superiority to men that it makes me sick. If this post were reversed, there would be an uproar and lawsuits, but if you denegrate men, well, then you get a prize.
The fact is that in general men are risk takers. Women, on the other hand, tend to favor things that give them security. Thus, to women, many of the things that men do seem ridiculous... even "stupid"... because they are not safe and secure. Does this mean that we as a society should just roll over and play it safe and secure to make the women happy? I submit that this is exactly what we are doing today. We are no longer taking risks. Instead we always take the safe and easy way. We are more concerned with being secure than being free. We are more concerned about losing soldiers than trying to find solutions to the world's problems. We are more concerned about preserving our lives than stopping a rampaging madman from killing our friends. (I am probably being too harsh here, but the incident in Virginia Tech has really made me think of what I would have done and what I should have done had I been there -- and they are unfortunately probably not the same thing). We have grown so worried about our self preservation that we won't even take action as we watch our nation and world sink into the abyss of violence and hatred.
This is not to say that men are better than women either. We need that check from the women to keep us from the brink when we take risks that we really should not be taking. Women also, because of their drive for safe and secure, create the best environment to raise kids. When they are young, kids need to feel safe, comfortable, and loved -- right down the mother's alley. As they get older, they need to be taught by their father to take those risks that will eventually get them out on their own -- but they always have their mother to comfort them when things go wrong.
What am I saying here? I am saying that men and women are wonderously different. Neither one is smarter or better than the other. Sometimes you need to take risks to survive and sometimes you need to play it safe to avoid catastrophe. Unfortunately, we as a society and a country have favored the latter too much. We need to remember that often success only comes by taking risks.
Back on topic, I think that women are fleeing IT jobs because they are not the jobs that they really enjoyed in the first place. IT is not generally the field of choice for those who are social in nature, but if you thrive on the challenge of working with computers and technology, it can be very rewarding. Should we be concerned that women are leaving the field? I'm not. I trust that they are finding jobs that they enjoy more or possibly (*gasp*) they are deciding to raise a family. I could start another rant on how our society has looked down upon traditional homemakers (WHY?!), but I think this post has enough ranting already. :-)
Easy. I have five computers in my house including two laptops. One laptop is for work. One laptop is for my wife, and I also use it when I am watching the kids (I don't usually watch them in my office). One is my file server. One is my primary home machine for things like Quicken and hobby development. My last computer (the admittedly frivolous one) is basically just used for LAN computer games. Here very soon it will be setup to host my children's computer games.
There is also another old computer currently sitting in my closet that once was (and hopefully will soon be again) a little web server.
If you own a computer hardware company and can afford to have five high quality computers in your house (especially considering he would get them at almost no cost), why not have five computers?
Wow. This thread already started with a high degree of ignorance, and you just added some more. You obviously have been out of the state for a while.
Back in the late nineties, Bill Gates apparently said in a meeting "If you want to get rich, I have two words for you: Bozeman, Montana." Since that time, Bozeman has more than doubled in population and the property values have skyrocketed. There are several computer companies in the Bozeman area (ChoicePoint (Bridger Insight), Right Now Technologies, Zoot Enterprises, Xionetic Technologies), and I know of quite a few other software companies in other major cities in Montana (BTW, "major" means > 25,000 people... this is Montana after all). Montana has high speed Internet and a strong C.S. program at both Montana State University in Bozeman and the University of Montana in Missoula (though who would want to go to that dancing school ;-) ).
Montana is not the barren wasteland that everyone thinks that it is. It is scarcely populated, but there is actually quite a bit of technology in the state. You might want to visit it sometime.