I Love Snack-Ums: Hello, I Love Cheesy Poofs! Have I told you how much I love Snack-Ums?
I Love Cheesy Poofs: That's very interesting, I Love Snack-Ums. Have I told you how delicious Cheesy Poofs are?
I Love Duff Beer: That's very interesting, I Love Cheesy Poofs. Have I told you how delicious Duff Beer is to persons of legal age in their respective states?
*I Love Taking Brand Name Pharmeceuticals has entered the room.*
I'd say, the US has come a long way toward putting into practice the virtues laid out in the constitution.
...And even outdone the original document in some ways. Check out this passage from the U.S. Constitution:
Article 4: Section 2: Clause 3: No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Do some research on the U.S.'s involvement in WWI. You might be surprised at some of the things that slipped under the radar at the time.
1. The Lusitania was a thinly disguised British warship, and was carrying gunpowder in the hold where it was struck.
2. The Germans, who did not want to fight the United States, advertised in the New York Times that the Lusitania was a warship, and that they intended to sink it, so please don't buy a ticket.
3. The American passengers aboard the Lusitania could have been saved if they had been picked up in time. The confusion that befuddled the rescue mission may well have been orchestrated by the British government, who did want the United States to become involved.
4. Your average Joe Sixpack's anger over the sinking of the Lusitania was being helped along by dozens of pro-war propaganda bureaus financed by American bankers who had lent money to the Allies, and wanted them to win so they could pay principal+interest.
This is all from historical books focusing on WWI. None of this is mentioned anywhere in public school textbooks.
Moral: Don't trust any government - no matter where you live.
I remember a story about an (American founding father's?) reaction to reports of a small meteor strike before the existence of such things was widely documented:
"I'd rather believe that two Yankees lied, than that a rock fell from the sky."
It was a perfect application of the principle of Ockham's razor, except that in this case, the weirder explanation happened to be true.
If anyone knows who made the quote, or the origin of this story, please post.
All creatures who evolved through the pressures of natural selection have one thing in common: They are interested in the continued replication of their DNA (or other self-replicating instruction code.)
Chimpanzees may be nearly as intelligent as humans, but I bet we'd rather clear-cut their jungle to the ground than enjoy the pleasure of their company, if we could build houses with the wood. The advancement of our species always trumps friendship with theirs. And humans are a social species!
If we appear to be the only technologically advanced beings in the universe, maybe we should breathe a sigh of relief.
Erm... Maybe I'm daft, but I can't tell if you're kidding here. The strength of science is that it does not require faith. It actually becomes more reliable when faced with scrutiny.
The Catholic Church has an ulterior motive for its stance on contraception - making more Catholics. Catholicism is not a very attractive or exciting religion to convert to, so new members are generally born, not made. If they make an exception to this doctrine anywhere, they'll lose their prime source of new membership everywhere. I don't think the higher-ups care too much about these AIDS victims, but I don't think they purposely kill them, either. I'm sure they would love to see all the African Catholics live, reproduce like rabbits, and donate 10% of their income to the Church.
You might be interested to know that Apple just bought Emagic, and is accelerating development of Logic Audio 5 for OS X - to be called Logic Audio Titanium, I think. Competitively speaking, would that qualify as a kick in the ass?
I agree. I am not a cosmologist, but I think Venus can be our control group in this case. It is roughly the same size, probably roughly the same (internal) composition, but has a surface temperature hundreds of degrees higher than Earth's. And it's still there.
I am not a cop, but it seems to me that one of the main motivations to keep the prohibition ball rolling is the enormous profit potential for local law enforcement agencies.
Police work on a limited income. When they arrest violent offenders, it does make the world a better place, but it generates no money for them. No matter how hard they work, it will still take an act of (local) Congress to earn them a pay raise, as a whole.
Now, what happens when they arrest someone for drug possession? Well, if it is a large enough stash to claim "intent to sell," they get cars, boats, land, houses, and piles of cash.
It's not like that stuff is going straight into honest cops' wallets, but it does make it easier for them to earn pay raises. After so many "money" fights at home, they're much more likely than us to convince themselves that busting people on drug offenses and confiscating all their property is a moral, or even honorable thing to do. Since the alternative is to remain on a fixed income while working at a job that puts them in constant physical danger, they probably don't want to examine the ethics of it too closely.
But this was a betrayal of his earlier movies! I identified with THX-1138. LUH was so hot, and I wanted to be just like Hologram. Lucas' sequels should have focused on filling out these characters. For instance, when did THX and LUH decide to shave their bodies hairless? Where did Hologram keep his projector? What economic school of thought did the police subscribe to when determining whether it would be efficient to pursue THX? I've been camping outside the movie theater some time now, waiting for a decent sequel. I wish Lucas would skip all this "Skywalker family" garbage and get to the point.
I don't know about driving them into the sea, but in Birmingham, AL, they ran them into the ground. In the early 1900's, Birmingham had a cable car system like San Fransisco's. It was bought and intentionally bankrupted by, IIRC, an auto manufacturing company. Since then, city mass transit has consisted only of poorly routed buses, the suburbs have stretched over twenty miles to the south and east of town, and ground level ozone has become part of the local weather forecast.
The best effort at improving Birmingham's mass transit has been from a coalition of downtown business owners who have funded their own city-independent bus system to encourage people to shop downtown. It is superior to the city's system in every aspect.
The health risks associated with smoked glass are too numerous to list. Besides, don't you find the eclipse interesting enough without smoking anything?
Speaking of whorish sellouts - New 9/11 ideas
on
The Empire Stumbles
·
· Score: 1
I've come up with some new ways for pundits to sneak 9/11 cameos into their articles:
12 Ways To Drive Your Man Crazy In The Wake of September 11th
The Best French Restaurants In The Wake of September 11th
Ten Fashion Dos and Donts In The Wake of September 11th
Low-Impact Techniques to Tighten Your Abs In The Wake of September 11th
Star Wars vs. Spiderman: Which Is Cooler In The Wake of September 11th?
The author is Heinlein. The book is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
In the book, large rocks are encased in iron, and shot out of the moon's shallow gravity well with a rail gun to be caught by Earth's much stronger gravitational field. I am not a physicist, but I don't think it would take a very big rock to equal the destructive power of a nuclear weapon if it was dropped from just inside the Earth's gravity well.
Incidentally, this is going to occur to the Dept. of Defense as well. If China actually makes progress, we (the US) are going to see a lot more money in NASA's budget very soon. I think this kind of thinking is what the original space race was all about.
Athens was not a true democracy either. Only the men could vote, and their extensive free time for politicking (and philosophy!) was made possible by slave labor. The slaves, of course, also had no voting power.
The most damaging part of the US's system is that the candidates are already picked before most people get to vote on them. I remember a political cartoon where there are two posters that say "Vote Hitler, because he's not Satan," and "Vote Satan, because he's not Hitler." One character says to another, "I can't believe we almost elected Satan."
The next time Hollywood comes out with an asteroid-hitting-Earth type drama, they can blow up an actual shuttle for $6 million, thus reducing their special effects budget by half.
Meanwhile, the fraction of us who actually care about this kind of thing pay the price. The only sensible thing to do? Become what we hate the most. Format/dev/hd* and install Windows and AOL. Your browser votes don't count unless your user agent says MSIE, and your purchases don't count unless they're through AOL or MSN. We have to make a choice between Free Software and privacy. Once we've saved privacy, then maybe Linux will come back...who knows? But for now, we need to put Linux aside as we prepare for the real battle.
You had me, and then you lost me. If anything, using nonstandard software should make it harder for companies to harvest information about you. On the other hand, if you willingly type that information into a form, it doesn't matter what client-side software you're running. Please clarify why we must make an either/or choice between free (as in speech?) software and privacy.
I have a similar problem with the song "Fat" by "Weird Al" Yankovic. I am at least five-hundred pounds overweight. Like the character in his "Fat" video, I too have lost buttons on my tight leather suit due to the rapid expansion of my midsection, and I think it hits a little too close to home.
Come on, guys, Frank Zappa, Ray Stevens, this type of stuff isn't funny. And Doctor Dimento, if you read slashdot, you're just as bad for encouraging them.
Slashdot Mirror
I Love Snack-Ums: Hello, I Love Cheesy Poofs! Have I told you how much I love Snack-Ums?
I Love Cheesy Poofs: That's very interesting, I Love Snack-Ums. Have I told you how delicious Cheesy Poofs are?
I Love Duff Beer: That's very interesting, I Love Cheesy Poofs. Have I told you how delicious Duff Beer is to persons of legal age in their respective states?
*I Love Taking Brand Name Pharmeceuticals has entered the room.*
I'd say, the US has come a long way toward putting into practice the virtues laid out in the constitution.
...And even outdone the original document in some ways. Check out this passage from the U.S. Constitution:
Article 4: Section 2: Clause 3: No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Do some research on the U.S.'s involvement in WWI. You might be surprised at some of the things that slipped under the radar at the time.
1. The Lusitania was a thinly disguised British warship, and was carrying gunpowder in the hold where it was struck.
2. The Germans, who did not want to fight the United States, advertised in the New York Times that the Lusitania was a warship, and that they intended to sink it, so please don't buy a ticket.
3. The American passengers aboard the Lusitania could have been saved if they had been picked up in time. The confusion that befuddled the rescue mission may well have been orchestrated by the British government, who did want the United States to become involved.
4. Your average Joe Sixpack's anger over the sinking of the Lusitania was being helped along by dozens of pro-war propaganda bureaus financed by American bankers who had lent money to the Allies, and wanted them to win so they could pay principal+interest.
This is all from historical books focusing on WWI. None of this is mentioned anywhere in public school textbooks.
Moral: Don't trust any government - no matter where you live.
I've seen both. Which is more standard?
I remember a story about an (American founding father's?) reaction to reports of a small meteor strike before the existence of such things was widely documented:
"I'd rather believe that two Yankees lied, than that a rock fell from the sky."
It was a perfect application of the principle of Ockham's razor, except that in this case, the weirder explanation happened to be true.
If anyone knows who made the quote, or the origin of this story, please post.
All creatures who evolved through the pressures of natural selection have one thing in common: They are interested in the continued replication of their DNA (or other self-replicating instruction code.)
Chimpanzees may be nearly as intelligent as humans, but I bet we'd rather clear-cut their jungle to the ground than enjoy the pleasure of their company, if we could build houses with the wood. The advancement of our species always trumps friendship with theirs. And humans are a social species!
If we appear to be the only technologically advanced beings in the universe, maybe we should breathe a sigh of relief.
Erm... Maybe I'm daft, but I can't tell if you're kidding here. The strength of science is that it does not require faith. It actually becomes more reliable when faced with scrutiny.
The Catholic Church has an ulterior motive for its stance on contraception - making more Catholics. Catholicism is not a very attractive or exciting religion to convert to, so new members are generally born, not made. If they make an exception to this doctrine anywhere, they'll lose their prime source of new membership everywhere. I don't think the higher-ups care too much about these AIDS victims, but I don't think they purposely kill them, either. I'm sure they would love to see all the African Catholics live, reproduce like rabbits, and donate 10% of their income to the Church.
You might be interested to know that Apple just bought Emagic, and is accelerating development of Logic Audio 5 for OS X - to be called Logic Audio Titanium, I think. Competitively speaking, would that qualify as a kick in the ass?
It's generally a good idea to meet with as many contractors as possible beforehand, to see who can be thrown the farthest.
I agree. I am not a cosmologist, but I think Venus can be our control group in this case. It is roughly the same size, probably roughly the same (internal) composition, but has a surface temperature hundreds of degrees higher than Earth's. And it's still there.
Evidence: Loud bloop! sound coming from the ocean.
Conclusion: Monster squid.
Personally, I think it is the sound of a journalist's brain rolling out of his head, and over the side of the boat.
I am not a cop, but it seems to me that one of the main motivations to keep the prohibition ball rolling is the enormous profit potential for local law enforcement agencies.
Police work on a limited income. When they arrest violent offenders, it does make the world a better place, but it generates no money for them. No matter how hard they work, it will still take an act of (local) Congress to earn them a pay raise, as a whole.
Now, what happens when they arrest someone for drug possession? Well, if it is a large enough stash to claim "intent to sell," they get cars, boats, land, houses, and piles of cash.
It's not like that stuff is going straight into honest cops' wallets, but it does make it easier for them to earn pay raises. After so many "money" fights at home, they're much more likely than us to convince themselves that busting people on drug offenses and confiscating all their property is a moral, or even honorable thing to do. Since the alternative is to remain on a fixed income while working at a job that puts them in constant physical danger, they probably don't want to examine the ethics of it too closely.
But this was a betrayal of his earlier movies! I identified with THX-1138. LUH was so hot, and I wanted to be just like Hologram. Lucas' sequels should have focused on filling out these characters. For instance, when did THX and LUH decide to shave their bodies hairless? Where did Hologram keep his projector? What economic school of thought did the police subscribe to when determining whether it would be efficient to pursue THX? I've been camping outside the movie theater some time now, waiting for a decent sequel. I wish Lucas would skip all this "Skywalker family" garbage and get to the point.
I don't know about driving them into the sea, but in Birmingham, AL, they ran them into the ground. In the early 1900's, Birmingham had a cable car system like San Fransisco's. It was bought and intentionally bankrupted by, IIRC, an auto manufacturing company. Since then, city mass transit has consisted only of poorly routed buses, the suburbs have stretched over twenty miles to the south and east of town, and ground level ozone has become part of the local weather forecast.
The best effort at improving Birmingham's mass transit has been from a coalition of downtown business owners who have funded their own city-independent bus system to encourage people to shop downtown. It is superior to the city's system in every aspect.
The almighty dollar giveth, and it taketh away.
...smoked glass...
The health risks associated with smoked glass are too numerous to list. Besides, don't you find the eclipse interesting enough without smoking anything?
I've come up with some new ways for pundits to sneak 9/11 cameos into their articles:
12 Ways To Drive Your Man Crazy In The Wake of September 11th
The Best French Restaurants In The Wake of September 11th
Ten Fashion Dos and Donts In The Wake of September 11th
Low-Impact Techniques to Tighten Your Abs In The Wake of September 11th
Star Wars vs. Spiderman: Which Is Cooler In The Wake of September 11th?
The author is Heinlein. The book is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
In the book, large rocks are encased in iron, and shot out of the moon's shallow gravity well with a rail gun to be caught by Earth's much stronger gravitational field. I am not a physicist, but I don't think it would take a very big rock to equal the destructive power of a nuclear weapon if it was dropped from just inside the Earth's gravity well.
Incidentally, this is going to occur to the Dept. of Defense as well. If China actually makes progress, we (the US) are going to see a lot more money in NASA's budget very soon. I think this kind of thinking is what the original space race was all about.
Athens was not a true democracy either. Only the men could vote, and their extensive free time for politicking (and philosophy!) was made possible by slave labor. The slaves, of course, also had no voting power.
The most damaging part of the US's system is that the candidates are already picked before most people get to vote on them. I remember a political cartoon where there are two posters that say "Vote Hitler, because he's not Satan," and "Vote Satan, because he's not Hitler." One character says to another, "I can't believe we almost elected Satan."
Maybe Apple programmed this behavior into the iMac as a sort of compassionate intervention for people with really bad pop-culture tastes.
No, no... I'm just going to keep this until you've had some time to think.
The next time Hollywood comes out with an asteroid-hitting-Earth type drama, they can blow up an actual shuttle for $6 million, thus reducing their special effects budget by half.
Ah, I've heard of this plot. Isn't it part of the infamous Alan Parsons Project?
Meanwhile, the fraction of us who actually care about this kind of thing pay the price. The only sensible thing to do? Become what we hate the most. Format /dev/hd* and install Windows and AOL. Your browser votes don't count unless your user agent says MSIE, and your purchases don't count unless they're through AOL or MSN. We have to make a choice between Free Software and privacy. Once we've saved privacy, then maybe Linux will come back...who knows? But for now, we need to put Linux aside as we prepare for the real battle.
You had me, and then you lost me. If anything, using nonstandard software should make it harder for companies to harvest information about you. On the other hand, if you willingly type that information into a form, it doesn't matter what client-side software you're running. Please clarify why we must make an either/or choice between free (as in speech?) software and privacy.
We should have nipped this in the bud back when the COMBAT cartridge shipped with every new Atari. :-)
I have a similar problem with the song "Fat" by "Weird Al" Yankovic. I am at least five-hundred pounds overweight. Like the character in his "Fat" video, I too have lost buttons on my tight leather suit due to the rapid expansion of my midsection, and I think it hits a little too close to home.
Come on, guys, Frank Zappa, Ray Stevens, this type of stuff isn't funny. And Doctor Dimento, if you read slashdot, you're just as bad for encouraging them.