I have told you repeatedly that I am willing to change my opinion. So far all you have said to me is that "I know more than you, therefore, you are not entitled to an opinion".
Please, lay out specifically what facts you think contradict my opinion and what a proper opinion would be in light of those facts. Otherwise, I can't help but think you are just trolling, if you are claiming to have information, but won't show us.
"
Last week, Gordon Brown and his chief economist both said global warming was the worst "market failure" ever. That loaded soundbite suggests that the "climate-change" scare is less about saving the planet than, in Jacques Chirac's chilling phrase, "creating world government". This week and next, I'll reveal how politicians, scientists and bureaucrats contrived a threat of Biblical floods, droughts, plagues, and extinctions worthier of St John the Divine than of science." [Emphasis mine]
OK, so not only is the American right-wing co-opting Evangelical Christians and 'values voters' to take away our civil liberties and conduct mass surveillance on the American public, but now hippies, greenies, and environmental scientists are also going to take away our freedoms by reducing greenhouse emissions, raising vehicle fuel efficiency, and sequestering carbon!?
Man, things are getting really weird when people on both sides of the aisle are starting to agree with Alex Jones.
Who are you to decide what and how much someone should know about a subject before they have an opinion? Certainly there are people out there who know more about this subject than you. Maybe you don't know enough to have one? What makes you think that you *do* know enough?
Knowledge is always incomplete. You know more than I do; I have acknowledged that. If you are willing to point out falsehoods that I believe, illogical conclusions, or additional information that is relevant, then I am willing to change my opinion, or even state that I don't know enough to have a well-formed option. But so far, you have done nothing of the sort. You have not given me any reason or evidence to abandon my opinion. All you have pointed out is that there is a lot that I don't know, and that you know a small portion of that greater history that I am unaware of. And even with your greater knowledge, you haven't shared any with me that would lead me to change my opinion. So, as far as I can tell, from what you've told me, I *do* know enough to hold this opinion. If you believe this opinion is mistaken, then for God's sake, please inform me so I can change it.
But, if you are going to say that I shouldn't have an opinion just because you know more than me on this subject, take a hike. You don't know that much, either, really. Only scholars who have read hundreds of books and have studied for 80 years should hold opinions. Leave opinions to the experts.
All I'm saying is that the United States sold chemical and biological weapons to Iraq, and that was wrong. Hell, it doesn't matter *who* we sold it to. Chemical and Biological weapons are wrong -- the history of Iraq, Iran and the US is totally irrelevant to this opinion. I think the people in our government who are responsible for this are war criminals.
I don't understand why you expect me to know the entire history of the country before having an opinion. Although you do know more than me, you certainly don't know the complete and entire history -- shouldn't that mean that you are not entitled to an opinion, either?
Nobody can know everything. I know at least one fact; it is not a falsehood. I have an opinion based on that fact. There is nothing wrong here. If you are going to claim that I shouldn't have an opinion because you have a few more facts than I do, that's frankly ridiculous.
So it's okay to provide a bloodthirsty dictator with chemical and biological weapon precursors, just as long as its a lot less than other countries have provided.
Yes, and a trial in the Hague might drag in the US and Neocon members of the current administration who *sold* Saddam the chemical weapons in the 1980s. Can you imagine Rumsfeld taking the stand in the Hague?
Don't be fooled by his nice smile or pretty female relative. Saddam is a psychopath. The part of his brain that handles guilt and worries about what others will think of him is inoperative. Literally, he has no conscience. Saddam rose to power by killing anybody he suspected of showing the slightest disloyalty. He tortured people, had his own son tortured, and taught his sons to torture. This man is as evil as they get.
Psychopaths are charming, charismatic people who look nice and make you feel good. But they will do whatever they believe is necessary, including killing people in cold blood, without a moments hesitation, and no guilt or remorse afterwards. Despite his charm and personable nature, he is utterly ruthless.
No, the democrat candidates best hope for getting elected is turning out the *democrat* vote. The republicans are doing a bang-up job of keeping their base at home this election.
"The Republicans were always going to vote Republican and the Democrats were always going to vote Democrat."
Not true. Most people stay home and don't vote, especially on off-year congressional elections. Most of the campaigning that goes on is simply a turn out the vote effort, not an effort to get undecided voters.
So the impact of a Saddam death sentence would have on the election is that it would motivate those who support the war in Iraq to go out an vote. They are probably pretty demoralized right now, and they need a reason to go out and keep republicans in power. In politics, it's all about momentum.
As human beings, we seem to have an inborn fear of homicide, whether it's from a stranger breaking into your house, or a group of 'those guys over there' coming over and killing us en masse in an act of war. I think recent human history was incredibly violent, with cycles of revenge killings, and this had seletcive pressure on the human psyche.
Rather than an open source voting system that simply tallies votes, I think that there needs to be some sort of tamper-proof tallying system.
I envision that it would work like some kind of extended PGP system, where, once a voter confirms their selection, their vote is encrypted into a tally string and passed onto the next voter. At any point, the tally string can be decrypted and read for the current tally. The tally string only records the tally, not individual votes, so it can't be guessed how somebody voted. Because of the encryption, nobody can retroactively change any of the vote history -- that would totally destroy the string, making it unreadable.
I realize this is a [X] highly technimacal solution that nobody will understand, so there is little chance that it will be implemented, but I think this would solve all kinds of voter fraud. Also, since it is a tally, at the end of the election, you just add up all of the tallies. No need for extensive recounting.
"Personally I hope it backfires and China ends up with 100,000,000 computers running Linux... think of all the applications that would be made available on Linux. Sweet!"
Yeah! Start learning Chinese now!
Re:It's the all encompassing .com that's the probl
on
Utube Sues YouTube
·
· Score: 1
Do you have to prove that you are a bank in order to get a.bank domain name? Will GoDaddy et al do their due diligence and make sure, or would they rather make a sale?
It seems to me that this would give another false sense of authenticity to a victim of a phishing attack. "Look, the site ends in.bank ( or even.bank.com ) It must be a bank!"
"I'm sure it's all political because the US couldn't survive as a country without China."
That's right. They make tons of our stuff, and loan us tons of money.
The USSR said that they would sell us the rope that we would hang ourselves with. We outlasted them. The Chinese now have adopted free-market principles, and apparently they our now selling us rope.
"suspect that NPR is invovled here because NPR isn't being broadcast on XM/Sirius because they can't pay or won't make enough revenue for the satellite providers."
Both Sirius and XM carry NPR programming. And both XM/Sirius pay NPR to carry NPR's programming. Why would NPR pay satellite companies to have their programming played? That doesn't make sense.
"
I love the free market because I love watching markets change to meet the needs of the consumers (demand) as well as the manufacturers (supply). I love seeing both sides of a barter or exchange profit from that exchange, rather than one side gaining and one side losing."
Where exactly are you watching this take place? Where are you watching it from? Seriously?
This mentality reminds me of a sig I saw somewhere:
Public: "Something must be done!"
Politician: "This is something; therefore, it must be done!"
Doing something, anything, even if it's bad, is a bad idea. I think Americans suffer from a hysteria of action -- if there is a problem, we must act, immediately, screw the consequences! Any problem we encounter in any facet of our life is a result of someone not doing their job or something not working right, and it must be fixed immediately.
Sometimes you have to take the time to think and plan things out, and take the best course of action. Sometimes the best course of action is to *do nothing for the time being.* Haste makes waste.
I'm not saying that this is a good idea or not, just that I think that the mentality of 'we must do something' is wrong.
"Well...you can't exactly expect people to want to talk about it on email."
I see what you are saying, but these were some of her mainland friends who were also studying here in the US. From all of the Chinese I've met, they seem to be a lot like Americans -- they are proud of who they are and their country, and don't appreciate outsiders pointing out serious mistakes. Just like most Americans are unaware of and don't want to hear about what the US was doing in South America in the 80s.
I have a similar story. I was dating a Chinese girl from the mainland. She was smart, well-educated, spoke English, Mandarin, and Cantonese fluently. She was working on a master's degree. In about 2003, I casually mentioned Tienamen Square and she said "What's that?" and I explained it to her. She said "Well... I've never heard of it?"
Then she emailed some Chinese friends, one of whom said it was "no big deal, just a small protest".
Cheney is way too ill to run for president. He's had four heart attacks. However, Jeb Bush, the brother of the president and the governor of Florida, is a serious contender!
Slashdot Mirror
Monkeyman -
I have told you repeatedly that I am willing to change my opinion. So far all you have said to me is that "I know more than you, therefore, you are not entitled to an opinion".
Please, lay out specifically what facts you think contradict my opinion and what a proper opinion would be in light of those facts. Otherwise, I can't help but think you are just trolling, if you are claiming to have information, but won't show us.
This is the very first paragraph:
" Last week, Gordon Brown and his chief economist both said global warming was the worst "market failure" ever. That loaded soundbite suggests that the "climate-change" scare is less about saving the planet than, in Jacques Chirac's chilling phrase, "creating world government". This week and next, I'll reveal how politicians, scientists and bureaucrats contrived a threat of Biblical floods, droughts, plagues, and extinctions worthier of St John the Divine than of science." [Emphasis mine]
OK, so not only is the American right-wing co-opting Evangelical Christians and 'values voters' to take away our civil liberties and conduct mass surveillance on the American public, but now hippies, greenies, and environmental scientists are also going to take away our freedoms by reducing greenhouse emissions, raising vehicle fuel efficiency, and sequestering carbon!?
Man, things are getting really weird when people on both sides of the aisle are starting to agree with Alex Jones.
Who are you to decide what and how much someone should know about a subject before they have an opinion? Certainly there are people out there who know more about this subject than you. Maybe you don't know enough to have one? What makes you think that you *do* know enough?
Knowledge is always incomplete. You know more than I do; I have acknowledged that. If you are willing to point out falsehoods that I believe, illogical conclusions, or additional information that is relevant, then I am willing to change my opinion, or even state that I don't know enough to have a well-formed option. But so far, you have done nothing of the sort. You have not given me any reason or evidence to abandon my opinion. All you have pointed out is that there is a lot that I don't know, and that you know a small portion of that greater history that I am unaware of. And even with your greater knowledge, you haven't shared any with me that would lead me to change my opinion. So, as far as I can tell, from what you've told me, I *do* know enough to hold this opinion. If you believe this opinion is mistaken, then for God's sake, please inform me so I can change it.
But, if you are going to say that I shouldn't have an opinion just because you know more than me on this subject, take a hike. You don't know that much, either, really. Only scholars who have read hundreds of books and have studied for 80 years should hold opinions. Leave opinions to the experts.
All I'm saying is that the United States sold chemical and biological weapons to Iraq, and that was wrong. Hell, it doesn't matter *who* we sold it to. Chemical and Biological weapons are wrong -- the history of Iraq, Iran and the US is totally irrelevant to this opinion. I think the people in our government who are responsible for this are war criminals.
I don't understand why you expect me to know the entire history of the country before having an opinion. Although you do know more than me, you certainly don't know the complete and entire history -- shouldn't that mean that you are not entitled to an opinion, either?
Nobody can know everything. I know at least one fact; it is not a falsehood. I have an opinion based on that fact. There is nothing wrong here. If you are going to claim that I shouldn't have an opinion because you have a few more facts than I do, that's frankly ridiculous.
So it's okay to provide a bloodthirsty dictator with chemical and biological weapon precursors, just as long as its a lot less than other countries have provided.
Yes, and a trial in the Hague might drag in the US and Neocon members of the current administration who *sold* Saddam the chemical weapons in the 1980s. Can you imagine Rumsfeld taking the stand in the Hague?
Don't be fooled by his nice smile or pretty female relative. Saddam is a psychopath. The part of his brain that handles guilt and worries about what others will think of him is inoperative. Literally, he has no conscience. Saddam rose to power by killing anybody he suspected of showing the slightest disloyalty. He tortured people, had his own son tortured, and taught his sons to torture. This man is as evil as they get.
Psychopaths are charming, charismatic people who look nice and make you feel good. But they will do whatever they believe is necessary, including killing people in cold blood, without a moments hesitation, and no guilt or remorse afterwards. Despite his charm and personable nature, he is utterly ruthless.
No, the democrat candidates best hope for getting elected is turning out the *democrat* vote. The republicans are doing a bang-up job of keeping their base at home this election.
"The Republicans were always going to vote Republican and the Democrats were always going to vote Democrat."
Not true. Most people stay home and don't vote, especially on off-year congressional elections. Most of the campaigning that goes on is simply a turn out the vote effort, not an effort to get undecided voters.
So the impact of a Saddam death sentence would have on the election is that it would motivate those who support the war in Iraq to go out an vote. They are probably pretty demoralized right now, and they need a reason to go out and keep republicans in power. In politics, it's all about momentum.
As human beings, we seem to have an inborn fear of homicide, whether it's from a stranger breaking into your house, or a group of 'those guys over there' coming over and killing us en masse in an act of war. I think recent human history was incredibly violent, with cycles of revenge killings, and this had seletcive pressure on the human psyche.
"'In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is." - Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut."
That's a nice theory. Does it hold up in practice?
"The OP just wasn't using [XP SP2]"
How do you know? Are you claiming that SP@ *does* have the drivers?
So whose fault is it that there isn't an updated Windows available?
Rather than an open source voting system that simply tallies votes, I think that there needs to be some sort of tamper-proof tallying system.
I envision that it would work like some kind of extended PGP system, where, once a voter confirms their selection, their vote is encrypted into a tally string and passed onto the next voter. At any point, the tally string can be decrypted and read for the current tally. The tally string only records the tally, not individual votes, so it can't be guessed how somebody voted. Because of the encryption, nobody can retroactively change any of the vote history -- that would totally destroy the string, making it unreadable.
I realize this is a [X] highly technimacal solution that nobody will understand, so there is little chance that it will be implemented, but I think this would solve all kinds of voter fraud. Also, since it is a tally, at the end of the election, you just add up all of the tallies. No need for extensive recounting.
"Personally I hope it backfires and China ends up with 100,000,000 computers running Linux... think of all the applications that would be made available on Linux. Sweet!"
Yeah! Start learning Chinese now!
"Hence stuff like .bank, .retail, .energy, .telecom etc etc."
.bank domain name? Will GoDaddy et al do their due diligence and make sure, or would they rather make a sale?
.bank ( or even .bank.com ) It must be a bank!"
Do you have to prove that you are a bank in order to get a
It seems to me that this would give another false sense of authenticity to a victim of a phishing attack. "Look, the site ends in
"I'm sure it's all political because the US couldn't survive as a country without China."
That's right. They make tons of our stuff, and loan us tons of money.
The USSR said that they would sell us the rope that we would hang ourselves with. We outlasted them. The Chinese now have adopted free-market principles, and apparently they our now selling us rope.
A 386!? Why, *my* computer is a turing machine!!
Ok, but who is Assa Med?
"suspect that NPR is invovled here because NPR isn't being broadcast on XM/Sirius because they can't pay or won't make enough revenue for the satellite providers."
Both Sirius and XM carry NPR programming. And both XM/Sirius pay NPR to carry NPR's programming. Why would NPR pay satellite companies to have their programming played? That doesn't make sense.
" I love the free market because I love watching markets change to meet the needs of the consumers (demand) as well as the manufacturers (supply). I love seeing both sides of a barter or exchange profit from that exchange, rather than one side gaining and one side losing."
Where exactly are you watching this take place? Where are you watching it from? Seriously?
This mentality reminds me of a sig I saw somewhere:
Public: "Something must be done!"
Politician: "This is something; therefore, it must be done!"
Doing something, anything, even if it's bad, is a bad idea. I think Americans suffer from a hysteria of action -- if there is a problem, we must act, immediately, screw the consequences! Any problem we encounter in any facet of our life is a result of someone not doing their job or something not working right, and it must be fixed immediately.
Sometimes you have to take the time to think and plan things out, and take the best course of action. Sometimes the best course of action is to *do nothing for the time being.* Haste makes waste.
I'm not saying that this is a good idea or not, just that I think that the mentality of 'we must do something' is wrong.
"Well...you can't exactly expect people to want to talk about it on email."
I see what you are saying, but these were some of her mainland friends who were also studying here in the US. From all of the Chinese I've met, they seem to be a lot like Americans -- they are proud of who they are and their country, and don't appreciate outsiders pointing out serious mistakes. Just like most Americans are unaware of and don't want to hear about what the US was doing in South America in the 80s.
I have a similar story. I was dating a Chinese girl from the mainland. She was smart, well-educated, spoke English, Mandarin, and Cantonese fluently. She was working on a master's degree. In about 2003, I casually mentioned Tienamen Square and she said "What's that?" and I explained it to her. She said "Well... I've never heard of it?"
Then she emailed some Chinese friends, one of whom said it was "no big deal, just a small protest".
Cheney is way too ill to run for president. He's had four heart attacks. However, Jeb Bush, the brother of the president and the governor of Florida, is a serious contender!