Okay, what we have here is what logicians call a "false dichotomy."
On the one hand, we have cayenne8's macho bullshit. In his words, "I'm not even starting to ask for names till I've emptied a few clips."
It's either that, say the gun-lovers, or all guns should be banned and the state should have a monopoly on the use of force.
I never said I favoured banning guns. All I said was that this guy's Rambo attitude is likely to get himself or somebody he loves seriously injured or killed. The ability to end someone's life is an awesome responsibility and one that carries with it some very serious consequences. This guy, with his "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude has obviously failed to consider the possible consequences of his actions and I wanted to make him more aware of them.
Another poster said that Kellerman himself admitted that his "22 times more likely" statistic needed to be revised downward. Fine, it still means that, despite the gun industry's and the NRA's propaganda, a gun in the home makes the home less safe, not more safe.
My personal view is that people should be allowed to own guns, but only after completing an appropriate training course that includes written and practical examinations. That's the law of the land in many states, including the loonie leftist bastions of Arizona, Texas and Florida.
That's exactly my point too. As a trainee pilot, I can say that "overconfidence in personal ability" leads to many, many accidents. This guy has a lot of it and hasn't considered the possible consequences of his actions.
I dunno....I like to drop about 200-300 rounds every couple of weekends. I'm fairly proficient.
Shooting at paper targets is a lot different from shooting at live human beings while amped up on adrenaline in a low light situation such as your home.
If someone is in my house....I pretty much guarantee I have much more firepower than they do...and I'm not even starting to ask for names till I've emptied a few clips.
And then you find out that your your son/daughter/wife took a round or two from the "few clips" you just emptied.
That aside, you are aware that bullets will go through drywall like hot knives through butter, aren't you? Guess what - you probably just wounded or killed one of your neighbours too. Now you've exposed yourself to ruinous civil liability as well as to a long, long stretch in the cooler with a cellie named Bubba who has a thing for 5'6" skinny computer geekboys.
And if the bastard happens to make it outside of the house, no problem, the cops down here in NOLA have been known to help you drag the body back inside before the photographes are taken.
Have you ever heard the saying that it's better to remain quiet and be thought of as a fool than to open your mouth and end all doubt? Well, obviously not, because you just did. You don't really think the homicide dicks won't notice the trail of blood/dirt/body parts leading from the outside of your house to the inside, do you? You're obviously the kind of macho asshole who shouldn't be allowed to own a Super Soaker, much less any kind of firearm.
Also I don't know where you get your stats from...but, the cops down here quite often have their suspects taken away in body bags any time they are forced to draw and fire their weapons. Not many ever end up 'wounded' and in the hospital, they end up in the morgue.
I'd like to know where you get yours. The rejected police applicants (for failing the psychological test, most typically) you meet at the gun club don't count.
I prefer being able to shoot bad guys that break into my home . . .
(Remaining macho bullshit drivel snipped . . . )
Obviously someone watched way too much Rambo and way too many cop shows growing up.
The odds are much better that you'll get shot with your own gun in the scenario you describe. Also, consider that police officers miss nearly 90% of the time when they discharge their weapons. They have lots of training up front and ongoing training in firearms use which you almost certainly do not have. What makes you think your skills are better than theirs?
Most macho gun nuts I know would probably wet themselves in an actual firefight and I'm guessing you're no exception.
No one I know listens to Howard Stern, on Sirius or otherwise.
I listen to Coffee House (acoustic stuff), Chill (ambient/techno), Hits 1 and the Pulse.
I listen to these *all* the *time*. Because there's no ads. It's great.
I know the talk stuff has ads. I couldn't care less. But touch my ears with a Toyota sale-abration on the music stations, and I instantly unsubscribe.
Exactly. Don't forget, one of Sirius/XM's big selling points is commercial-free music. That doesn't mean commercial-free dick jokes on Howard 101. I don't think they're going to put ads on the music stations for the very reason you describe.
No one can be president or leader of a nation and be corruption free. An easy target is Bush. His religion encourages him to turn the other cheek but that is not what happened after 9/11. His religion encourages him to love his neighbor and to treat him as he would want to be treated. Yet a fence between his country and Mexico says otherwise. The examples in this case are endless.
That's a common misconception about Christianity. The "neighbour" spoken of in the buy-bull meant members of the "in" group, i.e., fellow Jews. Nonmembers of the in-group were fair game. Questions about its historical accuracy aside, genocide against non-Jews, for example, was okay in the bible and even endorsed by the Judeo-Christian god. It follows that it was okay throughout history for good Christians to torture and kill Jews, Muslims, other non-Christians. It was even okay to behave badly toward those Christians not part of your inner circle (e.g., Catholics against Protestants).
So it is in Bush's America. Genocide against Muslims in Vietraq is okay. So is genocide against those in the path of Hurricane Katrina. Economic genocide against those Americans outside Bush's "in" group ("the haves and the have-mores," as he himself put it) is just fine. "Kenny-Boy" Lay, Dick Cheney and other members of the in-group are allowed to become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Nonmembers, i.e., the other 99.99%, see their:
-- Pensions evaporated, -- Access to health care shrunk if not eliminated outright, -- Education systems gutted (No Child Left Behind, cuts to college financial aid), -- Public utilities privatized and used as tools for private gain (Enron), -- Job security eliminated and already thin worker protections slashed, and -- Anyone who crosses them (Eliot Spitzer, Joe Wilson . . . ) pays the price.
I could go on, but you get the point. "Love your neighbour" doesn't mean what you think it does.
No healthcare bills No DMCA No "war on drugs" No billtiontrillion dollar deficit No gun-toting citizens...and in Quebec the minimum drinking age (and rules of the road) are merely suggestions!
I wish I had mod points. These are just a few of the reasons why this American recently decamped from what I've always been told was The Greatest Nation On The Face Of The Earth and took up residence in the True North Strong and Free.
Tres' gauche to respond to one's own post, I know. I wanted to add that Shaw's tech support actively supports BitTorrent and will tell you exactly how to set it up.
Again, not an astroturfer, just a very happy customer. Stay away from Telus, they suck. When their guy didn't show up despite my giving them an all-day window, I called Shaw. They were out the next day and got me up and running. Telus finally deigned to grace me with their presence the next day. So, for about two days, I had both Telus and Shaw and had the opportunity to test them head to head. Needless to say, Shaw won hands down. In addition, Telus' wireless router was a piece of shit. It dropped my connection every minute or so even when I was sitting two feet from it. By contrast, my Netgear router has never dropped it a single time.
I've had great luck with Telus' cell phone and AirCard service and will heartily recommend them. Their internet? Not so much. They need to spend less on pretty fish pictures.
I've taken to writing a statement as to why I don't have any certs and including it with my resume. I've had places turn me down for not having an A+ cert, even though I have 8+ years experience in the industry.
Here's an example of a geek's fundamental misunderstanding of the realities of the business world.
Initial screening decisions aren't made by technical people. They're made by the most worthless subspecies of human being out there - HR flacks. They don't know a thing about tech, or anything else for that matter. These are the people who run ads for "five years of Windows Vista experience" and the like. These are the people who will berate your qualifications and laugh at you for wasting their oh-so-precious time when it's blindingly obvious that people less qualified than you are being hired in droves. These are the people who will build you up by telling you that "your resume is very strong" and, when you come in for an interview, tell you that they are only able to place one in eight candidates.
In other words, this is why certifications exist - so HR people don't have to think. Because they can't.
Or if you're Canada's Minister of Public Safety. That's right, the man in charge of the RCMP believes the Earth is 6,000 years old. He also believes in the Rapture, Armageddon and all manner of other Christian idiocies.
These beliefs are so patently absurd that they are comparable to believing in Holocaust denial.
Individual scientists, like Dawkins, might enjoy shitting in Christian's Cheerios, but that's because they're assholes, not because they're scientists.
No, they do it because Christians need to have their Cheerios shat in. It's wrong to believe something upon insufficient evidence. Christians do this all the time, even when they know the evidence doesn't support their beliefs. Then, they teach these beliefs to children (i.e., lie to them) and want our secular public policy to be made based around their long-discredited mythology. How many U.S. politicians have said they favour "God's law" in order to make abortion illegal, etc.
Doesn't anyone have any core beliefs anymore? GWB is only slightly more conservative than McCain, yet you're going to jump to a socialist candidate? Highly progressive taxes and compulsory government health care are socialist policies used to redistribute wealth.
The fact that universal health care works is beyond any rational debate. Every country that has some form of national health care (i.e., every civilized country) spends less and gets better results. By contrast, the U.S. spends the most on health care per capita. Do USians get the best health care in the world? Sure - the best health care in the third world. Why? It's simple - the U.S. health care system is not set up to deliver care. It's set up to deliver profit to a very few. How does it do this? By denying people the care they need. There's a word for the difference between the care you need and the care you get - it's called "profit."
It's high time the supposedly Greatest Nation on the Face of the Earth joins the civilized world and guarantees universal health care.
As for me, I've already voted - with my feet. I moved to Canada at the beginning of the year.
The anti-science, anti-evolution crowd is nothing if not persistent. In their religious fervor, they'll stop at nothing, including lying to children which, last time I checked, their buy-bull is against.
On a more serious note, the reason why WikiLeaks' DNS provider in the US was shut down was, well, because they didn't show up for court. At all.
Actually, it's worse than that. WikiLeaks didn't show up for court because they couldn't. Bank Julius Baer ambushed them by failing to serve them with a complaint and moved ex parte for an injunction against their DNS provider. In fact, they still have not been properly served. See, if they get served, then they can retain counsel, answer the complaint, oppose the motion for injunction, make the bank prove up their alleged "irreparable harm," and other inconvenient matters. Suit and injunction is the preferred route.
I predict that BJB's attorneys and the judge that went along with this idiocy are going to get the smackdown on appeal.
"Business ethics" is an oxymoron
on
Ethics In IT
·
· Score: 1
How does one "ethically" rob customers out of their money, pray tell?
Big Pharma is corrupt as all heck. They don't "research new drugs," they research how to make minor changes to existing drugs so they can re-patient. They just had an ex-industry insider (from relatively high in the ranks) condemn them to our congressmen.
And they don't develop "life-saving" drugs either. By and large, they develop pills for yuppie pseudo afflictions like impotence and shyness. Oh, and let's not forget the pills to make kids STFU which are grossly overprescribed. Don't believe me, huh? Seen any new antibiotics lately?
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, what we have here is what logicians call a "false dichotomy."
On the one hand, we have cayenne8's macho bullshit. In his words, "I'm not even starting to ask for names till I've emptied a few clips."
It's either that, say the gun-lovers, or all guns should be banned and the state should have a monopoly on the use of force.
I never said I favoured banning guns. All I said was that this guy's Rambo attitude is likely to get himself or somebody he loves seriously injured or killed. The ability to end someone's life is an awesome responsibility and one that carries with it some very serious consequences. This guy, with his "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude has obviously failed to consider the possible consequences of his actions and I wanted to make him more aware of them.
Another poster said that Kellerman himself admitted that his "22 times more likely" statistic needed to be revised downward. Fine, it still means that, despite the gun industry's and the NRA's propaganda, a gun in the home makes the home less safe, not more safe.
My personal view is that people should be allowed to own guns, but only after completing an appropriate training course that includes written and practical examinations. That's the law of the land in many states, including the loonie leftist bastions of Arizona, Texas and Florida.
That's exactly my point too. As a trainee pilot, I can say that "overconfidence in personal ability" leads to many, many accidents. This guy has a lot of it and hasn't considered the possible consequences of his actions.
Your wish is my command.
A gun in your home is 22 times more likely to kill a member of your family than an intruder.
I'm sure he'll find out one day.
Shooting at paper targets is a lot different from shooting at live human beings while amped up on adrenaline in a low light situation such as your home.
And then you find out that your your son/daughter/wife took a round or two from the "few clips" you just emptied.
That aside, you are aware that bullets will go through drywall like hot knives through butter, aren't you? Guess what - you probably just wounded or killed one of your neighbours too. Now you've exposed yourself to ruinous civil liability as well as to a long, long stretch in the cooler with a cellie named Bubba who has a thing for 5'6" skinny computer geekboys.
Have you ever heard the saying that it's better to remain quiet and be thought of as a fool than to open your mouth and end all doubt? Well, obviously not, because you just did. You don't really think the homicide dicks won't notice the trail of blood/dirt/body parts leading from the outside of your house to the inside, do you? You're obviously the kind of macho asshole who shouldn't be allowed to own a Super Soaker, much less any kind of firearm.
I'd like to know where you get yours. The rejected police applicants (for failing the psychological test, most typically) you meet at the gun club don't count.
(Remaining macho bullshit drivel snipped . . . )
Obviously someone watched way too much Rambo and way too many cop shows growing up.
The odds are much better that you'll get shot with your own gun in the scenario you describe. Also, consider that police officers miss nearly 90% of the time when they discharge their weapons. They have lots of training up front and ongoing training in firearms use which you almost certainly do not have. What makes you think your skills are better than theirs?
Most macho gun nuts I know would probably wet themselves in an actual firefight and I'm guessing you're no exception.
Exactly. Don't forget, one of Sirius/XM's big selling points is commercial-free music. That doesn't mean commercial-free dick jokes on Howard 101. I don't think they're going to put ads on the music stations for the very reason you describe.
That's a common misconception about Christianity. The "neighbour" spoken of in the buy-bull meant members of the "in" group, i.e., fellow Jews. Nonmembers of the in-group were fair game. Questions about its historical accuracy aside, genocide against non-Jews, for example, was okay in the bible and even endorsed by the Judeo-Christian god. It follows that it was okay throughout history for good Christians to torture and kill Jews, Muslims, other non-Christians. It was even okay to behave badly toward those Christians not part of your inner circle (e.g., Catholics against Protestants).
So it is in Bush's America. Genocide against Muslims in Vietraq is okay. So is genocide against those in the path of Hurricane Katrina. Economic genocide against those Americans outside Bush's "in" group ("the haves and the have-mores," as he himself put it) is just fine. "Kenny-Boy" Lay, Dick Cheney and other members of the in-group are allowed to become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Nonmembers, i.e., the other 99.99%, see their:
-- Pensions evaporated,
-- Access to health care shrunk if not eliminated outright,
-- Education systems gutted (No Child Left Behind, cuts to college financial aid),
-- Public utilities privatized and used as tools for private gain (Enron),
-- Job security eliminated and already thin worker protections slashed, and
-- Anyone who crosses them (Eliot Spitzer, Joe Wilson . . . ) pays the price.
I could go on, but you get the point. "Love your neighbour" doesn't mean what you think it does.
Mod me to hell, I don't care.
I wish I had mod points. These are just a few of the reasons why this American recently decamped from what I've always been told was The Greatest Nation On The Face Of The Earth and took up residence in the True North Strong and Free.
Tres' gauche to respond to one's own post, I know. I wanted to add that Shaw's tech support actively supports BitTorrent and will tell you exactly how to set it up.
Again, not an astroturfer, just a very happy customer. Stay away from Telus, they suck. When their guy didn't show up despite my giving them an all-day window, I called Shaw. They were out the next day and got me up and running. Telus finally deigned to grace me with their presence the next day. So, for about two days, I had both Telus and Shaw and had the opportunity to test them head to head. Needless to say, Shaw won hands down. In addition, Telus' wireless router was a piece of shit. It dropped my connection every minute or so even when I was sitting two feet from it. By contrast, my Netgear router has never dropped it a single time.
I've had great luck with Telus' cell phone and AirCard service and will heartily recommend them. Their internet? Not so much. They need to spend less on pretty fish pictures.
Get Shaw, they don't throttle. I'm a Shaw customer and I've had great luck with them.
And no, I'm not an astroturfer.
Here's an example of a geek's fundamental misunderstanding of the realities of the business world.
Initial screening decisions aren't made by technical people. They're made by the most worthless subspecies of human being out there - HR flacks. They don't know a thing about tech, or anything else for that matter. These are the people who run ads for "five years of Windows Vista experience" and the like. These are the people who will berate your qualifications and laugh at you for wasting their oh-so-precious time when it's blindingly obvious that people less qualified than you are being hired in droves. These are the people who will build you up by telling you that "your resume is very strong" and, when you come in for an interview, tell you that they are only able to place one in eight candidates.
In other words, this is why certifications exist - so HR people don't have to think. Because they can't.
Or if you're Canada's Minister of Public Safety. That's right, the man in charge of the RCMP believes the Earth is 6,000 years old. He also believes in the Rapture, Armageddon and all manner of other Christian idiocies.
These beliefs are so patently absurd that they are comparable to believing in Holocaust denial.
No, they do it because Christians need to have their Cheerios shat in. It's wrong to believe something upon insufficient evidence. Christians do this all the time, even when they know the evidence doesn't support their beliefs. Then, they teach these beliefs to children (i.e., lie to them) and want our secular public policy to be made based around their long-discredited mythology. How many U.S. politicians have said they favour "God's law" in order to make abortion illegal, etc.
The fact that universal health care works is beyond any rational debate. Every country that has some form of national health care (i.e., every civilized country) spends less and gets better results. By contrast, the U.S. spends the most on health care per capita. Do USians get the best health care in the world? Sure - the best health care in the third world. Why? It's simple - the U.S. health care system is not set up to deliver care. It's set up to deliver profit to a very few. How does it do this? By denying people the care they need. There's a word for the difference between the care you need and the care you get - it's called "profit."
It's high time the supposedly Greatest Nation on the Face of the Earth joins the civilized world and guarantees universal health care.
As for me, I've already voted - with my feet. I moved to Canada at the beginning of the year.
The anti-science, anti-evolution crowd is nothing if not persistent. In their religious fervor, they'll stop at nothing, including lying to children which, last time I checked, their buy-bull is against.
Actually, it's the third /. story to show up on the front page with the same thing.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/12/1658249
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/28/1746211
So does that make it a tripe?
'Course, if I paid for the subscription, I'd get to see the tripe ahead of the Mere Mortals who do not part with their hard-earned, eh?
I think I'll pass.
Actually, it's worse than that. WikiLeaks didn't show up for court because they couldn't. Bank Julius Baer ambushed them by failing to serve them with a complaint and moved ex parte for an injunction against their DNS provider. In fact, they still have not been properly served. See, if they get served, then they can retain counsel, answer the complaint, oppose the motion for injunction, make the bank prove up their alleged "irreparable harm," and other inconvenient matters. Suit and injunction is the preferred route.
I predict that BJB's attorneys and the judge that went along with this idiocy are going to get the smackdown on appeal.
How does one "ethically" rob customers out of their money, pray tell?
eh?
You were proven wrong on that earlier, and you keep spouting this "fact" as though it were the gospel.
Tim Eyman, is that you?
GSM data is a joke. I'll take my CDMA any day of the week.
Well, I denounce Joey Rat and the Catholic Church as an affront to human dignity.
Big Pharma is corrupt as all heck. They don't "research new drugs," they research how to make minor changes to existing drugs so they can re-patient. They just had an ex-industry insider (from relatively high in the ranks) condemn them to our congressmen.
And they don't develop "life-saving" drugs either. By and large, they develop pills for yuppie pseudo afflictions like impotence and shyness. Oh, and let's not forget the pills to make kids STFU which are grossly overprescribed. Don't believe me, huh? Seen any new antibiotics lately?
Don't get me started on how much of the "research" money comes from the government.
You can thank Ronald Alzheimer's for that one.