Jefferson had this idea that the "yeoman farmer" is the backbone of a democracy, and democracy cannot be trusted to city dwellers, because they are not self sufficient, not independent voters, their vote is controlled by those who can give them a job. A city, and urbanized population is undemocratic at its core, because of basic necessities, dependence on the elite for those basic necessities.
Jefferson's idea of the "yeoman farmer" was the slave holding Southern plantation owner, being one himself, not the moderate family farmer you might be thinking of. Jefferson was more attuned to old style feudalism than democracy.
You got one thing right. The state is evil. And by state I mean the government itself, not Wyoming per se.
If, in order to solve this problem, the liberty and freedom of the people in Wyoming to run their own lives and government needs to be sacrificed, then I will never agree with your "solution" to this problem.
If we must give our liberty in order to survive, then count me as your enemy. What good is life without liberty?
Oh and your all powerful government you require to solve this problem, if it's at all like all the all powerful governments that have come before, it'll have to destroy the environment in order to save it.
Very stirring, moving, and utter anarchist bullshit. Freedom and liberty have never been absolute rights, not even the Founders intended that extreme.
We all compromise somewhat on our liberty. That's why we build this thing called civilization instead remaining belligerent apes howling over water holes. We accept traffic lights so we don't run our cars into each other at intersections, and that pedestrians can have a reasonably safe method of crossing the street.
Your "right to do with what your own property" stops when your pollution starts causing others to sicken, or impacts the long term health of the community. Your right to free speech ends when you call in fake bomb threats or yell "fire" in a movie theater.
We are all temporary residents on this planet. Maybe your libertarian values demand that you don't give two beans for the welfare of your descendants, but they are the ones who are going to bear the consequences of our choices, for good or ill.
North polar ice is indeed diminishing. South polar ice is increasing. You phrase this as if to suggest both are melting. It is a lie. Start with an obvious lie and nothing else in your post can be taken seriously.
"Increasing" or "decreasing" mean nothing without some kind of quantity. For instance, the greenland ice sheet (arctic) is melting at a rate of 367 Gt/year between 2008 and 2012 which dwarfs antarctica's meager increase of 33Gt/year.
Anyone who thinks that the southern ice cap has been increasing must be ignoring everything that's been coming out in the news on the West Antarctic ice sheets this week.
true I guess. My only concern is that an event like this would destroy our cities, kill billions of people, and end civilizations. call my selfish but I'd rather keep things as they are, including maintaining a tight CO2/temperature band. I guess I'm a conservative in that way.
Unfortunately that ship has sailed. However we can choose to do something about how badly change is going to impact us and our descendants. Nothing we can do now is going to prevent a good deal of Antarctica's and Greenland's ice from sliding into the ocean. The only question now is whether any of that ice is going to be unmelted before the next two centuries pass.
The only question is whether we're going to keep ocean rise to some level or are we just going to let the bulk of our coastal cities drown, our agriculture cycles go to heck, and pretend that we had nothing to do with it.
Exactly, it's the same kind of ridiculous region lock they put on CDs and game consoles. It's ultimately stupid, previously they were serving their ads worldwide, and now they've restricted it to the U.S. To an advertiser how exactly would this make any sense?
And of course someone will say the foreigners can't understand the ads, but then how are they understanding the shows? (one is lucky if it even has CC, much less foreign subtitles...)
The region locks are not "ridiculous". Media and goods are sold for different prices per region. If you're looking for a reason for any move made, there's usually money involved.
"This would only be true if said gun owner started taking his firearms out and handling them carelessly, which is so rare that you stand a better chance (by at least an order of magnitude) of being hit by a car driven recklessly (yet for some odd reason, no one is calling for a ban on automobiles.)"
No one's calling a ban for guns either, but I don't think that you're looking to have all regulations lifted on auto safety, are you?
The NRA gets into a frenzy whenever ANY regulation is brought up, or even any technology that might restrict the free use of a firearm. They're apparently in a major panic on smartguns because they assume the existence of them will lead to mandated confiscation of non-smart weapons.
A large part of illegal guns in tight control places like New York, originate from legal purchases at gun shows which are specifically exempt from the tracking and controls that would be done elsewhere. Likewise there are gun stores in Pennslyvania which are ONLY legally allowed to sell to people coming in from out of state.
The problem is that loopholes like these are deliberately created to make end runs around gun control laws which show the problem of leaving this thing to the states. We need a Federally imposed standard of gun regulation which can't be circumvented by gun shows and Pennsy gun shops. We need to stop deliberately inhibiting the AFT from doing the job it's supposed to do.
They can grant or refuse licenses to operate, but they can't tell Comcast or Verizon to take a hike on the basis of net neutrality. They don't have the authority to override the FCC on these issues. People want their cable when they can get it.
They certainly do not have the money to provide broadband access on their own. With a couple of exceptions most attempt to provide civic internet access have failed rather spectacularly.
The Internet has entered it's inevitable evolution of becoming another public resource turned into a commercial property which has been sliced up and sold to the folks with the money for as usual pennies on the dollar. Asking on what can be done is like asking your ship's departure time when the aft lights are already fading below the horizon.
Now, since Hulu has to uphold their end of the contract, they have to keep non-Americans from watching Hulu. Thus they need to block VPNs..
That's not accurate. You could be an American in London,and you're still not allowed to watch. You could be an illegal alien living in San Diego, and they couldn't care less. The requirement is the restriction of broadcasting, not viewership.
If they already have all that information, then why do they need to block VPNs? It seems like they could figure it out another way.
But is this just about the paid service?
Because the only reason you're using a VPN to watch Huluu is to bypass the regional restriction, which they are REQUIRED by their license terms to enforce.
Of course, you'd really need to watch the film to make a judgement, and I don't propose to pollute my eyeballs with a single photon of it.
You do realize that in that stance, you're not being any different from the Christian or any other brand of Fundamentalists, who condemn movies or other artwork sight unseen? I don't plan on seeing it either, but I also don't plan on publishing an opinion about it, one way or another.
They actually do. They try to make it somewhat scientific, and try to stretch in the same direction continuously. Warp plasma conduits do not magically do different things in different episodes; and when they do, it's usually reasonable to assume they do these things in addition to or because of a property of warp plasma conduits already established. There's a lot of stretching and head scratch, but not a lot of "oh hell no, this is retarded" going on.
Deflectors and Transporters however do seem to be the Magic McGuffins of the week quite frequently though.
Actually, I think the low point was the final episode. The idea of the Borg, a massive hive mind responsible for the destruction of hundreds of civilizations, being defeated by one fucking human woman by infecting them with some virus? What complete and utter BS. Nobody in any of the other civilizations had that idea?
You do have to remember that the overriding principle of EVERY Star Trek series, from TOS to Enterprise, is that outside of the featured ship's crew, Everyone whether in StarFleet, or the Alien of the Week, is a blithering parochial, stubborn, idiot.
It doesn't really affect the "Best Star Trek Captain" discussions (I always answer with the *vision* the creators had for the character not how it was acted)...but Kate Mulgrew is kind of a ditz
In interviews (like in The Captains film: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... ) she was clearly just doing Trek purely as a 'gig' for a paycheck...she had no personal connection to science or space whatsoever and did not see her role as a way to educate herself or broaden her horizons to improve her acting
to her it was all just "technobabble" which angers me to no end as a person who advocates for women in science...but it's her life and career so I'm not judging her choices necessarily...i just think it's unprofessional and lazy...her performance in Orange is the New Black is equally as bad, IMHO...very perfunctory
Mulgrew read the ***narration*** of the whole film...how could she do that and not know the film as about the earth being the *actual* center of the universe?
answer is in the subject line
Mulgrew is pretty spot on in her assessement of Trek. For the most part the story is ENTIRELY Trekbabble which is used either to justify some dubious plotline or to fill up some script time. And if you're going to crucify her for doing Trek simply for a paycheck, then you might as well string up Brent Spiner (who would state repeatedly that he was not a fan of the show), Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, and Alec Guiness along with her. From my book she and all these others did exactly what was expected of them, put out an acting performance. The fact that someone like Spiner did so despite his general distaste for the genre, makes me respect him that much more than some slatherly worshipping actor geek.
When you are in the acting field, unless you've such high and mighty stature, that people are constantly breaking down your door to offer you gigs, you take the work that's offered, because that's how you pay the bills. For the most part, science fiction is the curse of death to an actors career, but you take the jobs when and where they are offered.
We need to remember that these people ARE actors. They are not authorities in science, politics, or any other field. Exception: Avery Brooks is a Rutgers Art Professor with tenure, he's probably more educated than most Trek actors put together. Unlike most actors, his degrees are the real thing.
No. The Muslims tried to conquer Europe for 1000 years. They conquered much of the Roman Empire by 700AD and managed to completely wipe out Byzantium by 1100AD.
That's what the original Crusade was a response to: a distress call from what was left of Byzantium.
Bullocks. Did you know that one of the last major invasions of Byzantium was FROM a Crusade? The reason they went there? Was it idolatry?, Did they see Satan in Constantinople? No, the reason was that they needed ships from Venice to make the sea voyage to the Holy Land and the Venetians demanded the destruction of their major Mediterranean trading rival as payment. Those two lions in front of St. Peter's Basillica? That's where they came from. When the Byzantine Empire fell to the sultan who conquered it, the only thing remaining of the once great Empire, was the city with an overweight bureaucracy that had lost most of it's meaning, and a small strip of land outside it.
Muslims claim both worship the same invisible bearded man in the sky and that peace is their highest value.
FTFY. I get the feeling a lot of Christians would be offended at the suggestion.
So would the Muslims. One tenet that both Jews and Muslims agree on, is that God is not something that you chop into three parts. He is Supreme and Indivisible.
It has to be said though, Mohammed got started early. Married Aisha at 7, pregnant by age 9. Must have ejaculated insider her pretty much the first time she had her period. In the literal sense of the word he was a paedophile, a lover of children, who from historical accounts treated her fairly well, showed her affection and love and got a boner who he saw her naked pre-pubescent body.
He kept slaves, he waged wars, he was illiterate and a general douchbag in many ways. That wouldn't be such a problem if the book he dictated wasn't supposed to be the literal word of god, or if he lifestyle wasn't held up as an example of the best way to live to keep god happy. It's more of a problem than, say, the Bible which is acknowledged to be written by third parties or Jesus who generally behaved quite well.
As I recall, Mary was told by Gabriel that she would be "visited" by the Lord and would bear his child, not asked to volunteer, simply told it was going to happen. Now mind you, much like Zeus's many casual affairs, she wasn't being given a choice in the matter, and that Joseph actually seemed to care enough about her to try to deal with it quietly. By Hebrew law, Mary would have been stoned to death for having sexual relations (and becoming pregnant) out of childbirth. It takes a personal visitation by God's angels to change his mind, being essentially told. "Marry the Girl.". And don't get me started about the Old Testament. Polygamy is pretty rampant. Both Job and Solomon were said to have many wives, Solomon himself, about a hundred or so. Most people forget that the books of the Bible were written in a very different cultural and moral standard, and Christians tend to whitewash them, reading them in the context of their own particular parochial values, depending on which sect of Christianity they belong to.
Thanks for informing me of this. I used to enjoy his Ben Stein's Money show on occasion some years back, but I have now lost all respect for the man whatsoever.
Oh it goes much deeper. People tended to forget that before his acting career Stein was a speech writer for Nixon and is as right wing religious and political fundamentalist as they come. He has "moderated" atheist/religious debates that clearly showed his bias as he tries to rig the debates.
The thing that struck me most was how Wesley had trouble getting a slot in the Academy despite being a Wunderkind. In a "post scarcity" world, they should have made more spots for recruits like that. Anyone interested in Starfleet should have been accommodated. Built more ships. Added a new wing to the Academy. Whatever.
The real surprise was that someone like Barclay made it at all. But then again, Trek producers never believed that logic or universe consistency should stand in the way of the latest idiotic story idea. Such as anti-matter being used as a "school project
Besides the Federation didn't really live in a post scarcity world. You couldn't just shovel a lot of dirt into a replicator and come out with dilithium. And where did all that anti-matter used to fuel starships come from anyway? The only way to make anti-matter is to convert Energy into equal parts positive matter and anti-matter. Pretty much atomic power in reverse. So yes, the Federation would fight wars and even scrap it's precious Prime Directive (which for some strange reason seems only to apply to Starfleet officers) when it came to getting mineral rights on a strategic world like Capella Four.
I'm not as worried about the Nuclear waste as I am about Nuclear missiles. It would be easy to launch a series nuclear missile from the moon that could detonate over the western globe producing en EMP. They would essentially have a 12 hour window (probably more) every day to launch such an attack. I wonder what kind of counter measures we'd have against something like that.
It's statements like this that make me laugh at the appalling ignorance of the sci fi crowd. You don't have to launch the stupid thing from the moon. An Earthbound rocket could do the same. Although one rocket couldn't do it buy itself. A global EMP is not a trivial thing to set off. It really would take a massive nuclear eschange. And suppose you did such a thing? Do you think that there is anywhere on the Earth or the Moon that you could escape the consequence of the total collapse of Industrial civilization? What are you going to eat or breathe on the Moon when the supply ships stop coming?
Of course any day, the Sun might just unleash a massive coronal discharge that's actually aimed at the right spot at the right time and make all of this discussion, rather moot when it blows out every transformer on the planet. The Earth was last hit by such a discharge in the 1859 (look up "Solar storm of 1859" in Wikipedia for the curious) There weren't any transformers around to blow at that time however but it was one heck of a light show. It did blow out a lot of telegraph systems, even some of the operator keys were sparking. The real tragedy is that there are ways to protect ourselves, but it's going to take a lot of global coordination, communication, and cooperation than I'm seeing now.
Government handouts are not production. Government does not produce wealth, production does. Government handouts (according to some rather famous studies) cost about $2 in production for every $1 in handouts.
If you want to ruin the economy, that's the way to go. Just ask Greece and Spain for example.
We're not Greece, our situation isn't Greece, and Greece's problems don't point to a solution for any other country on the planet. Treating this country as if it were Greece would be a sure sign to ruin..
American workers have grown in productivity with advances in technology, but their share of the wealth that they produce through their labor has been declining steadily since the early 70's. The problem has never been with the lack of wealth but it's distribution..
Slashdot Mirror
They could always lease it to ESA or The Canadians for a few years.
you don't even have to make a profit, just break even till the funding is available.
It costs money and facilities to run Spitzer. The ESA and the Canadians probably don't have the budget for it.
Blame it on Slashdot. To actually use paragraphs in this outdated composition system you have to insert commands in your text.
Jefferson had this idea that the "yeoman farmer" is the backbone of a democracy, and democracy cannot be trusted to city dwellers, because they are not self sufficient, not independent voters, their vote is controlled by those who can give them a job. A city, and urbanized population is undemocratic at its core, because of basic necessities, dependence on the elite for those basic necessities.
Jefferson's idea of the "yeoman farmer" was the slave holding Southern plantation owner, being one himself, not the moderate family farmer you might be thinking of. Jefferson was more attuned to old style feudalism than democracy.
You got one thing right. The state is evil. And by state I mean the government itself, not Wyoming per se.
If, in order to solve this problem, the liberty and freedom of the people in Wyoming to run their own lives and government needs to be sacrificed, then I will never agree with your "solution" to this problem.
If we must give our liberty in order to survive, then count me as your enemy. What good is life without liberty?
Oh and your all powerful government you require to solve this problem, if it's at all like all the all powerful governments that have come before, it'll have to destroy the environment in order to save it.
Very stirring, moving, and utter anarchist bullshit. Freedom and liberty have never been absolute rights, not even the Founders intended that extreme.
We all compromise somewhat on our liberty. That's why we build this thing called civilization instead remaining belligerent apes howling over water holes. We accept traffic lights so we don't run our cars into each other at intersections, and that pedestrians can have a reasonably safe method of crossing the street.
Your "right to do with what your own property" stops when your pollution starts causing others to sicken, or impacts the long term health of the community. Your right to free speech ends when you call in fake bomb threats or yell "fire" in a movie theater.
We are all temporary residents on this planet. Maybe your libertarian values demand that you don't give two beans for the welfare of your descendants, but they are the ones who are going to bear the consequences of our choices, for good or ill.
North polar ice is indeed diminishing. South polar ice is increasing. You phrase this as if to suggest both are melting. It is a lie. Start with an obvious lie and nothing else in your post can be taken seriously.
"Increasing" or "decreasing" mean nothing without some kind of quantity. For instance, the greenland ice sheet (arctic) is melting at a rate of 367 Gt/year between 2008 and 2012 which dwarfs antarctica's meager increase of 33Gt/year.
Anyone who thinks that the southern ice cap has been increasing must be ignoring everything that's been coming out in the news on the West Antarctic ice sheets this week.
true I guess. My only concern is that an event like this would destroy our cities, kill billions of people, and end civilizations. call my selfish but I'd rather keep things as they are, including maintaining a tight CO2/temperature band. I guess I'm a conservative in that way.
Unfortunately that ship has sailed. However we can choose to do something about how badly change is going to impact us and our descendants. Nothing we can do now is going to prevent a good deal of Antarctica's and Greenland's ice from sliding into the ocean. The only question now is whether any of that ice is going to be unmelted before the next two centuries pass. The only question is whether we're going to keep ocean rise to some level or are we just going to let the bulk of our coastal cities drown, our agriculture cycles go to heck, and pretend that we had nothing to do with it.
Exactly, it's the same kind of ridiculous region lock they put on CDs and game consoles. It's ultimately stupid, previously they were serving their ads worldwide, and now they've restricted it to the U.S. To an advertiser how exactly would this make any sense?
And of course someone will say the foreigners can't understand the ads, but then how are they understanding the shows? (one is lucky if it even has CC, much less foreign subtitles...)
The region locks are not "ridiculous". Media and goods are sold for different prices per region. If you're looking for a reason for any move made, there's usually money involved.
"This would only be true if said gun owner started taking his firearms out and handling them carelessly, which is so rare that you stand a better chance (by at least an order of magnitude) of being hit by a car driven recklessly (yet for some odd reason, no one is calling for a ban on automobiles.)" No one's calling a ban for guns either, but I don't think that you're looking to have all regulations lifted on auto safety, are you? The NRA gets into a frenzy whenever ANY regulation is brought up, or even any technology that might restrict the free use of a firearm. They're apparently in a major panic on smartguns because they assume the existence of them will lead to mandated confiscation of non-smart weapons.
A large part of illegal guns in tight control places like New York, originate from legal purchases at gun shows which are specifically exempt from the tracking and controls that would be done elsewhere. Likewise there are gun stores in Pennslyvania which are ONLY legally allowed to sell to people coming in from out of state. The problem is that loopholes like these are deliberately created to make end runs around gun control laws which show the problem of leaving this thing to the states. We need a Federally imposed standard of gun regulation which can't be circumvented by gun shows and Pennsy gun shops. We need to stop deliberately inhibiting the AFT from doing the job it's supposed to do.
They can grant or refuse licenses to operate, but they can't tell Comcast or Verizon to take a hike on the basis of net neutrality. They don't have the authority to override the FCC on these issues. People want their cable when they can get it. They certainly do not have the money to provide broadband access on their own. With a couple of exceptions most attempt to provide civic internet access have failed rather spectacularly. The Internet has entered it's inevitable evolution of becoming another public resource turned into a commercial property which has been sliced up and sold to the folks with the money for as usual pennies on the dollar. Asking on what can be done is like asking your ship's departure time when the aft lights are already fading below the horizon.
Now, since Hulu has to uphold their end of the contract, they have to keep non-Americans from watching Hulu. Thus they need to block VPNs. .
That's not accurate. You could be an American in London,and you're still not allowed to watch. You could be an illegal alien living in San Diego, and they couldn't care less. The requirement is the restriction of broadcasting, not viewership.
If they already have all that information, then why do they need to block VPNs? It seems like they could figure it out another way.
But is this just about the paid service?
Because the only reason you're using a VPN to watch Huluu is to bypass the regional restriction, which they are REQUIRED by their license terms to enforce.
Of course, you'd really need to watch the film to make a judgement, and I don't propose to pollute my eyeballs with a single photon of it.
You do realize that in that stance, you're not being any different from the Christian or any other brand of Fundamentalists, who condemn movies or other artwork sight unseen? I don't plan on seeing it either, but I also don't plan on publishing an opinion about it, one way or another.
They actually do. They try to make it somewhat scientific, and try to stretch in the same direction continuously. Warp plasma conduits do not magically do different things in different episodes; and when they do, it's usually reasonable to assume they do these things in addition to or because of a property of warp plasma conduits already established. There's a lot of stretching and head scratch, but not a lot of "oh hell no, this is retarded" going on.
Deflectors and Transporters however do seem to be the Magic McGuffins of the week quite frequently though.
Actually, I think the low point was the final episode. The idea of the Borg, a massive hive mind responsible for the destruction of hundreds of civilizations, being defeated by one fucking human woman by infecting them with some virus? What complete and utter BS. Nobody in any of the other civilizations had that idea?
You do have to remember that the overriding principle of EVERY Star Trek series, from TOS to Enterprise, is that outside of the featured ship's crew, Everyone whether in StarFleet, or the Alien of the Week, is a blithering parochial, stubborn, idiot.
It doesn't really affect the "Best Star Trek Captain" discussions (I always answer with the *vision* the creators had for the character not how it was acted)...but Kate Mulgrew is kind of a ditz
In interviews (like in The Captains film: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... ) she was clearly just doing Trek purely as a 'gig' for a paycheck...she had no personal connection to science or space whatsoever and did not see her role as a way to educate herself or broaden her horizons to improve her acting
to her it was all just "technobabble" which angers me to no end as a person who advocates for women in science...but it's her life and career so I'm not judging her choices necessarily...i just think it's unprofessional and lazy...her performance in Orange is the New Black is equally as bad, IMHO...very perfunctory
Mulgrew read the ***narration*** of the whole film...how could she do that and not know the film as about the earth being the *actual* center of the universe?
answer is in the subject line
Mulgrew is pretty spot on in her assessement of Trek. For the most part the story is ENTIRELY Trekbabble which is used either to justify some dubious plotline or to fill up some script time. And if you're going to crucify her for doing Trek simply for a paycheck, then you might as well string up Brent Spiner (who would state repeatedly that he was not a fan of the show), Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, and Alec Guiness along with her. From my book she and all these others did exactly what was expected of them, put out an acting performance. The fact that someone like Spiner did so despite his general distaste for the genre, makes me respect him that much more than some slatherly worshipping actor geek.
When you are in the acting field, unless you've such high and mighty stature, that people are constantly breaking down your door to offer you gigs, you take the work that's offered, because that's how you pay the bills. For the most part, science fiction is the curse of death to an actors career, but you take the jobs when and where they are offered.
We need to remember that these people ARE actors. They are not authorities in science, politics, or any other field. Exception: Avery Brooks is a Rutgers Art Professor with tenure, he's probably more educated than most Trek actors put together. Unlike most actors, his degrees are the real thing.
No. The Muslims tried to conquer Europe for 1000 years. They conquered much of the Roman Empire by 700AD and managed to completely wipe out Byzantium by 1100AD.
That's what the original Crusade was a response to: a distress call from what was left of Byzantium.
Bullocks. Did you know that one of the last major invasions of Byzantium was FROM a Crusade? The reason they went there? Was it idolatry?, Did they see Satan in Constantinople? No, the reason was that they needed ships from Venice to make the sea voyage to the Holy Land and the Venetians demanded the destruction of their major Mediterranean trading rival as payment. Those two lions in front of St. Peter's Basillica? That's where they came from. When the Byzantine Empire fell to the sultan who conquered it, the only thing remaining of the once great Empire, was the city with an overweight bureaucracy that had lost most of it's meaning, and a small strip of land outside it.
Muslims claim both worship the same invisible bearded man in the sky and that peace is their highest value.
FTFY. I get the feeling a lot of Christians would be offended at the suggestion.
So would the Muslims. One tenet that both Jews and Muslims agree on, is that God is not something that you chop into three parts. He is Supreme and Indivisible.
It has to be said though, Mohammed got started early. Married Aisha at 7, pregnant by age 9. Must have ejaculated insider her pretty much the first time she had her period. In the literal sense of the word he was a paedophile, a lover of children, who from historical accounts treated her fairly well, showed her affection and love and got a boner who he saw her naked pre-pubescent body.
He kept slaves, he waged wars, he was illiterate and a general douchbag in many ways. That wouldn't be such a problem if the book he dictated wasn't supposed to be the literal word of god, or if he lifestyle wasn't held up as an example of the best way to live to keep god happy. It's more of a problem than, say, the Bible which is acknowledged to be written by third parties or Jesus who generally behaved quite well.
As I recall, Mary was told by Gabriel that she would be "visited" by the Lord and would bear his child, not asked to volunteer, simply told it was going to happen. Now mind you, much like Zeus's many casual affairs, she wasn't being given a choice in the matter, and that Joseph actually seemed to care enough about her to try to deal with it quietly. By Hebrew law, Mary would have been stoned to death for having sexual relations (and becoming pregnant) out of childbirth. It takes a personal visitation by God's angels to change his mind, being essentially told. "Marry the Girl.". And don't get me started about the Old Testament. Polygamy is pretty rampant. Both Job and Solomon were said to have many wives, Solomon himself, about a hundred or so. Most people forget that the books of the Bible were written in a very different cultural and moral standard, and Christians tend to whitewash them, reading them in the context of their own particular parochial values, depending on which sect of Christianity they belong to.
Thanks for informing me of this. I used to enjoy his Ben Stein's Money show on occasion some years back, but I have now lost all respect for the man whatsoever.
Oh it goes much deeper. People tended to forget that before his acting career Stein was a speech writer for Nixon and is as right wing religious and political fundamentalist as they come. He has "moderated" atheist/religious debates that clearly showed his bias as he tries to rig the debates.
Wasn't he also one of Nixon's "Plumbers"?
The thing that struck me most was how Wesley had trouble getting a slot in the Academy despite being a Wunderkind. In a "post scarcity" world, they should have made more spots for recruits like that. Anyone interested in Starfleet should have been accommodated. Built more ships. Added a new wing to the Academy. Whatever.
The real surprise was that someone like Barclay made it at all. But then again, Trek producers never believed that logic or universe consistency should stand in the way of the latest idiotic story idea. Such as anti-matter being used as a "school project Besides the Federation didn't really live in a post scarcity world. You couldn't just shovel a lot of dirt into a replicator and come out with dilithium. And where did all that anti-matter used to fuel starships come from anyway? The only way to make anti-matter is to convert Energy into equal parts positive matter and anti-matter. Pretty much atomic power in reverse. So yes, the Federation would fight wars and even scrap it's precious Prime Directive (which for some strange reason seems only to apply to Starfleet officers) when it came to getting mineral rights on a strategic world like Capella Four.
I'm not as worried about the Nuclear waste as I am about Nuclear missiles. It would be easy to launch a series nuclear missile from the moon that could detonate over the western globe producing en EMP. They would essentially have a 12 hour window (probably more) every day to launch such an attack. I wonder what kind of counter measures we'd have against something like that.
It's statements like this that make me laugh at the appalling ignorance of the sci fi crowd. You don't have to launch the stupid thing from the moon. An Earthbound rocket could do the same. Although one rocket couldn't do it buy itself. A global EMP is not a trivial thing to set off. It really would take a massive nuclear eschange. And suppose you did such a thing? Do you think that there is anywhere on the Earth or the Moon that you could escape the consequence of the total collapse of Industrial civilization? What are you going to eat or breathe on the Moon when the supply ships stop coming?
Of course any day, the Sun might just unleash a massive coronal discharge that's actually aimed at the right spot at the right time and make all of this discussion, rather moot when it blows out every transformer on the planet. The Earth was last hit by such a discharge in the 1859 (look up "Solar storm of 1859" in Wikipedia for the curious) There weren't any transformers around to blow at that time however but it was one heck of a light show. It did blow out a lot of telegraph systems, even some of the operator keys were sparking. The real tragedy is that there are ways to protect ourselves, but it's going to take a lot of global coordination, communication, and cooperation than I'm seeing now.
This is probably the most useful article I have ever read on Slashdot.
Why? Are you planning on taking up a career in illegal drug distribution?
It's April 1st, not "jump the shark" day.
That's every other day of the year.
Government handouts are not production. Government does not produce wealth, production does. Government handouts (according to some rather famous studies) cost about $2 in production for every $1 in handouts. If you want to ruin the economy, that's the way to go. Just ask Greece and Spain for example.
We're not Greece, our situation isn't Greece, and Greece's problems don't point to a solution for any other country on the planet. Treating this country as if it were Greece would be a sure sign to ruin. .
American workers have grown in productivity with advances in technology, but their share of the wealth that they produce through their labor has been declining steadily since the early 70's. The problem has never been with the lack of wealth but it's distribution..