Google for Emmanuel Schools Foundation and Sir Peter Vardy and you'll find exactly who IS promoting creationism (the young-earth super Bullshit® variety).
And our government is completely complacent in it due to the fact that the ESF are doing it via Nu Labour's voluntary assisted City Academy programme. Because they want to promote this funding model, they are ignoring the abuse of the system.
There may not be a very high barrier to entry, but we, the geekbloggers, still have all the cool toys to play with: XML-RPC, TrackBack, Feedburner, OPML and so on. I can see it being a little while before the newbies get the hang of them, especially as it is difficult enough for them to form a coherent sentence.
That said, it's the Internet dammit. If I don't like reading someone's weblog, I simply don't read it. Until somebody comes round and forces me to put mediocre LiveJournals in to my RSS reader, I don't really give a shit. Knock yourself out kids.
The Co-op one is like that. But check out the Safeway one. I think it's points based, and you can ask them to give you a discount then and there. It's all academic to me though, since I don't do the shopping any more (the joys of the parental home)
1. Somebody is taking my money and forcing me to carry a card. I would prefer it if they asked me whether I wanted to pay for a card, and offered me one at a reasonable price. Stealing my money to pay for something I don't want is theft.
2. I don't trust the government. Look at the railways, education system, health care system, roads, buses, social services, police, court system etc. It's all a gigantic fuck up. I don't want to carry a piece of plastic representing that enormous fuck up in my wallet.
3. Because there are security concerns. In Britain currently, there are about four pieces of ID you get. Firstly, an NHS card. This entitles you access to being registered on a doctor's rolls. You carry the card in, fill in a chunk of it, hand it to your doctor and they put you on their rolls. Now, if you are a relatively healthy 19-year-old, you can plonk your NHS card out of sight. I keep mine in a little box by the telephone. If I need to go to the doctor, I'll hunt it out. But, under this new scheme I will have to carry it around with me. If the card gets stolen, and I suddenly need to go to hospital, it will be an inconvenience. Wheras, under the current system, if I need to go to hospital, I know exactly where the card is. Similarly with driving licences. The current paper ones, you can put in a little box and keep them out of sight. As for the photocard, well, you can keep it with it, or you can carry it with you. I carry mine with me, but that's mostly because I'm a Learner driver. Once (if) I pass my test, I will probably leave it at home, since you are generally given seven days to present it to the police if questioned. With the seperate identity system, it provides a check against crime. If somebody steals the one ID card, then you are ID-less and unable to prove who you are. If somebody steals just one element of your different IDs - say, they get your credit card, but not your driving licence or they get your passport but not your NHS card - you still have a method to prove who you are in order to get your other ID card cancelled. You can still show your driving licence if your passport gets stolen. Sure, you won't be able to go abroad. But it'll be useful in order to prove to the Passports people that you are who you say you are.
4. A while back Blair stated that the cards will not infringe civil liberties but will also be effective against crime. My response: you can't have your cake and eat it. Either it will infringe civil liberties and be effective against crime or it will not infringe civil liberties and will not be effective against crime. If the latter is true, why on earth are we going to pay for it? If the former is true, then I object on the grounds of infringing civil liberties.
5. There is no evidence that they will do anything useful. We've had lots of spin and rhetoric (typical), but no evidence that these cards will aid in any crime fighting whether it's terrorism or drugs or money laundering or petty crime or identity theft or illegal immigration. The onus is on the government to prove that these cards will be useful. So far they haven't done so.
6. One should double or triple the projected price of the thing. The government says it's going to be £70. Double it. That's how much it's REALLY going to cost. If not a lot more. Hidden costs and all.
7. Currently the government's power is limited by the fact that it is split up in to numerous agencies. The health department can only deal with hospitals, and your interaction with them is kept completely seperate from the IR (inland revenue) organisation or from the schools system or whatever. This scheme will merge all the various organisational identity databases together. Suddenly, the health department could theoretically peer in to your tax records or the social security department could be looking at your kids' school record. That will create loads of opportunity for fraud and so on.
Either marriage is a GOVERNMENT issue - in which case it is subject to the laws of the government - equal protection (14th Amendment) etc. - or it is a RELIGIOUS issue, in which case the government must revoke any benefits granted to that marriage and let each individual church and religious group create their own meaning for marriage. You cannot have it both ways since the First Amendment creates a wall of seperation between church and state.
Abstinence is not a birth control method. Let's define a method's effectiveness based on the following criteria: p = number of times that user had sex q = number of times that sex led to conception. q/p = effectiveness%
With abstinence, p = 0 (since the person is abstaining) and q = 0 (since the abstainer does not have sex, they can not concieve). What's zero divided by zero? Does not compute. It's void. Null. You can't divide zero by zero.
r = number of times that STI's were transmitted via intercourse r/p = STI prevention effectiveness% Also zero divided by zero.
Once p != 0, it is no longer abstinence and since you aren't using any kind of proper birth control, you are at higher risk of conception.
Also, the problem with the symptothermal method (and natural birth control in general) is equally simple - it may prevent conception but it does nothing to prevent transmission STI's. While there may be problems with barrier methods, they are good at both prevention of unwanted conception and also at preventing transmissions of STI's. That, combined with easy access to things like the 'morning-after' Pill and easy access to pregnancy tests are the best way to ensure that unwanted conceptions don't take place, as well as keeping the shockingly high STI transmission rates.
Still, at least you can get the footage from them via the Data Protection Act 1998. It's brilliant. If everyone tommorow sent in a request for all the CCTV footage of them everywhere they go, it would completely cripple both the private and public sector. Three days a week I travel to London and go from Charing Cross station down to Embankment station (sometimes I go to Cannon Street instead) then take the Circle Line to High Street Kensington then walk to college. In the evening, I do the reverse. Every time I do this, I make a note of the time and date, so I can send a DPA request to the City of Westminster council, the London Borough of Kensington council, Railtrack (or whatever the fuck they are now called - the people who own the train stations) and London Transport (who own the tube stations). Plus any private businesses which I walk past (and there are a few of them). By Christmas, I should have a list which will force them to spend hours hunting out all the footage they have of me because they run the risk of a complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner.
If everybody who went through central London, or any town centre or railway station for that matter, made a big fat DPA complaint every so often regarding CCTV footage, it would become uneconomical for them to have CCTV.
I "could care less" about the dangers of the USA PATRIOT Act. But I don't. I think the USA PATRIOT Act is repulsive. Now, if it wasn't, it would be a case of "couldn't care les".
Rule one: get a good commentary. Preferably access to a few of them. Rule two: get some good translations.
As much as evolutionists bitch about creationists taking them out of context, that's nothing when compared with the possibilities of mis-quoting and mis-interpreting the Bible.
Damn right. That reminds me of my first day in Ethics (I'm a phil student) where the teacher stated up front that... 1. I'm a Christian. 2. The Bible is about the most useless piece of crap for drawing moral conclusions from.
I've just read Stephen Jay Gould's Rock of Ages book, which proposes the NOMA theory - non-overlapping magisteria. This is precisely what you are stating. Science deals with some questions and religion deals with other questions. Of course, if you are not religious, there are also ways of looking at those questions.
Also, it's worth checking out Michael Ruse's "Can a Darwinian be a Christian?" where he looks in more detail and states quite emphatically that Yes, Darwinism and Christianity are completely compatible.
Lower yourself down from the vent shaft to meet the DARPA Chief, Donald Anderson. After a few minutes of discussion, the Chief dies. Fortunately, he gives you his keycard which opens Level 1 doors. When equipped it works through your body's Personal Area Network.
I'm thinking the guys who designed this jacket are big time MGS fans. But, while we are on clothing, I'm thinking that the stealth suit would kick the ass of SCOTTeVEST's stuff any day of the week. Maybe that and a nice Bandana. Mmm. Infinite ammo.
If I pay as much for a movie ticket as I generally have to, I am not a consumer but a customer. It better be worth the money I pay, or I'll walk out and demand my money back from the establishment.
You say incompetence like it's a bad thing. When the only other option is out-and-out evil, I'd vote for incompetence any day in the same way I'd rather use software that bugged me with adware than software that deleted all my files in one fell swoop.
Re:The really scary part of Doom 3
on
Life After Doom
·
· Score: 1
1. In Soviet Russia, a Beowulf clusters you with hot grits, Darl McBride and Natalie Portman! 2. All your base are belong to us! You are on the way to destruction! You have no chance to survive! Make your time! 3. ??? 4. PROFIT!!!
Now, with that done, Slashdot can move on and start posting new jokes. As long as "yo momma" jokes aren't part of that, I'll sleep comfortably at night.
Obligatory link: BBC Western Highlands and Islands blogging - yep, they wired up a Scottish island with internet and taught all the residents to run weblogs. At NotCon in London there was a speech by the guy who runs it - Videos / MP3s etc.
Accuracy is only a problem if you place blind faith in what you read. Which means that 99% of people have a problem. Just look at creationists and Microsoft apologisers...
I wish the government saw the kind of crap that goes on in my local library. It generally involves replacing any books with Windows boxen running old unpatched copies of Internet Explorer 4. Not to mention VHS'es of Disney movies and disgusting gutted versions of literature.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see it now: "You can't flame me, I'm already incinerated."
Actually, having seen the trollpit that Kuro5hin has turned in to, I don't think we want zombie-trolls - the live ones are bad enough.
Seriously though, I was rather touched to find Douglas Adams' SETI@Home account page a while back with results flowing back from his Mac.
Google for Emmanuel Schools Foundation and Sir Peter Vardy and you'll find exactly who IS promoting creationism (the young-earth super Bullshit® variety).
And our government is completely complacent in it due to the fact that the ESF are doing it via Nu Labour's voluntary assisted City Academy programme. Because they want to promote this funding model, they are ignoring the abuse of the system.
There may not be a very high barrier to entry, but we, the geekbloggers, still have all the cool toys to play with: XML-RPC, TrackBack, Feedburner, OPML and so on. I can see it being a little while before the newbies get the hang of them, especially as it is difficult enough for them to form a coherent sentence.
That said, it's the Internet dammit. If I don't like reading someone's weblog, I simply don't read it. Until somebody comes round and forces me to put mediocre LiveJournals in to my RSS reader, I don't really give a shit. Knock yourself out kids.
The Co-op one is like that. But check out the Safeway one. I think it's points based, and you can ask them to give you a discount then and there. It's all academic to me though, since I don't do the shopping any more (the joys of the parental home)
1. Somebody is taking my money and forcing me to carry a card. I would prefer it if they asked me whether I wanted to pay for a card, and offered me one at a reasonable price. Stealing my money to pay for something I don't want is theft.
2. I don't trust the government. Look at the railways, education system, health care system, roads, buses, social services, police, court system etc. It's all a gigantic fuck up. I don't want to carry a piece of plastic representing that enormous fuck up in my wallet.
3. Because there are security concerns. In Britain currently, there are about four pieces of ID you get. Firstly, an NHS card. This entitles you access to being registered on a doctor's rolls. You carry the card in, fill in a chunk of it, hand it to your doctor and they put you on their rolls. Now, if you are a relatively healthy 19-year-old, you can plonk your NHS card out of sight. I keep mine in a little box by the telephone. If I need to go to the doctor, I'll hunt it out. But, under this new scheme I will have to carry it around with me. If the card gets stolen, and I suddenly need to go to hospital, it will be an inconvenience. Wheras, under the current system, if I need to go to hospital, I know exactly where the card is. Similarly with driving licences. The current paper ones, you can put in a little box and keep them out of sight. As for the photocard, well, you can keep it with it, or you can carry it with you. I carry mine with me, but that's mostly because I'm a Learner driver. Once (if) I pass my test, I will probably leave it at home, since you are generally given seven days to present it to the police if questioned. With the seperate identity system, it provides a check against crime. If somebody steals the one ID card, then you are ID-less and unable to prove who you are. If somebody steals just one element of your different IDs - say, they get your credit card, but not your driving licence or they get your passport but not your NHS card - you still have a method to prove who you are in order to get your other ID card cancelled. You can still show your driving licence if your passport gets stolen. Sure, you won't be able to go abroad. But it'll be useful in order to prove to the Passports people that you are who you say you are.
4. A while back Blair stated that the cards will not infringe civil liberties but will also be effective against crime. My response: you can't have your cake and eat it. Either it will infringe civil liberties and be effective against crime or it will not infringe civil liberties and will not be effective against crime. If the latter is true, why on earth are we going to pay for it? If the former is true, then I object on the grounds of infringing civil liberties.
5. There is no evidence that they will do anything useful. We've had lots of spin and rhetoric (typical), but no evidence that these cards will aid in any crime fighting whether it's terrorism or drugs or money laundering or petty crime or identity theft or illegal immigration. The onus is on the government to prove that these cards will be useful. So far they haven't done so.
6. One should double or triple the projected price of the thing. The government says it's going to be £70. Double it. That's how much it's REALLY going to cost. If not a lot more. Hidden costs and all.
7. Currently the government's power is limited by the fact that it is split up in to numerous agencies. The health department can only deal with hospitals, and your interaction with them is kept completely seperate from the IR (inland revenue) organisation or from the schools system or whatever. This scheme will merge all the various organisational identity databases together. Suddenly, the health department could theoretically peer in to your tax records or the social security department could be looking at your kids' school record. That will create loads of opportunity for fraud and so on.
8. During the consultation, a large amount of sub
Either marriage is a GOVERNMENT issue - in which case it is subject to the laws of the government - equal protection (14th Amendment) etc. - or it is a RELIGIOUS issue, in which case the government must revoke any benefits granted to that marriage and let each individual church and religious group create their own meaning for marriage. You cannot have it both ways since the First Amendment creates a wall of seperation between church and state.
"The only 100% effective method is abstinence"
Abstinence is not a birth control method. Let's define a method's effectiveness based on the following criteria:
p = number of times that user had sex
q = number of times that sex led to conception.
q/p = effectiveness%
With abstinence, p = 0 (since the person is abstaining) and q = 0 (since the abstainer does not have sex, they can not concieve). What's zero divided by zero? Does not compute. It's void. Null. You can't divide zero by zero.
r = number of times that STI's were transmitted via intercourse
r/p = STI prevention effectiveness%
Also zero divided by zero.
Once p != 0, it is no longer abstinence and since you aren't using any kind of proper birth control, you are at higher risk of conception.
Also, the problem with the symptothermal method (and natural birth control in general) is equally simple - it may prevent conception but it does nothing to prevent transmission STI's. While there may be problems with barrier methods, they are good at both prevention of unwanted conception and also at preventing transmissions of STI's. That, combined with easy access to things like the 'morning-after' Pill and easy access to pregnancy tests are the best way to ensure that unwanted conceptions don't take place, as well as keeping the shockingly high STI transmission rates.
Still, at least you can get the footage from them via the Data Protection Act 1998. It's brilliant. If everyone tommorow sent in a request for all the CCTV footage of them everywhere they go, it would completely cripple both the private and public sector. Three days a week I travel to London and go from Charing Cross station down to Embankment station (sometimes I go to Cannon Street instead) then take the Circle Line to High Street Kensington then walk to college. In the evening, I do the reverse. Every time I do this, I make a note of the time and date, so I can send a DPA request to the City of Westminster council, the London Borough of Kensington council, Railtrack (or whatever the fuck they are now called - the people who own the train stations) and London Transport (who own the tube stations). Plus any private businesses which I walk past (and there are a few of them). By Christmas, I should have a list which will force them to spend hours hunting out all the footage they have of me because they run the risk of a complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner.
If everybody who went through central London, or any town centre or railway station for that matter, made a big fat DPA complaint every so often regarding CCTV footage, it would become uneconomical for them to have CCTV.
I "could care less" about the dangers of the USA PATRIOT Act. But I don't. I think the USA PATRIOT Act is repulsive. Now, if it wasn't, it would be a case of "couldn't care les".
"I could care less" is illogical and stupid.
Then again, I'm not a Justice.
This guy is though
Exactly.
Rule one: get a good commentary. Preferably access to a few of them.
Rule two: get some good translations.
As much as evolutionists bitch about creationists taking them out of context, that's nothing when compared with the possibilities of mis-quoting and mis-interpreting the Bible.
Damn right. That reminds me of my first day in Ethics (I'm a phil student) where the teacher stated up front that...
1. I'm a Christian.
2. The Bible is about the most useless piece of crap for drawing moral conclusions from.
I've just read Stephen Jay Gould's Rock of Ages book, which proposes the NOMA theory - non-overlapping magisteria. This is precisely what you are stating. Science deals with some questions and religion deals with other questions. Of course, if you are not religious, there are also ways of looking at those questions.
Also, it's worth checking out Michael Ruse's "Can a Darwinian be a Christian?" where he looks in more detail and states quite emphatically that Yes, Darwinism and Christianity are completely compatible.
Lower yourself down from the vent shaft to meet the DARPA Chief, Donald Anderson. After a few minutes of discussion, the Chief dies. Fortunately, he gives you his keycard which opens Level 1 doors. When equipped it works through your body's Personal Area Network.
I'm thinking the guys who designed this jacket are big time MGS fans. But, while we are on clothing, I'm thinking that the stealth suit would kick the ass of SCOTTeVEST's stuff any day of the week. Maybe that and a nice Bandana. Mmm. Infinite ammo.
s/consumers/customers
If I pay as much for a movie ticket as I generally have to, I am not a consumer but a customer. It better be worth the money I pay, or I'll walk out and demand my money back from the establishment.
You say incompetence like it's a bad thing. When the only other option is out-and-out evil, I'd vote for incompetence any day in the same way I'd rather use software that bugged me with adware than software that deleted all my files in one fell swoop.
Super Mario Brothers. No, wait...
Don't you mean:
1. In Soviet Russia, a Beowulf clusters you with hot grits, Darl McBride and Natalie Portman!
2. All your base are belong to us! You are on the way to destruction! You have no chance to survive! Make your time!
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!!
Now, with that done, Slashdot can move on and start posting new jokes. As long as "yo momma" jokes aren't part of that, I'll sleep comfortably at night.
Or you could fuck all that and use BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era). Damn theists messin' with our calendaring.
Or you could use BUE (Before Unix Era) and UE (Unix Era) - basing it on Jan 1 1970 (the Unix epoch).
Obligatory link: BBC Western Highlands and Islands blogging - yep, they wired up a Scottish island with internet and taught all the residents to run weblogs. At NotCon in London there was a speech by the guy who runs it - Videos / MP3s etc.
"those evil internet pirates"
Are you telling me that I can get DSL out on the high seas while I'm robbing and plundering?
Anyway, thanks, angry letter to Member of Parliament is on it's way.
Accuracy is only a problem if you place blind faith in what you read. Which means that 99% of people have a problem. Just look at creationists and Microsoft apologisers...
Best. Comment. Ever.
But authors [can't afford to eat|can't afford to eat anything but Ramen] (delete as appropriate).
I wish the government saw the kind of crap that goes on in my local library. It generally involves replacing any books with Windows boxen running old unpatched copies of Internet Explorer 4. Not to mention VHS'es of Disney movies and disgusting gutted versions of literature.
That as may be, but it's only on the Internet where people can trick you in to thinking that your own urine is good for you.