Apparently you have a tenuous grasp of English in general and hyperbole in particular.
Check.
Incoherent rhetoric?
I wasn't disputing the CO2 or the heat. My point was that there is not enough data from which to draw a good conclusion. I was addressing a political debate.
Check.
Ignorance of the facts that can only be willful?
But then again, the sky is falling isn't it? It can't possibly be that hard to fix the climate.
Check
.I could try to engage you on the issues, but, it seems to me that you're either a shill for the petrochemical industry (the bit about a "catastrophic solution" was a nice touch), terminally dumb, or a plain old troll. So any way you cut it, saying anything more would be a bit of a waste of time.
No, you should always be balanced. Balanced, as it relates to politics, means that BOTH sides could either be lying or wrong. Last time I checked, not a whole lot has been PROVEN about global warming. Or maybe I'm wrong and we can model the entire atmosphere now?
So, by your reasoning, every time the media runs a story about a satelite in orbit, they should also have someone from the Flat-Earth Society on for balance? We might not be able to model the entire atmosphere, but our thermometers work pretty well. Global Warming is a fact: things are getting hotter.
As for modeling: asking to model the entire atmosphere before you accept a global warming explanation implicating CO2 levels is like asking for a model of every particle in the solar system before you accept a model of planetary mechanics that implicates gravity. Using the word 'PROVEN' in big letters like that shows that you don't have a strong grip on how science works, or how good public policy is made. Science (and this holds in both Popper's and Kuhn's account) is inherently provisional, and doesn't admit anything resembling capital-P proof, let alone the all-capitalized proof you want.
And as far as public policy goes, when the potential consequences are so catastrophic, and when the system has such a lag in it, it's irresponsible to quibble over absolute proof: by the time the proof comes in, it'll likely be too late to do anything. Good public policy manages risks, and with climate change, the risks involved with twidding our thumbs while we wait for enough evidence to satisfy petrochemical executives are simply too high. There's a clear scientific consensus on the issue. That's all the balance that we need.
Unlike Xerox, GE, IBM, Ford Motors, Halliburton (what the fuck?) and, yes, Apple, Jesus doesn't have a Class A NetBlock. Plus, alongside seemingly half of the Fortune 500, Apple has it's backend provided by Akamai, and frankly, that sort of setup wouldn't ever need resurrection, because it'd never go down.
However, Jesus does have the edge in RFC 2629: Delivery of Packets via Archangel and Shepherd.
3. because it's a common car and the parts are easy to sell
My point still holds: if your car is common, and thus readily available to theives, if you make it even marginally less attractive, the thief will just move on to the next one.
because someone really wants it (luxury cars, SUVs, whatever), or
because it's available.
The late-model Hondas and Toyotas that are most commonly stolen fall into the second category. So put a club on one of them, and the thief moves on to its identical, unprotected, neighbour.
Does the club stop theft? Of course not, for the reasons that you state above. Does the club deter theives? Absolutely. All other things being equal, a thief is more likely to go after the car without a club than the car with the club sitting next to it. If that's worth $15 to you, then go for it. I think you can get your insurance knocked down by using it as well. It's not he be-all and end-all, but it works surprisingly well.
If the guy really wants your car, the club won't stop him: so if you own a Hummer or a Porsche or something, you should probably take additional anti-theft measures. But if you have a car that isn't an obvious target (and that's most cars on the road), like you say, the guys going to move on when he sees the club.
[To] libertarian Republicans . . . Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to fall generally into this category, and for the most part, so would I . . . some environmental laws (against toxic waste dumping in rivers, for instance) are OK, seen as necessary evils. (Emphasis added)
Laws against dumping toxic waste in rivers are evil? So let me get this straight: lying and fraud are morally wrong, and should be regulated because they undermine the smooth functioning of the market, but regulation of mass-poisoining by dumping toxins into systems like rivers that by their very nature can't be constained by property boundaries is evil? That rivals Soviet communism in moronic adhesion to ideology.
. ..of the CA govn't, [the governor] is part of the executive branch, [the attorney general] is part of the judiciary
Nope, they're both part of the executive: the judicial branch refers to judges, and the AG is the head lawyer -- like you alluded to, she decides what cases to pursue, and how to manage the legal affairs. That's executive function. The courts that decide those cases are judicial.
. ..because you're really, really dumb. Or at the very least, your reasoning is. Let's begin with a glaring appeal to ignorance:
They may be racists, fascists, and anything else you can call them, but if they publish something that is factually-untrue, people will be outraged. I haven't seen any such outrage (besides your own) over the BNP's and Telegraph's reporting of the murder, whatever the slant may be; then again, I admit I haven't looked that hard (again, citing the Telegraph article was due to my wanting to verify that this party's claim was, in all probability, at least generally-true, b/c I knew the BNP would - like any political party - have an axe to grind).
You readily admit that you don't know anything about the BNP, other than that they're a political party (which is evident from their name). You want outrage? Google News has over 150 stories mentioning them, none particularly complimentary; a search on The Guardian's website finds almost a page's worth of stories in the last week alone, and a search at the dreaded BBC News site finds 27 pages of results. The BNP aren't small, or stealthy, or unknown, and the outrage against them isn't small, or stealthy, or unknown either. Certainly, knowledge of the BNP is prerequisite to commenting on contemporary British politics. Your strategy of justification is an appeal to ignorance (you haven't heard the outrage against the BNP, so it must not exist), and in the end, all that it proves is your own ignorance. And it's offensive that you use a quote that you misattribute to Malcolm X to defend an organization that publishes articles like The Islamic Menace.
Now, let's tackle your fundamental misunderstanding of the BBC and the TV licence. The TV licence isn't a one-time tax collected by the government at the point of purchase (as you assert on the basis of, it seems, absolutely nothing), but rather, a monthly fee, collected by the BBC. So your arrow diagram falls flat. It is, of course, collected with the authority of the government, but all sorts of private and arms-length public bodies collect money from users with the authority of the government: toll roads, utilities, that sort of thing. I also think you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the BBC: in no sense is it "private sector": it's owned by the crown, but its revenue and its governance is independent. To suggest that this arrangement is "by definition" fascism totally misunderstands fascism: the BBC isn't subject to central control by an anti-democratic despot; rather, it often works as an important part of British democracy, holding the government to account (as you did note later on). Fascism isn't so much about formal structures, but rather what's done with those structures, and the BBC certainly doesn't act in a fascistic manner. And as part of their charter-renewal process, the BBC is looking at the future of the TV licence. As I understand it (and I've moved away from the U.K., so I'm not keeping up as much as I was), they want to keep the licence, but there are alternative proposals being put forth, and while the BBC is lobbying to keep the licence, it hasn't "denounced" anyone.
Anyway, my main point is this: you've gone off, in an authoritative way, stating "economic definitions" (whatever the hell that means), and opinions about the "definition of fascism" and the legal status of the BBC, from a professed position of ignorance
My point about the BBC connection is that the BBC is an arm of the British government, funded by taxpayers.
It's pretty clear that you're not British, and you've never lived there. The BBC is in fact not funded by taxpayers, but rather by the monthly licence fee paid by everyone who owns a TV in the U.K. Thus, the BBC is financially independant of the government, and it's governance is fairly arms-length (the directors are appointed on the advice of ministers), so it's unfair to call it an "arm of the . . . government". Indeed, if it was, all the Hutton nonsense could probably have been avoided.
The upshot of all this is that the BBC is, structurally anyway, the most independant news source out there: in theory, it's free from both market and government coercion, and it can concentrate on its mandate as a public interest broadcaster.
And as for all that other stuff, I honestly can't be assed to follow all the links, but I'd suggest two general principles:
If the BNP says it, it's probably dead wrong: the guys are unapologetic neofascists.
The BBC has its flaws and problems, but in no sense is it a subsidiary of the British government, so tempting as it is, it's hard to hang anything that you might want to blame the BBC for on Blair. Although, heaven knows there's enough stuff to blame on him, but that's another story.
The strange thing is that Windows XP is an indirect descendant of the OS that probably is running on those VAX systems with those giant swinging uptimes. The story goes that back in the day, the Windows NT team had a large number of VMS vetrans on board, and that there was more than a little bit of code in common between VMS and Windows NT. The story is actually kinda interesting; you can read about it here.
The urban legend is that Windows NT is so called because if you "add" one letter to each of VMS, you get WNT (like with HAL and IBM). And then if you're feeling snarky, you say something like "see, you had to know that the NT couldn't stand for new technology." But you probably shouldn't expect anyone to laugh.
glabels is destined to become one of the most popular native apps for Linux.
This seems like a nice little application, but I don't think you do it any favours by hyping it up so much. Great label-making program, check; most popular native application for Linux? That might be a bit of a stretch
Well, the new record finally dropped, so we can move on to your important question:
Is it too late to short their new album?
And the answer, it seems, is a definite maybe. Our friends at Pitchfork have finally put together a review of the new record, and it's a 6.6 (review key: "Has its moments, but isn't strong"). Notable non-info in the review includes a pointless digression on the relationship between certain songs on their last album and the look of public transit in Chicago, and a prince of a line about how the guitar solos "invite idle speculation about [the guitarist's] prehab pill regimine".
The strange thing is, that on the whole, the review is balanced, and seems to find its marks pretty well (shitty guitar playing -- check, lack of song structure -- check), and it even takes aim at obscuritan fans (and songwriters), and "cred-snipers".
So to sum up: good but flawed record, surprisingly good review, still shoulda sold at 10.0.
Grow up, dude. Not all nudity implies "stroke yourself while watching this." Nudity can be used as an essential plot device, to help character development, or to invoke specific feelings (shame, modesty, sexuality, empowerment, etc.) [emphasis added]
"Yeah, Ms. Tweed, we uh, need you to get naked for the, er, plot, and to, uh, empower the feelings of modesty in our audience."
Give me strength: I don't disagree with you that artistic considerations can make nudity an essential element in a film, but every tit-flash isn't evidence of well-developed, mature cinematic sensibilities. If that were the case Showgirls would be considered Citzen Kane, and Girls Gone Wild would be a powerful work of documentary filmmaking.
So, let's take a quick look at how nudity is used in Ghost In The Shell. A quick trip over to Google's image search yields the following examplesofimportantcinematography. Certainly no untoward objectification of women there. Just art for art's sake, for us grown-up types to enjoy over some sherry. The big tits are important to the artistic vision!
Some of us adults understand this, some do not. You seem to belong in the latter group. Feel free go back to your Smurfs and Rugrats, and leave the interesting movies to the grown-ups. The ones who can grasp the concept that "cartoons" aren't just for Saturday morning kids.
Can the fake sanctimoniousness. Nobody's saying that cartoons can't be a source of mature entertainent, and effective social commentary. Just afewexamples. Heck, sometimes it gets alittleracy.
Slashdot Mirror
You're supposed to make SkyNet jokes about Google.
Their Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory states:
Another entirely appropriate name for it would be: The Fundamental Theorem of Slashdot.Rule number one of astroturfing: the account is free, so you might as well sign-in.
No, Intel switched to processor numbers when they realized that we realized that MHz don't tell the full story.
- Pointless vitriol?Check.
- Incoherent rhetoric?Check.
- Ignorance of the facts that can only be willful?Check
.I could try to engage you on the issues, but, it seems to me that you're either a shill for the petrochemical industry (the bit about a "catastrophic solution" was a nice touch), terminally dumb, or a plain old troll. So any way you cut it, saying anything more would be a bit of a waste of time.So, by your reasoning, every time the media runs a story about a satelite in orbit, they should also have someone from the Flat-Earth Society on for balance? We might not be able to model the entire atmosphere, but our thermometers work pretty well. Global Warming is a fact: things are getting hotter.
As for modeling: asking to model the entire atmosphere before you accept a global warming explanation implicating CO2 levels is like asking for a model of every particle in the solar system before you accept a model of planetary mechanics that implicates gravity. Using the word 'PROVEN' in big letters like that shows that you don't have a strong grip on how science works, or how good public policy is made. Science (and this holds in both Popper's and Kuhn's account) is inherently provisional, and doesn't admit anything resembling capital-P proof, let alone the all-capitalized proof you want.
And as far as public policy goes, when the potential consequences are so catastrophic, and when the system has such a lag in it, it's irresponsible to quibble over absolute proof: by the time the proof comes in, it'll likely be too late to do anything. Good public policy manages risks, and with climate change, the risks involved with twidding our thumbs while we wait for enough evidence to satisfy petrochemical executives are simply too high. There's a clear scientific consensus on the issue. That's all the balance that we need.
Unlike Xerox, GE, IBM, Ford Motors, Halliburton (what the fuck?) and, yes, Apple, Jesus doesn't have a Class A NetBlock. Plus, alongside seemingly half of the Fortune 500, Apple has it's backend provided by Akamai, and frankly, that sort of setup wouldn't ever need resurrection, because it'd never go down.
However, Jesus does have the edge in RFC 2629: Delivery of Packets via Archangel and Shepherd.
- because someone really wants it (luxury cars, SUVs, whatever), or
- because it's available.
The late-model Hondas and Toyotas that are most commonly stolen fall into the second category. So put a club on one of them, and the thief moves on to its identical, unprotected, neighbour.Does the club stop theft? Of course not, for the reasons that you state above. Does the club deter theives? Absolutely. All other things being equal, a thief is more likely to go after the car without a club than the car with the club sitting next to it. If that's worth $15 to you, then go for it. I think you can get your insurance knocked down by using it as well. It's not he be-all and end-all, but it works surprisingly well.
If the guy really wants your car, the club won't stop him: so if you own a Hummer or a Porsche or something, you should probably take additional anti-theft measures. But if you have a car that isn't an obvious target (and that's most cars on the road), like you say, the guys going to move on when he sees the club.
Seriously. I know it's cheezy, but cops I know say that it works at deterring theives.
Laws against dumping toxic waste in rivers are evil? So let me get this straight: lying and fraud are morally wrong, and should be regulated because they undermine the smooth functioning of the market, but regulation of mass-poisoining by dumping toxins into systems like rivers that by their very nature can't be constained by property boundaries is evil? That rivals Soviet communism in moronic adhesion to ideology.
Nope, they're both part of the executive: the judicial branch refers to judges, and the AG is the head lawyer -- like you alluded to, she decides what cases to pursue, and how to manage the legal affairs. That's executive function. The courts that decide those cases are judicial.
. . .because you're really, really dumb. Or at the very least, your reasoning is. Let's begin with a glaring appeal to ignorance:
You readily admit that you don't know anything about the BNP, other than that they're a political party (which is evident from their name). You want outrage? Google News has over 150 stories mentioning them, none particularly complimentary; a search on The Guardian's website finds almost a page's worth of stories in the last week alone, and a search at the dreaded BBC News site finds 27 pages of results. The BNP aren't small, or stealthy, or unknown, and the outrage against them isn't small, or stealthy, or unknown either. Certainly, knowledge of the BNP is prerequisite to commenting on contemporary British politics. Your strategy of justification is an appeal to ignorance (you haven't heard the outrage against the BNP, so it must not exist), and in the end, all that it proves is your own ignorance. And it's offensive that you use a quote that you misattribute to Malcolm X to defend an organization that publishes articles like The Islamic Menace.
Now, let's tackle your fundamental misunderstanding of the BBC and the TV licence. The TV licence isn't a one-time tax collected by the government at the point of purchase (as you assert on the basis of, it seems, absolutely nothing), but rather, a monthly fee, collected by the BBC. So your arrow diagram falls flat. It is, of course, collected with the authority of the government, but all sorts of private and arms-length public bodies collect money from users with the authority of the government: toll roads, utilities, that sort of thing. I also think you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the BBC: in no sense is it "private sector": it's owned by the crown, but its revenue and its governance is independent. To suggest that this arrangement is "by definition" fascism totally misunderstands fascism: the BBC isn't subject to central control by an anti-democratic despot; rather, it often works as an important part of British democracy, holding the government to account (as you did note later on). Fascism isn't so much about formal structures, but rather what's done with those structures, and the BBC certainly doesn't act in a fascistic manner. And as part of their charter-renewal process, the BBC is looking at the future of the TV licence. As I understand it (and I've moved away from the U.K., so I'm not keeping up as much as I was), they want to keep the licence, but there are alternative proposals being put forth, and while the BBC is lobbying to keep the licence, it hasn't "denounced" anyone.
Anyway, my main point is this: you've gone off, in an authoritative way, stating "economic definitions" (whatever the hell that means), and opinions about the "definition of fascism" and the legal status of the BBC, from a professed position of ignorance
It's pretty clear that you're not British, and you've never lived there. The BBC is in fact not funded by taxpayers, but rather by the monthly licence fee paid by everyone who owns a TV in the U.K. Thus, the BBC is financially independant of the government, and it's governance is fairly arms-length (the directors are appointed on the advice of ministers), so it's unfair to call it an "arm of the . . . government". Indeed, if it was, all the Hutton nonsense could probably have been avoided.
The upshot of all this is that the BBC is, structurally anyway, the most independant news source out there: in theory, it's free from both market and government coercion, and it can concentrate on its mandate as a public interest broadcaster.
And as for all that other stuff, I honestly can't be assed to follow all the links, but I'd suggest two general principles:
. . .that your website named after some character from Garfield is sturdier than Apple's Akamai powered backend?
They've got over 14,000 servers in 1,100 networks. You've got, uh, a dual-Celeron, an Athalon, and a Vaio notebook. I know which set-up I'd bet on.
That Osborne is neat, for sure, but does it run NetBSD?
About time they start ripping off quality sci-fi!
The only halfway good products to come out of Redmond are mice.
The strange thing is that Windows XP is an indirect descendant of the OS that probably is running on those VAX systems with those giant swinging uptimes. The story goes that back in the day, the Windows NT team had a large number of VMS vetrans on board, and that there was more than a little bit of code in common between VMS and Windows NT. The story is actually kinda interesting; you can read about it here.
The urban legend is that Windows NT is so called because if you "add" one letter to each of VMS, you get WNT (like with HAL and IBM). And then if you're feeling snarky, you say something like "see, you had to know that the NT couldn't stand for new technology." But you probably shouldn't expect anyone to laugh.
This seems like a nice little application, but I don't think you do it any favours by hyping it up so much. Great label-making program, check; most popular native application for Linux? That might be a bit of a stretch
Well, the new record finally dropped, so we can move on to your important question:
And the answer, it seems, is a definite maybe. Our friends at Pitchfork have finally put together a review of the new record, and it's a 6.6 (review key: "Has its moments, but isn't strong"). Notable non-info in the review includes a pointless digression on the relationship between certain songs on their last album and the look of public transit in Chicago, and a prince of a line about how the guitar solos "invite idle speculation about [the guitarist's] prehab pill regimine".The strange thing is, that on the whole, the review is balanced, and seems to find its marks pretty well (shitty guitar playing -- check, lack of song structure -- check), and it even takes aim at obscuritan fans (and songwriters), and "cred-snipers".
So to sum up: good but flawed record, surprisingly good review, still shoulda sold at 10.0.
"Yeah, Ms. Tweed, we uh, need you to get naked for the, er, plot, and to, uh, empower the feelings of modesty in our audience."
Give me strength: I don't disagree with you that artistic considerations can make nudity an essential element in a film, but every tit-flash isn't evidence of well-developed, mature cinematic sensibilities. If that were the case Showgirls would be considered Citzen Kane, and Girls Gone Wild would be a powerful work of documentary filmmaking.
So, let's take a quick look at how nudity is used in Ghost In The Shell. A quick trip over to Google's image search yields the following examples of important cinematography. Certainly no untoward objectification of women there. Just art for art's sake, for us grown-up types to enjoy over some sherry. The big tits are important to the artistic vision!
Can the fake sanctimoniousness. Nobody's saying that cartoons can't be a source of mature entertainent, and effective social commentary. Just a few examples. Heck, sometimes it gets a little racy.