Oh yeah? Says who? Why is your interpretation of Islam more valid than someone else's?
Looking at Muslims who would threaten people with death over their depictions of Mohammad and taking that as the width and breadth of Islam is no more absurd then looking at the actions of Westboro Baptist and their "Got hates Gays" protests at fallen soldiers and thinking they are representative of all Christians.
Religion is perfect for this kind of thing. Richard Dawkins has written extensively about it. How even moderate religion creates an atmosphere fundamentalism can thrive in.
Your analogy is insane, and has got nothing to do with the story. There's a world of difference between wild claims about "magic", and promising research.
In your example, sure the drug may have saved 1/3 of hospice patients, but it very well could have caused the other 2/3 of them to die faster, or suffer a stroke, or whatever.
If I was in pain and knew that I would die shortly anyway, I would happily let them try it out on me. I would have nothing to lose. If it kills me, it just shortens the last period of agony before I die, and that can only be a good thing. Please let me choose. If I want to take a chance of either fixing the problem or dying sooner (and not having to suffer for much longer), that is my choice.
Religion needs to be mocked, but Islam more so than Christianity. The stronger the reaction to parody and ridicule, the more parody and ridicule is required to smack religion into its rightful subdued state (in society).
The South Park guys seem to mock anything and everything. However, their targets don't usually threaten with violence, do they?
I think they actually knew what they could be getting themselves into when they did this. Even though South Park seems "childish", it does do social commentary, and it shows that the authors seem to be paying attention to the world around them. I may not agree with everything they have done, but in my opinion, it's better that they do too much than too little. It's important that someone has the balls to stand up and speak out. And now they dared to touch Muhammad.
That said, have they ever refused to parody or ridicule someone or something? Is there anything that is "sacred" to them?
Muhammad might be sacred to Muslims, and they may be offended by this. But this is exactly why Muhammad needs to be ridiculed even more. Nothing should be above criticism and ridicule, and if some think that they or their symbols are, they should be the target of even more ridicule, until they understand that they will not be able to do anything they please without criticism for their wrongdoings.
Let's hope Matt and Trey won't end up as "martyrs" of free speech, though. We need them around to keep doing what they do.
Why? Well, a browser is an application that retrieves web documents, renders them on your screen, and enables you to navigate through them using hyper links. Nothing more, nothing less.
A browser is not only a document viewer. It's an application platform.
people just keep trying to shoehorn "applications" in to something that is only meant to render documents and keep scratching their head as to why that doesn't work very well
Considering that the browser is probably the most important application on any computer, it seems to work very well indeed. And unlike what your whining indicates, browsers are actually improving to make it even better as an application platform.
Opera is the only browser I know of that, in the past three major versions (9.5, 10.0, 10.5), has taken steps backwards in general usability.
On the contrary. Opera's usability for most people has only increased. You are just pissed off that nerds like you can't dictate the UI to be a clumsy piece of crap, because unusable UIs is what you prefer.
I've heard from people in several different fields that it's difficult to work with Asian contractors or company branches because the managers there will tend to try to hide problems and upcoming delays until it blows up in their face
Like Enron, Madoff, or heck, the entire American financial system, creating the subprime mortgage bubble the years before the crash finally happened a couple of years ago?
You are the one trolling, and never managing to make up your mind. The fact is that the science clearly shows AGW, and Lindzen has repeatedly tried, and always failed, to publish valid scientific research which undermines the facts.
That doesn't change the fact that I have a problem with the way the science is represented.
Not really. You have failed to point to peer-reviewed science as a basis for not accepting the scientific consensus. Instead, you posted your political rant.
If you don't consider places like realclimate.org to be science, then you could probably say I don't really have a huge problem with the science, either.
Why do you mention realclimate.org?
But I do think it is clear that many scientists have a political agenda, if you consider that not to be science, then so be it.
Their political agenda is irrelevant because the scientific process is designed to weed out cheating.
Yes, just like all creationists have "spent a lot of time reading up on evolution, honest", you have done the same with AGW. LOL.
You speak of evidence. I don't think that means what you think it does, creation... I mean, denialist.
You said that your "problem with the science behind global warming", whereupon you started ranting about the political aspects rather than any actual science. Your problem with the science is your own political ideology. Case closed.
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Tolerance of intolerance is intolerance.
No, again, your analogy is completely bogus.
Why would we not want someone around who isn't afraid to mock things even if it means that they will be threatened with violence?
Oh yeah? Says who? Why is your interpretation of Islam more valid than someone else's?
Religion is perfect for this kind of thing. Richard Dawkins has written extensively about it. How even moderate religion creates an atmosphere fundamentalism can thrive in.
Your analogy is insane, and has got nothing to do with the story. There's a world of difference between wild claims about "magic", and promising research.
If I was in pain and knew that I would die shortly anyway, I would happily let them try it out on me. I would have nothing to lose. If it kills me, it just shortens the last period of agony before I die, and that can only be a good thing. Please let me choose. If I want to take a chance of either fixing the problem or dying sooner (and not having to suffer for much longer), that is my choice.
Or should be.
Religion needs to be mocked, but Islam more so than Christianity. The stronger the reaction to parody and ridicule, the more parody and ridicule is required to smack religion into its rightful subdued state (in society).
I think they actually knew what they could be getting themselves into when they did this. Even though South Park seems "childish", it does do social commentary, and it shows that the authors seem to be paying attention to the world around them. I may not agree with everything they have done, but in my opinion, it's better that they do too much than too little. It's important that someone has the balls to stand up and speak out. And now they dared to touch Muhammad.
That said, have they ever refused to parody or ridicule someone or something? Is there anything that is "sacred" to them?
Muhammad might be sacred to Muslims, and they may be offended by this. But this is exactly why Muhammad needs to be ridiculed even more. Nothing should be above criticism and ridicule, and if some think that they or their symbols are, they should be the target of even more ridicule, until they understand that they will not be able to do anything they please without criticism for their wrongdoings.
Let's hope Matt and Trey won't end up as "martyrs" of free speech, though. We need them around to keep doing what they do.
Opera actually announced that they had more than 100 million users a few weeks ago.
A browser is not only a document viewer. It's an application platform.
Considering that the browser is probably the most important application on any computer, it seems to work very well indeed. And unlike what your whining indicates, browsers are actually improving to make it even better as an application platform.
But hey, keep whining.
On the contrary. Opera's usability for most people has only increased. You are just pissed off that nerds like you can't dictate the UI to be a clumsy piece of crap, because unusable UIs is what you prefer.
Opera has more than 100 million users. Firefox had 300 million or so last I heard.
Opera goofy? Considering that it has more than 100 million users by now it looks like it's just getting more and more mainstream.
Like Enron, Madoff, or heck, the entire American financial system, creating the subprime mortgage bubble the years before the crash finally happened a couple of years ago?
I disagree. You are at the mercy of a group of people who control it. It's heavily patent-encumbered. Thus, it is not really open.
You are the one trolling, and never managing to make up your mind. The fact is that the science clearly shows AGW, and Lindzen has repeatedly tried, and always failed, to publish valid scientific research which undermines the facts.
Not really. You have failed to point to peer-reviewed science as a basis for not accepting the scientific consensus. Instead, you posted your political rant.
Why do you mention realclimate.org?
Their political agenda is irrelevant because the scientific process is designed to weed out cheating.
Please provide evidence that Firefox's user base is shrinking.
Except they don't have to split the revenue with Mozilla, meaning that they get all the ad revenue for themselves?
So has Firefox actually become slower?
Red herring. I just explained how your "problem with the science behind global warming" was followed by a political rant.
LOL. You are blinded by your political ideology. Facts don't matter to you. You admitted to that yourself (even though you may not realize it).
In other words, he rejects the scientific facts.
Oh, so Lindzen suddenly accepts AGW?
You speak of evidence. I don't think that means what you think it does, creation... I mean, denialist.
You said that your "problem with the science behind global warming", whereupon you started ranting about the political aspects rather than any actual science. Your problem with the science is your own political ideology. Case closed.
Oh look, IKYABWAI. But no actual evidence. As expected.