Look up a little utility called muBlinder. It doesn't work right now, as MS updated their WGA software just a few days ago, but give it a couple days and you can pretty much download whatever you want/need.
At the speed of light in atmosphere you mean. Not at the speed of light in a vacuum. The medium through which the photons are traveling impact their speed. Thus, your photons were traveling a little bit slower than those in this experiment.
Actually, if you fill a car with CD's and drive them from one end of the country to the other, you've got some incredible bandwidth there. The problem with that model is, most people don't want that much data at once, they want smaller amounts on a whim, and quicker. The internet is very good at providing that.
Hadn't thought of that - and now that you mention it, I have done some slipstreaming before to make a nice XP disk for myself. However, couldn't you also slipstream in the individual smaller patches? I seem to recall that being an option in one of the slipstreaming programs I used. I could be mistaken though. Ah well, good point in any case.
I wonder if there is any good reason any more to do monolithic service pack releases. I mean, if you instead just release a series of small patches as each bug or feature is squashed/added, in the end you achieve the same effect in an incrimental fashion, and your users get better overall functionality sooner rather than later. What would be the benefit of throwing a whole bunch of stuff out there all at once instead?
It takes a good deal of faith to test and question- more than it takes to simply accept. The later is refered to as blind faith- untested faith, and it's fairly weak in comparison.
If you had faith why would you test and question? It seems to me that if you were already confident of the results, then there would be no reason to attempt experiments yourself. Rather, testing and questioning requires a lack of faith to be performed objectively. This still does not show a search for truth to be a religious endeavor in any means. A puppy can seek answers about the world around itself without any idea about religion.
Well, strictly speaking, facts and evidence are unknowable to human beings, all we have is opinion. Some opinions are repeatable and can be shown to others, others aren't and cannot. But the second is no less "true" than the first to the person experiencing them. Expand your mind- and your definition of evidence- and you'll see quite a bit more.
I don't know what strange philosophical definition of the word fact you are operating under, but I'm using the scientific definition of an objective and verifyable observation. We know many facts. If something is not verifyable, then it is not repeatable, and thus we cannot ascertain whether or not it is true. Your opinion on whether or not something is true has no bearing on the actual truth of the matter, and your beliefs do not constitute evidence. For example, we could both vote on the gender of a randomly selected rabbit placed before us. What we believe about the rabbit, and how we vote, has no bearing on the rabbit's gender - it is what it is regardless of our beliefs. I'm not certain what "mind expanding" you have undertaken, or how that process was carried out, but I think I'll pass.
That's funny- because that's exactly what the peer review system is, a democracy.
The peer review system is not the truth, nor is it a democracy. It is a means of verification through objective analysis and repeatable testing - not a popularity contest.
Then why bother teaching science as eternal, unchanging fact?
Science is not and should not be taught that way. Science is not fact, it is merely a method of obtaining evidence from which we can draw conclusions. These conclusions can be wrong, which is why the scientific method requires that, in order for something to accepted as scientific, it must be repeatable and verifyable. The results, once verified, are taught as the best explanation we presently have, with certanty of the explanation dependant upon how well the explanation fits with other verified explanations and observations.
That's funny, because the whole theory of a logical fallacy is in and of itself a logical fallacy.
Not really, although your statement here is an amusing arguement from ignorance - a classical logical fallacy.
Such a tampering is not possible with a truly omniscient being, simply because it is unneccessary with an omniscient being. An omniscient being would not make a mistake to begin with to require such tampering- only a less than omniscient being would require tampering. Your view of omniscience is flawed.
In any case, the idea of an intelligent designer having omniscience requires a circular time contradiction: presupposing the existence of god or an ID, before knowledge existed, there was no knowledge at all, which means that the entity in question was unable to possess knowledge prior to its creation. Thus, we cannot have an omniscient ID, so if such an ID exists, he is necessarily less-than-omniscient, and thus, such tampering could have occurred, and we cannot trust any observations as truth.
While technically correct, this disregards certain aspects of the situation that would evolve were this to be put into practice. For example, I can't imagine that every member of the military would be on the side of the state in this - in fact, those that left may well take some of their hardware with them. Also, while an individual militia-man may not have an advantage against a soldier in terms of training and equipment, he may well have an advantage in terms of terrain and numbers. The very same tactics used by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan could easily be employed by those people, and to the same effect. A bullet from a hunting rifle is just as effective as one from an AK-47, if not more so.
But still, those are just details, and any such action would be terrible to both sides in terms of loss. And yes, you're correct, the 2nd is a bit anachronistic today. However, its what we have right now, so its what we'd have to deal with. I don't know what a good solution to this situation is, as I don't necessarily think its a good idea to allow the general civilian population to own automatic weapons and armor-piercing rounds, but neither do I want our soldiers to be underequipped. I suppose the best solution would be to have a better informed voting populace and better quality leadership in the first place so we never have to deal with a real life version of such a scenario. I'd rather not find out if my assertions above are true or not.
Do you have any other situation where information is created without intelligence? And, let's be truthful here- there's a signature in the radiation that is indeed a picture of the entire universe at a point something greater than 19 billion years in our past.
Information, much like matter and energy, cannot be created or destroyed, it merely changes state or gets reordered (with the possible exception of black holes and Hawking radiation - but this is still a subject of debate, and is a rather unique case anyways). If we're going to make this a discussion on the laws of thermodynamics, then lets include all of them shall we? And a signature in the interstellar background information that gives us an idea of the state of the universe's distant past is not necessarily the whole picture, and neither is it impervious to the effects of entropy and degradation itself. Are you trying to infer that a 19 billion year old background impression can tell us everything about the state of the universe as it was back then (the whole, closed system universe), and that we can thusly take all our current, limited observations as generalizations that apply throughout the entirety of existance? That's a bit of a stretch, I think.
Isn't it funny, though, that repeatable and falsifyable testing is in and of itself a religious tradition?
Where do you get this idea? I was always given to believe that religion had nothing to do with testing and questioning, and more about faith in certain un-testable teachings. And even if this assertion is true, it still does not necessarily follow that the process of discovery and learning is a religious or spiritual endeavor.
That depends upon what the I in your ID stands for. If it stands for INTELIGENT- no, the ID can't just "decide to plant that evidence there", because that would be an unreasonable, non-intelligent act. Certain types of Gods, certain models for God, are not compatible with ID for that reason. Which is why I think the creationists are fooling themselves- their theological construct is an Insane Diety, not an Intelligent Design.
Who is defining intelligence here? Perhaps it made perfect rational sense for the ID to do so at the time, like maybe to hide his tracks and not let knowledge of himself interfere with the development in progress. Perhaps the depth of his intelligence is so vast that we cannot hope to fathom it with our finite minds. See, when you have a poorly-defined backing for your ideas, you can rationalize pretty much anything. Even without such grand concepts as omnipotence and omniscience, you can rationalize quite a bit by simply saying we don't know - but the intelligent designer must have had a reason for doing things that way. Sounds rather familiar to an old religious phrase about working in "mysterious ways". Not to pigeon-hole your percieved designer into the same category as any number of other deities, but when you start talking about someone or something that has the capacity to create all life as we know it, then how are we to know that he wouldn't do these things for other reasons? We can't, and again, we can't test for answers, so we cannot accept this concept as science.
As am I- except for I'm protecting Philosophy in general as well. I completely agree that an Insane Diety would dilute the science, and the philosophy, so far as to make it entirely meaningless; in fact, I think that's where atheism comes from (the reaction to making science and religion meaningless).
Well, you're welcome to that opinion.
For a fundamentalist, yes, that's true. For a rational theist, no, having proof is a requirement of faith; without it faith cannot exist. The difference between science and religion is objective vs subjective proof, not the abscence of proof.
"Subjective proof"? So basically you're shooting yourself in the foot right there, as such "proof" is not based on facts or evidence, but rather on opinion. Simply because you say or
I've actually found that I get a better wattage/food pellet ratio with gerbils. Had to put them in as a temporary measure a couple years ago, but they've worked so well since we installed them that we never bothered to upgrade.
I heard of a guy in L.A. doing the same thing with ferrets, but I for one don't think I could stand the smell. Plus, the little tube-rats tend to escape and crawl under the flooring to nest, and that just raises all kinds of fire hazard issues.
The difference is in whether or not we have the means to accomplish this overthrow before the revolution, or whether we have to scramble after the fact to obtain some kind of home-made substitute that might cause as much danger to us as to the enemy.
The other half of the point of the 2nd Amendment is that the government should be AFRAID of its citizens. If they do not fear us, then they can feel free to tread all over our liberties. They can only take from us what we give them, but if those in power do not take for fear of the consequences, then the situation averted. They should fear us, and we need the right to maintain that situation.
Judging from the dubious security of the Diebold voting machines as reported on/. numerous times, I'm going to guess that it'll be the same party as President Elect Mickey Mouse, who apparantly won in a landslide write-in campaign.
Not quite - it has to both do nothing AND consume all the resources that you may or may not have (depending on whether you're observing those resources or not).
Well, actually we *do*- the universal constants and Avogadro's Balloon. It's only been about 10 years since they were discovered, we don't know what they mean yet- but since the Big Bang was by definition a closed system, such a reversal of entropy must mean something. Also, it's incorrect, or at least premature, to assume a random universe merely because we don't have the capability to measure all the variables yet.
The Big Bang is a closed system (being that in it was the release of all matter and energy [dark or otherwise] that we know of), but our observations of the universe around us do not encompass the whole of existance, so we cannot assume that we have accounted for all energy in and out of every sub-system of the larger macro-system that is the universe. As such, this "reversal of entropy" as you describe it, only encompasses a certain area of the universe that we can observe, which we cannot claim to be a closed system. Our understanding is not complete, but that is no excuse to start saying an ID was in charge. That's not just bad science, that's NON-science.
That is incorrect- this is in fact what religion is all about and always HAS been all about.
Actually, since the beginning of recorded history, religion has more been about controlling the masses through fear-mongering and hope of some kind of immortality (either of the physical or metaphysical self) "if you follow these rules". Basically, a spiritual carrot-and-stick approach. But disregarding that, science is in no way religious. Science is an attempt to explain observable phenomena through repeatable and falsifyable testing. As soon as you introduce the concept of an ID, however, you invalidate science, as you cannot test for an ID, and any evidence that you find can be invalidated "because the ID decided to plant that evidence there". Again, this is not just bad science, this is NON-science. If you wish to say that an intelligent designer exists, then the burden of proof is on YOU to demonstrate your assertion, just as I would need to show proof if I said that there was an invisible pink elephant in my cubicle. And please, don't mistake a desire for the truth for a religious zeal - I'm merely trying to maintain the integrity of science from assertions and claims that, if we were to accept them as fact, would so dilute science so as to make it meaningless.
And yes, while many scientists in the past (and present, even) were attempting to figure out the physical world through a desire based in religion, the desire to learn and discover does not need a religious influence to exist. Faith is not a prerequisite of desire to obtain the truth - in fact, having proof denies faith, quid pro quo, the two are rather at odds. Faith sits unchaging, rather immovable, while science continues to expand, change, adapt, evolve, and generally perform in allignment with any number similar verbs. The rest of your arguements are based around the flawed idea that an intelligent designer necessarily has to exist, and since I have already shown that we cannot rely scientifically on an ID, and neither can we trust anything anymore if we do accept one as fact, there is no point in refuting the rest of your statements.
You may not have any idea about this one, but I figure I'll ask anyways. In IE6, a tag was required in the html to enable standards-compliant mode (which still wasn't, but that's beside the point). Why was this not enabled by default?
GTA promotes violence.
Just like Harry Potter books promote Witchcraft.
Just like Star Wars movies promote use of the Force.
Just like Austin Powers movies promote implanting lasers on shark foreheads, and bad dental hygene.
Get a grip. Media doesn't cause bad things to happen, people do.
This is why many people that are considered "crazies" (and admittedly, many are) are of the mind that all military hardware should be available to the public.
Whether the idea of rebellion nowadays is realistic or not, the idea that people should be allowed to own guns is part of our constitution. It was put there for a reason - because the framers had just gotten done fighting a war against an oppresive regime that wanted to take away their ability to fight back! I can't speak for the founding fathers, but I imagine that they wanted to ensure that, should the US government become too much like the English one they just threw off, that the citizenry would be able to fight back. Or at least, that's what I believe, your interpretation may vary.
Oh, and it doesn't take much to stop a tank. An explosive made of household chemicals can tear apart the treads, immobilizing it. A quick trip to Lowes and Radio Shack and you could stop a battalion of tanks.
Incorrect. Millions of football fans and fantasy football players sighed upon news of Roethlisberger's motorcycle accident, either in relief or exasperation. All that additional hot CO2 released into the atmosphere is dangerous, dammit!
Slashdot Mirror
I believe that particular exercise falls into the realm of math and linguistics. Unless its in Fortran.
Well if you look around you can find other sites hosting it - although without an MD5 I wouldn't be as quick to trust it from elsewhere.
Look up a little utility called muBlinder. It doesn't work right now, as MS updated their WGA software just a few days ago, but give it a couple days and you can pretty much download whatever you want/need.
At the speed of light in atmosphere you mean. Not at the speed of light in a vacuum. The medium through which the photons are traveling impact their speed. Thus, your photons were traveling a little bit slower than those in this experiment.
You are nerd
Um, hello? Slashdot?
In short, he's proposing that Linux disks ship with:
Or maybe I'm overthinking this one.
Actually, if you fill a car with CD's and drive them from one end of the country to the other, you've got some incredible bandwidth there. The problem with that model is, most people don't want that much data at once, they want smaller amounts on a whim, and quicker. The internet is very good at providing that.
I can see it now, the GoldenPalace.com Space Telescope!
Hadn't thought of that - and now that you mention it, I have done some slipstreaming before to make a nice XP disk for myself. However, couldn't you also slipstream in the individual smaller patches? I seem to recall that being an option in one of the slipstreaming programs I used. I could be mistaken though. Ah well, good point in any case.
I wonder if there is any good reason any more to do monolithic service pack releases. I mean, if you instead just release a series of small patches as each bug or feature is squashed/added, in the end you achieve the same effect in an incrimental fashion, and your users get better overall functionality sooner rather than later. What would be the benefit of throwing a whole bunch of stuff out there all at once instead?
It takes a good deal of faith to test and question- more than it takes to simply accept. The later is refered to as blind faith- untested faith, and it's fairly weak in comparison.
If you had faith why would you test and question? It seems to me that if you were already confident of the results, then there would be no reason to attempt experiments yourself. Rather, testing and questioning requires a lack of faith to be performed objectively. This still does not show a search for truth to be a religious endeavor in any means. A puppy can seek answers about the world around itself without any idea about religion.
Well, strictly speaking, facts and evidence are unknowable to human beings, all we have is opinion. Some opinions are repeatable and can be shown to others, others aren't and cannot. But the second is no less "true" than the first to the person experiencing them. Expand your mind- and your definition of evidence- and you'll see quite a bit more.
I don't know what strange philosophical definition of the word fact you are operating under, but I'm using the scientific definition of an objective and verifyable observation. We know many facts. If something is not verifyable, then it is not repeatable, and thus we cannot ascertain whether or not it is true. Your opinion on whether or not something is true has no bearing on the actual truth of the matter, and your beliefs do not constitute evidence. For example, we could both vote on the gender of a randomly selected rabbit placed before us. What we believe about the rabbit, and how we vote, has no bearing on the rabbit's gender - it is what it is regardless of our beliefs. I'm not certain what "mind expanding" you have undertaken, or how that process was carried out, but I think I'll pass.
That's funny- because that's exactly what the peer review system is, a democracy.
The peer review system is not the truth, nor is it a democracy. It is a means of verification through objective analysis and repeatable testing - not a popularity contest.
Then why bother teaching science as eternal, unchanging fact?
Science is not and should not be taught that way. Science is not fact, it is merely a method of obtaining evidence from which we can draw conclusions. These conclusions can be wrong, which is why the scientific method requires that, in order for something to accepted as scientific, it must be repeatable and verifyable. The results, once verified, are taught as the best explanation we presently have, with certanty of the explanation dependant upon how well the explanation fits with other verified explanations and observations.
That's funny, because the whole theory of a logical fallacy is in and of itself a logical fallacy.
Not really, although your statement here is an amusing arguement from ignorance - a classical logical fallacy.
Such a tampering is not possible with a truly omniscient being, simply because it is unneccessary with an omniscient being. An omniscient being would not make a mistake to begin with to require such tampering- only a less than omniscient being would require tampering. Your view of omniscience is flawed.
In any case, the idea of an intelligent designer having omniscience requires a circular time contradiction: presupposing the existence of god or an ID, before knowledge existed, there was no knowledge at all, which means that the entity in question was unable to possess knowledge prior to its creation. Thus, we cannot have an omniscient ID, so if such an ID exists, he is necessarily less-than-omniscient, and thus, such tampering could have occurred, and we cannot trust any observations as truth.
While technically correct, this disregards certain aspects of the situation that would evolve were this to be put into practice. For example, I can't imagine that every member of the military would be on the side of the state in this - in fact, those that left may well take some of their hardware with them. Also, while an individual militia-man may not have an advantage against a soldier in terms of training and equipment, he may well have an advantage in terms of terrain and numbers. The very same tactics used by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan could easily be employed by those people, and to the same effect. A bullet from a hunting rifle is just as effective as one from an AK-47, if not more so.
But still, those are just details, and any such action would be terrible to both sides in terms of loss. And yes, you're correct, the 2nd is a bit anachronistic today. However, its what we have right now, so its what we'd have to deal with. I don't know what a good solution to this situation is, as I don't necessarily think its a good idea to allow the general civilian population to own automatic weapons and armor-piercing rounds, but neither do I want our soldiers to be underequipped. I suppose the best solution would be to have a better informed voting populace and better quality leadership in the first place so we never have to deal with a real life version of such a scenario. I'd rather not find out if my assertions above are true or not.
Do you have any other situation where information is created without intelligence? And, let's be truthful here- there's a signature in the radiation that is indeed a picture of the entire universe at a point something greater than 19 billion years in our past.
Information, much like matter and energy, cannot be created or destroyed, it merely changes state or gets reordered (with the possible exception of black holes and Hawking radiation - but this is still a subject of debate, and is a rather unique case anyways). If we're going to make this a discussion on the laws of thermodynamics, then lets include all of them shall we? And a signature in the interstellar background information that gives us an idea of the state of the universe's distant past is not necessarily the whole picture, and neither is it impervious to the effects of entropy and degradation itself. Are you trying to infer that a 19 billion year old background impression can tell us everything about the state of the universe as it was back then (the whole, closed system universe), and that we can thusly take all our current, limited observations as generalizations that apply throughout the entirety of existance? That's a bit of a stretch, I think.
Isn't it funny, though, that repeatable and falsifyable testing is in and of itself a religious tradition?
Where do you get this idea? I was always given to believe that religion had nothing to do with testing and questioning, and more about faith in certain un-testable teachings. And even if this assertion is true, it still does not necessarily follow that the process of discovery and learning is a religious or spiritual endeavor.
That depends upon what the I in your ID stands for. If it stands for INTELIGENT- no, the ID can't just "decide to plant that evidence there", because that would be an unreasonable, non-intelligent act. Certain types of Gods, certain models for God, are not compatible with ID for that reason. Which is why I think the creationists are fooling themselves- their theological construct is an Insane Diety, not an Intelligent Design.
Who is defining intelligence here? Perhaps it made perfect rational sense for the ID to do so at the time, like maybe to hide his tracks and not let knowledge of himself interfere with the development in progress. Perhaps the depth of his intelligence is so vast that we cannot hope to fathom it with our finite minds. See, when you have a poorly-defined backing for your ideas, you can rationalize pretty much anything. Even without such grand concepts as omnipotence and omniscience, you can rationalize quite a bit by simply saying we don't know - but the intelligent designer must have had a reason for doing things that way. Sounds rather familiar to an old religious phrase about working in "mysterious ways". Not to pigeon-hole your percieved designer into the same category as any number of other deities, but when you start talking about someone or something that has the capacity to create all life as we know it, then how are we to know that he wouldn't do these things for other reasons? We can't, and again, we can't test for answers, so we cannot accept this concept as science.
As am I- except for I'm protecting Philosophy in general as well. I completely agree that an Insane Diety would dilute the science, and the philosophy, so far as to make it entirely meaningless; in fact, I think that's where atheism comes from (the reaction to making science and religion meaningless).
Well, you're welcome to that opinion.
For a fundamentalist, yes, that's true. For a rational theist, no, having proof is a requirement of faith; without it faith cannot exist. The difference between science and religion is objective vs subjective proof, not the abscence of proof.
"Subjective proof"? So basically you're shooting yourself in the foot right there, as such "proof" is not based on facts or evidence, but rather on opinion. Simply because you say or
I've actually found that I get a better wattage/food pellet ratio with gerbils. Had to put them in as a temporary measure a couple years ago, but they've worked so well since we installed them that we never bothered to upgrade.
I heard of a guy in L.A. doing the same thing with ferrets, but I for one don't think I could stand the smell. Plus, the little tube-rats tend to escape and crawl under the flooring to nest, and that just raises all kinds of fire hazard issues.
The difference is in whether or not we have the means to accomplish this overthrow before the revolution, or whether we have to scramble after the fact to obtain some kind of home-made substitute that might cause as much danger to us as to the enemy.
The other half of the point of the 2nd Amendment is that the government should be AFRAID of its citizens. If they do not fear us, then they can feel free to tread all over our liberties. They can only take from us what we give them, but if those in power do not take for fear of the consequences, then the situation averted. They should fear us, and we need the right to maintain that situation.
Judging from the dubious security of the Diebold voting machines as reported on /. numerous times, I'm going to guess that it'll be the same party as President Elect Mickey Mouse, who apparantly won in a landslide write-in campaign.
Not quite - it has to both do nothing AND consume all the resources that you may or may not have (depending on whether you're observing those resources or not).
Well, actually we *do*- the universal constants and Avogadro's Balloon. It's only been about 10 years since they were discovered, we don't know what they mean yet- but since the Big Bang was by definition a closed system, such a reversal of entropy must mean something. Also, it's incorrect, or at least premature, to assume a random universe merely because we don't have the capability to measure all the variables yet.
The Big Bang is a closed system (being that in it was the release of all matter and energy [dark or otherwise] that we know of), but our observations of the universe around us do not encompass the whole of existance, so we cannot assume that we have accounted for all energy in and out of every sub-system of the larger macro-system that is the universe. As such, this "reversal of entropy" as you describe it, only encompasses a certain area of the universe that we can observe, which we cannot claim to be a closed system. Our understanding is not complete, but that is no excuse to start saying an ID was in charge. That's not just bad science, that's NON-science.
That is incorrect- this is in fact what religion is all about and always HAS been all about.
Actually, since the beginning of recorded history, religion has more been about controlling the masses through fear-mongering and hope of some kind of immortality (either of the physical or metaphysical self) "if you follow these rules". Basically, a spiritual carrot-and-stick approach. But disregarding that, science is in no way religious. Science is an attempt to explain observable phenomena through repeatable and falsifyable testing. As soon as you introduce the concept of an ID, however, you invalidate science, as you cannot test for an ID, and any evidence that you find can be invalidated "because the ID decided to plant that evidence there". Again, this is not just bad science, this is NON-science. If you wish to say that an intelligent designer exists, then the burden of proof is on YOU to demonstrate your assertion, just as I would need to show proof if I said that there was an invisible pink elephant in my cubicle. And please, don't mistake a desire for the truth for a religious zeal - I'm merely trying to maintain the integrity of science from assertions and claims that, if we were to accept them as fact, would so dilute science so as to make it meaningless.
And yes, while many scientists in the past (and present, even) were attempting to figure out the physical world through a desire based in religion, the desire to learn and discover does not need a religious influence to exist. Faith is not a prerequisite of desire to obtain the truth - in fact, having proof denies faith, quid pro quo, the two are rather at odds. Faith sits unchaging, rather immovable, while science continues to expand, change, adapt, evolve, and generally perform in allignment with any number similar verbs. The rest of your arguements are based around the flawed idea that an intelligent designer necessarily has to exist, and since I have already shown that we cannot rely scientifically on an ID, and neither can we trust anything anymore if we do accept one as fact, there is no point in refuting the rest of your statements.
I think this was mentioned in Naruto a few times, when Tsunade was using her chakra to heal herself after being horribly wounded by Orochimaru.
You may not have any idea about this one, but I figure I'll ask anyways. In IE6, a tag was required in the html to enable standards-compliant mode (which still wasn't, but that's beside the point). Why was this not enabled by default?
True, but in a situation where such explosives would be necessary, its unlikely that we would be worried about the law anyways.
GTA promotes violence.
Just like Harry Potter books promote Witchcraft.
Just like Star Wars movies promote use of the Force.
Just like Austin Powers movies promote implanting lasers on shark foreheads, and bad dental hygene.
Get a grip. Media doesn't cause bad things to happen, people do.
This is why many people that are considered "crazies" (and admittedly, many are) are of the mind that all military hardware should be available to the public.
Whether the idea of rebellion nowadays is realistic or not, the idea that people should be allowed to own guns is part of our constitution. It was put there for a reason - because the framers had just gotten done fighting a war against an oppresive regime that wanted to take away their ability to fight back! I can't speak for the founding fathers, but I imagine that they wanted to ensure that, should the US government become too much like the English one they just threw off, that the citizenry would be able to fight back. Or at least, that's what I believe, your interpretation may vary.
Oh, and it doesn't take much to stop a tank. An explosive made of household chemicals can tear apart the treads, immobilizing it. A quick trip to Lowes and Radio Shack and you could stop a battalion of tanks.
Well, if nothing else, college classes would get a little more interesting if the prefessor's slideshow suddenly turned into a stag reel...
Incorrect. Millions of football fans and fantasy football players sighed upon news of Roethlisberger's motorcycle accident, either in relief or exasperation. All that additional hot CO2 released into the atmosphere is dangerous, dammit!