You make a very good point, and thanks for the information I was unaware until now that there was such a fundamental distinction between the groups, and I like to think I'm relatively well informed.
But that does lead to an interesting point about subgroups and larger groups. It's not just religious extremism - EVERY group gets stereotyped, and typically the image is that of a small minority. Rich Jews, Pedophile priests, amoral lawyers, corrupt CEO's. Given that it's such a universal phenomenon, it invites an examination of what an extreme subgroup owes to it's parent group. Is it a valid position to tell a subgroup to knock it off, because they are making everyone else look bad? Even if what that subgroup is doing is (to them) morally justified or ambiguous?
At what point does the Israeli government, as the representative of the majority of the citizens of Israel and protector of their safety, say "I don't give a rats ass about your religious studies - show up for duty or go to jail." Or "Yes, we know you've established roots here. It was a horrible mistake. We'll do what we can to make amends, but in the mean time, get out of the settlements."
Note that I'm not giving the Palestinians a pass here, but given that their leadership's power flows from the barrel of a gun, it needs to be approached differently. And I'm not saying I have the answers, because Lord knows we have enough of that going on in the US.
It doesn't sound funny at all. These are the same folks who establish illegal settlements on land that isn't theirs, demand that the military defend them bodily from the results of those actions, but utterly refuse to participate in that defense. I would believe them capable of anything, and the true tragedy is that they occupy the position of kingmaker in the political system, and so have had the power to end a conflict that has killed so many of their own faith.
"Bush WAS pro-Microsoft, he backed their side in the antitrust trial, and very soon after the election, almost all their punishment was dropped. I have no doubt that he went proprietary, or hired the advisors who would guarantee that."
Of course, that had nothing to do with the first judge shooting his mouth off, or the appellate court voiding the penalties, or the second judge (a Clinton appointee, btw) agreeing to a lesser penalty, OR the appellate court confirming the settlement, OR the governments lead prosecutor running like hell from his "success" in the MS case to lead such efforts as Bush v. Gore and the SCO lawsuit.
No, it had to be that Bush could only pause fellating Gates long enough to call the Justice Department and have the case spiked because of his personal reservations about the GPL.
Or you are an idiot. I'm not sure which one more likely.
"Seriously, though, does anybody else find the idea of projecting directly on the eye a little disturbing?"
Very. I have had gas-permeable contacts for almost 30 years, and have no problem poking around my eyeball to bind those little bastards if they slip out of place. But I absolutely freak out if anything else comes near my eyes. They'd need to give me general anesthesia to perform Lasik - I don't think I'd react well to a laser projector that close.
And no, it's not rational. BFD - I'm still not doing it.
Originally, it smelled like a swamp because, well, it was. After they drained it, built buildings, and filled it with politicians and government appointees - it still smells like a swamp.
"If scent made such a noticable difference, then you can safely say that these folks were not terribly committed to doing the Right Thing. They needed an external motivation. That's hardly as good as doing the best you can, all the time, because you seriously believe in and want to adhere to sound, timeless principles that have a solid ethical or moral foundation. "
That sounds like the distinction between Perfect and Imperfect Contrition in the Catholic Catechism. Perfect Contrition is when you are repentant of your sins because you love God and are sorry you have broken His agreement with you. Imperfect Contrition is when you are repentant because you don't want to go to Hell.
Guess what - either gets you into Heaven. Likewise, I'm not sure anyone should care WHY someone does the right thing, as long as they do it.
"I think when your ultimate goal is to slaughter and consume.. an animal stops being a "pet". And would sure make an interesting dinner, as your daughter chokes down Fluffy, her pet rabbit.
I mean.. it's an interesting report.. but I don't think anything realistic has been proposed here. They may as well have proposed we treat our cars as pets.."
That viewpoint is really only prevalent in urban, Western culture, and even then mostly in the US. Farm kids all over the world eat their "pets" - go to a 4H meeting and find out.
The main issue is that urban and suburban culture in the US has discarded the idea of animals having practical uses. On farms and in most of the rest of the world, domestic animals have a job - home defense, catching rats, etc. Their value is in their utility. Contrast this with urban pets - not only have they been made ornamental, but even the ones who were bred to work are having those traits removed from the breed. True, they have a "utility" in that they make their owners feel good, but other than that they simply take up resources.
Ironically, the root cause of this is connected to some of the roots of modern day "environmentalism" - the idea that Nature is an entity in and of itself, and that animals and plants have innate value separate from their utility. The same meme that drives conservation and "Saving the Planet" also drives the resource used to maintain pets as if they were human.
Back to the original point, turn it on it's head - how bad would it be to teach kids about the realities of life at an earlier age than we do now?
"On a different note: if you want to preserve gun rights, stop listening to the crap shoveled by the NRA and talk radio, and put your efforts towards a far more effective goal: re-normalizing guns. Folk who have never handled a gun see the weapon as "strange" and "dangerous" and "foreign", and it is those three things that can be sensibly outlawed. Those that handle firearms and appreciate them see guns as neither strange nor foreign, and no more dangerous than an automobile."
In fairness, the NRA at least supports many of those efforts. For instance, one of the most compelling arguments for gun normalization is than carnage that DIDN'T happen after so many states enacted "shall issue" laws. And that effort was led by the NRA. Likewise, the Open Carry movement isn't exactly ignored by them either.
The NRA has a lot of ugly in it, but no one else has the clout to get behind legislation that would make it possible to normalize guns, and fight when existing rights are abused.
"It's quite a sad state of affairs when moving to one of the most common and widely used back-ends for a website is considered "a significant step forward"."
Bullshit - it's not a "step" anywhere.
This is ONE part of the government changing ONE system over to open source. That's it. The whole "since the Bush Administration" comment is a red herring:
a) Drupal only went Open Source in 2001. "Hey, it's time to update the Whitehouse.gov back end, and there's this new cool thing that just got released. It's maintained by a bunch of enthusiasts, and has no support, but I think it's a great idea!" "Perkins, go back to trolling for porn."
b) Does anyone really think the president in ANY administration gives a rats ass about the back-end of the website? Remember, Bush was ridiculed for not even using email, but somehow it's his policy that only proprietary software be used for invisible parts of the website? Likewise, Obama was a lawyer, "community activist", professor, and politician. Which one of those would make him care about this?
I'm more than happy another Open Source effort has been used for a high profile installation. But please - this isn't "Change", or even a policy change, or even an operations change from the White House point of view. This is changing from "Tide" to "Bold" to wash the Presidential underwear.
"SPARC is an organization that licenses processor designs (Scalable Processor ARChitecture), "
So let me get this straight - an organization that chose a name so that it could have an acronym that sounded like the word "spark" is now trying to stop someone else from using the word that they imitated?
Half of the population is male as well - by your logic, half of all cases of breast cancer should be male.
"Ya, but i'm not putting together the data, I'm just telling you about it. Really, is google now beyond the means of the average/.er?"
And what's deliciously ironic about your "data" are the articles saying "All the evidence so far is anecdotal."
If you disagree with others about the relative severity of H1N1, fine. Just don't pretend you are somehow intellectually superior because someone disagrees with you.
"The upgrade process gave me a list of about 5 programs to un-install," he says. "Which I did, it was some drivers, iTunes and the Google Toolbar. After that the whole thing was automatic, I just left it sitting there... At the end of it, Windows put back the drivers I removed, and I reinstalled iTunes which worked fine without any configuration, my library and apps were all there. I have to say that is about the most successful Windows upgrade I have ever personally experienced."
"Then all is lost. You will be too busy fighting for daily survival - trying to outwit gangs of bandits, scrounging or stealing whatever scraps of food you can find, amputating your own gangrenous limb using nothing but rusty garden tools - to think about movies or entertainment of any kind."
Yeah, but what do I do when I get OUT of Disneyworld?
"I haven't heard anybody here really care about being in the database."
Yet.
When things get ugly economically (and they will) that data can also be used to decide who gets care via triage. "Diabetes? Hmmm, says here that you are also predisposed to cancer. Since your life is likely to be cut short anyway, I'm afraid there's really no point in treating the diabetes very aggressively, now is there? Next."
"And there aren't enough ways to divvy up six guys so that you can rearrange things so that two guys getting on each other's nerves can be kept apart."
Sure you can - just spend the first week figuring out who's going to be the bitch and then everyone takes their frustrations out on him.
How about "Why the fuck didn't you stop and pick us up? You probably passes within a few thousand kilometers - would it have killed you to go out of your way?"
Glad you like earmarks. But you aren't the president. The actual president says he doesn't, and that he would veto bills with earmarks. When given the chance, he did not. His excuse was "That bill is left over from the previous administration. We're more focused on looking forward". So, did he lie during the campaign, knuckle under to congressional and party pressure, or does he actually BELIEVE saying "It's not my fault" is a valid reason?
The 5 day review was ANOTHER campaign promise - that once a bill was *finalized*, the *final* text would be published for 5 days for public comment before he signed it. These are things Obama said he would do. But when the "Stimulus" bill hit the floor, the Congress was given 24 hours to vote on it, which is because the White House said it was urgent. Likewise, they would not go with the 5 day review because the nation needed it RIGHT NOW!!! So Congress passed the bill on a Friday. But he didn't sign it until Tuesday. Why? It was a 3 day weekend. So apparently the bill was so urgent that it had to be passed without even basic congressional review, but he couldn't stick around Friday night to sign it? Sure - pull the other one.
As for "The majority of people aren't smart enough to understand how Congressional legislation is performed, much less smart enough to understand the various versions of bills," if I used the same argument in favor of, say, keeping the source code for voting machines closed, I'd be ridiculed. Your contention seems to be that there are even fewer people who can do a text search than parse code. Tell me, what country do you live in?
My premise is that Obama has been very successful at creating the feeling of change without the substance. If the best his supporters can do is say "talking heads to make up your mind for you", I feel satisfied. Unless, of course, NPR is comprised of talking heads.
Where do you keep coming up with obesity? You are making the wholly unfounded assumption that half of the dead kids were obese. Where is your justification for that?
It sounds like you have a personal issue with obese people. That's well and good, but that doesn't translate into "data".
Slashdot Mirror
"Uh, no, I actually CAN'T work on the presentation during the flight."
You make a very good point, and thanks for the information I was unaware until now that there was such a fundamental distinction between the groups, and I like to think I'm relatively well informed.
But that does lead to an interesting point about subgroups and larger groups. It's not just religious extremism - EVERY group gets stereotyped, and typically the image is that of a small minority. Rich Jews, Pedophile priests, amoral lawyers, corrupt CEO's. Given that it's such a universal phenomenon, it invites an examination of what an extreme subgroup owes to it's parent group. Is it a valid position to tell a subgroup to knock it off, because they are making everyone else look bad? Even if what that subgroup is doing is (to them) morally justified or ambiguous?
At what point does the Israeli government, as the representative of the majority of the citizens of Israel and protector of their safety, say "I don't give a rats ass about your religious studies - show up for duty or go to jail." Or "Yes, we know you've established roots here. It was a horrible mistake. We'll do what we can to make amends, but in the mean time, get out of the settlements."
Note that I'm not giving the Palestinians a pass here, but given that their leadership's power flows from the barrel of a gun, it needs to be approached differently. And I'm not saying I have the answers, because Lord knows we have enough of that going on in the US.
It doesn't sound funny at all. These are the same folks who establish illegal settlements on land that isn't theirs, demand that the military defend them bodily from the results of those actions, but utterly refuse to participate in that defense. I would believe them capable of anything, and the true tragedy is that they occupy the position of kingmaker in the political system, and so have had the power to end a conflict that has killed so many of their own faith.
I'm thinking more "The Ring" for software - thousands of software developers open the specifications file and all die horrible deaths within a week.
"Bush WAS pro-Microsoft, he backed their side in the antitrust trial, and very soon after the election, almost all their punishment was dropped. I have no doubt that he went proprietary, or hired the advisors who would guarantee that."
Of course, that had nothing to do with the first judge shooting his mouth off, or the appellate court voiding the penalties, or the second judge (a Clinton appointee, btw) agreeing to a lesser penalty, OR the appellate court confirming the settlement, OR the governments lead prosecutor running like hell from his "success" in the MS case to lead such efforts as Bush v. Gore and the SCO lawsuit.
No, it had to be that Bush could only pause fellating Gates long enough to call the Justice Department and have the case spiked because of his personal reservations about the GPL.
Or you are an idiot. I'm not sure which one more likely.
"Seriously, though, does anybody else find the idea of projecting directly on the eye a little disturbing?"
Very. I have had gas-permeable contacts for almost 30 years, and have no problem poking around my eyeball to bind those little bastards if they slip out of place. But I absolutely freak out if anything else comes near my eyes. They'd need to give me general anesthesia to perform Lasik - I don't think I'd react well to a laser projector that close.
And no, it's not rational. BFD - I'm still not doing it.
Originally, it smelled like a swamp because, well, it was. After they drained it, built buildings, and filled it with politicians and government appointees - it still smells like a swamp.
"If scent made such a noticable difference, then you can safely say that these folks were not terribly committed to doing the Right Thing. They needed an external motivation. That's hardly as good as doing the best you can, all the time, because you seriously believe in and want to adhere to sound, timeless principles that have a solid ethical or moral foundation. "
That sounds like the distinction between Perfect and Imperfect Contrition in the Catholic Catechism. Perfect Contrition is when you are repentant of your sins because you love God and are sorry you have broken His agreement with you. Imperfect Contrition is when you are repentant because you don't want to go to Hell.
Guess what - either gets you into Heaven. Likewise, I'm not sure anyone should care WHY someone does the right thing, as long as they do it.
"I call bs...whenever an attractive woman walks by smelling like she just stepped out of the shower I have only immoral thoughts."
Funny - when an attractive woman walks by who smells like she just came from getting laid, my thoughts are...more immoral.
XKCD is on the ball.
http://xkcd.com/
I almost puked.
I'd be able to understand you better if it wasn't for that damned whistling-in-the-wind noise surrounding you.
"On a different note: if you want to preserve gun rights, stop listening to the crap shoveled by the NRA and talk radio, and put your efforts towards a far more effective goal: re-normalizing guns. Folk who have never handled a gun see the weapon as "strange" and "dangerous" and "foreign", and it is those three things that can be sensibly outlawed. Those that handle firearms and appreciate them see guns as neither strange nor foreign, and no more dangerous than an automobile."
In fairness, the NRA at least supports many of those efforts. For instance, one of the most compelling arguments for gun normalization is than carnage that DIDN'T happen after so many states enacted "shall issue" laws. And that effort was led by the NRA. Likewise, the Open Carry movement isn't exactly ignored by them either.
The NRA has a lot of ugly in it, but no one else has the clout to get behind legislation that would make it possible to normalize guns, and fight when existing rights are abused.
"It's quite a sad state of affairs when moving to one of the most common and widely used back-ends for a website is considered "a significant step forward"."
Bullshit - it's not a "step" anywhere.
This is ONE part of the government changing ONE system over to open source. That's it. The whole "since the Bush Administration" comment is a red herring:
a) Drupal only went Open Source in 2001. "Hey, it's time to update the Whitehouse.gov back end, and there's this new cool thing that just got released. It's maintained by a bunch of enthusiasts, and has no support, but I think it's a great idea!" "Perkins, go back to trolling for porn."
b) Does anyone really think the president in ANY administration gives a rats ass about the back-end of the website? Remember, Bush was ridiculed for not even using email, but somehow it's his policy that only proprietary software be used for invisible parts of the website? Likewise, Obama was a lawyer, "community activist", professor, and politician. Which one of those would make him care about this?
I'm more than happy another Open Source effort has been used for a high profile installation. But please - this isn't "Change", or even a policy change, or even an operations change from the White House point of view. This is changing from "Tide" to "Bold" to wash the Presidential underwear.
"SPARC is an organization that licenses processor designs (Scalable Processor ARChitecture), "
So let me get this straight - an organization that chose a name so that it could have an acronym that sounded like the word "spark" is now trying to stop someone else from using the word that they imitated?
That's like Protron suing Proton.
"Over half the US population is obese."
Half of the population is male as well - by your logic, half of all cases of breast cancer should be male.
"Ya, but i'm not putting together the data, I'm just telling you about it. Really, is google now beyond the means of the average /.er?"
And what's deliciously ironic about your "data" are the articles saying "All the evidence so far is anecdotal."
If you disagree with others about the relative severity of H1N1, fine. Just don't pretend you are somehow intellectually superior because someone disagrees with you.
From TFA:
Yep - a disaster in the making.
Yeah, but what do I do when I get OUT of Disneyworld?
"I haven't heard anybody here really care about being in the database."
Yet.
When things get ugly economically (and they will) that data can also be used to decide who gets care via triage. "Diabetes? Hmmm, says here that you are also predisposed to cancer. Since your life is likely to be cut short anyway, I'm afraid there's really no point in treating the diabetes very aggressively, now is there? Next."
"This is why we passed GINA: http://www.genome.gov/24519851"
I'm just waiting for the Commonwealth of Virginia to pass their version.
"And there aren't enough ways to divvy up six guys so that you can rearrange things so that two guys getting on each other's nerves can be kept apart."
Sure you can - just spend the first week figuring out who's going to be the bitch and then everyone takes their frustrations out on him.
Or have I been watching too many prison dramas?
How about "Why the fuck didn't you stop and pick us up? You probably passes within a few thousand kilometers - would it have killed you to go out of your way?"
I could have sworn there was another experiment in Russia just like this, only larger scale. Some guy named Solzhenitsyn authored the study results.
Glad you like earmarks. But you aren't the president. The actual president says he doesn't, and that he would veto bills with earmarks. When given the chance, he did not. His excuse was "That bill is left over from the previous administration. We're more focused on looking forward". So, did he lie during the campaign, knuckle under to congressional and party pressure, or does he actually BELIEVE saying "It's not my fault" is a valid reason?
The 5 day review was ANOTHER campaign promise - that once a bill was *finalized*, the *final* text would be published for 5 days for public comment before he signed it. These are things Obama said he would do. But when the "Stimulus" bill hit the floor, the Congress was given 24 hours to vote on it, which is because the White House said it was urgent. Likewise, they would not go with the 5 day review because the nation needed it RIGHT NOW!!! So Congress passed the bill on a Friday. But he didn't sign it until Tuesday. Why? It was a 3 day weekend. So apparently the bill was so urgent that it had to be passed without even basic congressional review, but he couldn't stick around Friday night to sign it? Sure - pull the other one.
As for "The majority of people aren't smart enough to understand how Congressional legislation is performed, much less smart enough to understand the various versions of bills," if I used the same argument in favor of, say, keeping the source code for voting machines closed, I'd be ridiculed. Your contention seems to be that there are even fewer people who can do a text search than parse code. Tell me, what country do you live in?
My premise is that Obama has been very successful at creating the feeling of change without the substance. If the best his supporters can do is say "talking heads to make up your mind for you", I feel satisfied. Unless, of course, NPR is comprised of talking heads.
Where do you keep coming up with obesity? You are making the wholly unfounded assumption that half of the dead kids were obese. Where is your justification for that?
It sounds like you have a personal issue with obese people. That's well and good, but that doesn't translate into "data".