Real-world measurements don't exactly work out the way you would have us believe.
"So why is it that electric fields follow the law of superposition, which is an additive law working precisely as we said addition should thousands of years before we ever imagined electric fields?"
Except when you actually do the measurements, you get a slight variance. Why should we get some discrepancy? I thought this was precise mathematics, proven sturdy for thousands of years. 'Well,' the answer goes, 'the measurement tools aren't precise enough.' So we make tools more precise, and the variance gets smaller, presumably ad infinitum. But does it really work out ad inifitum? I mean, it always works out on paper. Why shouldn't it be exact in real life then? Maybe it actually starts diverging at a certain scale? Maybe the mathematical model breaks down at some point? How do we know unless we go down all the way?
The answer is, "if we had perfect measurement, it would work out perfectly" Okay, but when you say that, you are making a metaphysical statement, not a scientific ( e. g. measurable or demonstrable ) statement.
As we have seen with Newtonian physics and Einsteinian space/time continuum, the model is always provisional. Newtonian physics works for the most part in our everyday experience. And hey, Newton 'pre-discovered' that the laws of motions were the same in the heavens as they were here on Earth -- that the moon was a falling body that never quite hit, unlike the apple.
I would say that mathematics are just a model. The philosophy you are promoting is called 'platonism' which *basically* says that reality is the laws or mathematics, and this physical world we see is just some kind of epiphenomenon
" Our brains are part of the universe, so if the universe is goverrned by laws which can be well expressed in mathematical language, one might predict that brains would invent mathematics."
You would have to assume that brains can actually understand the 'laws', whatever they are. I predict that brains might also invent pseudo-math, which are human-invented models of reality that do a pretty good job of modelling and predicting the universe, but are incomplete or totally wrong in some places, but they are actually totally different than the laws that govern the universe. So how do we know whether we are using 'real' math or the psuedo-math? Judging from history, one would say we are creating better and better psuedo-math.
We still don't have a mathematical theory of everything.
Yes, but one thing to consider is generational loss. You can make a perfect copy of the data on the CD indefinitely. Each copy you make of analogue data gets a little bit ( or a lot ) worse.
OK, I am willing to consider fact -- good, solid, scientific fact.
Present your arguments in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, not in an advertisement, where any whacko with enough money can be heard, or in an editorial, where any whacko who can write decently can have their whacko views heard. I'm eager to hear these facts.
As pointed out in the commentary to earlier slashdot articles, the scandinavian idea of piracy (the high seas kind) goes hand-in-hand with economic liberalism. While the British and Dutch were establishing monoplies on commodities, controlling ports, pursuing embargoes, and charging tariffs, there were captains who traded goods freely with little concern for the laws of foreign governments.
Of course, this free trade threatened the income of the empires, so they outlawed piracy and charged their own captains to capture ships, sink ships, absorb crews, and confiscate booty of free-traders who ignored tariffs and embargoes. Free-traders chose to arm themselves instead of giving up their livelihood, and the ensuing violent arms race gave us our modern popular perception of pirates today.
" Sorry, but these aren't just a few employees, these are board members.
And the guilty members are stepping down and also under investigation by law enforcement officials. What more do you want?"
Remember that GP posted that "Lets note that the it was select individuals who were doing this... and not all of HP."
GP makes it sound like it was Bob in accounting, Mary in sales, and perhaps VP Gary who had knowledge about it.
This was just a few 'rogue employees', these were members of the board. The leaders. Titans of the Industry. Role models. Powerful, respectable people. I think what the poster wants is some recognition that these aren't just 'select individuals' but board members of one of the biggest companies in the world. This is a huge scandal.
I used to think that 'duplication' was just a waste of effort. Wouldn't it be better if we all put our effort together in harmony and came up with the Next Big Thing? United we stand, divided we fall?
The problem is, when your working on a huge monolithic project like that, people really don't work together. There are arguments and disagreements. Energetical people with radical, new ideas will encounter old farts who want to do things the old way, become disenfranchised and give up. Productive old workhorses will be frustrated by young upstarts trying to pull them in 100 different directions at once, selling a bad idea from 10 years ago as the latest, greatest idea. The project will proceed on the lowest common denominator, implementing vanilla ideas that are promoted simply because nobody could find a reason to reject them.
Would you like it if Apple and MS got together to make a unified desktop? Don't you think that the bureaucracy and organizational overhead would stymie the project and ultimately water down the end result?
Instead of waste and duplication, think of it as parallel development teams, developing, implementing, and polishing the latest new ideas as a presentation to the larger mindshare market. Those ideas might need to re-developed or re-implemented, or they may be ready to be included in larger projects, like KDE or Gnome. It's a very effective and efficient way to harness human motivation and inspiration and deliver new ideas to the masses.
It's a question of how do you respond to someone who is lowering the bar. Do you sink to their level, or do you respond differently? If you respond in kind to morons, it makes you look like a moron yourself. If you respond with class and politeness to a moron, you come off as the winner. I'm certain you don't know everything, and sooner or later someone will catch you.
From my perspective, as an average slashdot reader, I have no reason to trust you. Sure, you defend people against the RIAA, but maybe you are a lousy lawyer and you really don't know what you are doing. Here comes a guy on slashdot who makes a point with some information that makes him look well-informed. On slashdot, I regularly find knowledgeable people and insightful commentary that I honestly haven't found in any other media forum. So this random slashdotter makes what looks like a good point, and you say "I have no idea what you are talking about". Well, either A.) you really don't know the law and do suck as a lawyer or b.) you have no time or patience to educate us, even when that is what you have specifically chosen to do in agreeing to the interview. I'm chosing to believe B. The problem with B is it's unsportsmanlike conduct. You're not using civility and politeness, which is causing a lot of us slashdotters to think that you are being actively hostile towards us. Your responses are harsh and defensive. Several times over, you have responded in a similar manner. The fact that you are taking the time to make such terse, unfriendly responses makes it look like you just might enjoy being a dick.
That means to me that I shouldn't hire you to take on my case, should I ever need your services, because when I need an ally most in an arena I am totally unfamiliar with, you are going to be a terse jerk, humiliating me when I am trying to communicate with you. It would be a seriously unproductive and draining relationship.
I know that law school has trained to you be adversarial and not offer your opponents any opportunity to break your streategy or resolve. This mode of interaction is causing a lot of the hostility and negative repsonse you are encountering here in slashdot. In short, keep this stuff in the courtroom, meetings, and legal letters. It's inapropriate in this forum.
On slashdot, we are looking to all looking to learn. No matter what kind of geek we are, we always want to know more. We might think we now, and bodly assert so. Most of us want to learn from our mistakes and misunderstandings. However, some don't. They are called trolls. If you respond in kind to a troll, you look like a troll yourself. Here on the internet, we only know you by what you type. If you type like a troll, we have no way of knowing whether you can act any better in other forums. At that point most will start ignoring you like they ignore other trolls. To hip you to our slang, YHBT. YHL. HAND.
I make a living doing LAMP (that's MySQL/PHP) development. I haven't had any data problems with MySQL using version 4.1 to 5.0. Admitedly, I'm not doing fortune 500 work, but I making decent use of the relational features. I looked at Postgres around 2002, but couldn't get past the install and creation of users. I haven't run into a webhost that supports it yet. Basically I have no incentive to really dig into it yet. However, I have found a feature that I would like to see in MySQL.
I have some tables that need to be arbitratily sort by the user. The sorting isn't universal throughout the table, but rather within a foreign key value. So it would look like this:
cat_id | sort_order
1 1
1 2
1 3
2 1
2 2
2 3
It's a big PITA to keep this column properly serialized with the PHP when you want to insert a new value in the middle, or move the values around. I have a restriction to prevent duplicate sort_order keys within the cat_id. I found a serial column type in Postgres. I haven't used it, but it might automagically do that crap I have to take care of in the code.
OK, then he could say "I'm sorry, but it sounds like you are asking me to validate your position. I can't do that, because your position is legally incorrect -- for these reasons:..."
Instead he says, "I have no idea what you are talking about". Thank you, I am a blithering moron who makes no sense. Thanks for showing me where my reasoning went astray. You've been very helpful.
Yes, he is a lawyer and he is trained to argue in court. However, this is 'Ask Slashdot', not a court. I would expect him to recognise this and respond appropriately. Do you think he goes out to dinner with friends and says to someone "I have no idea what you are talking about" when someone asks him a question that isn't perfectly legally formed? (Well, he might)
I don't think anyone here is asking for legal advice. The original AskSlashdot posted specifically stated that we could not ask him for legal advice.
If he's clamming up so he doesn't reveal his tactics to the RIAA, then he would save a lot of grief and disparagement if he just said so.
All that these people are looking for is a little respect and politeness. The slashdot crowd is highly intelligent. Many of these people have advanced degrees and work in high-end technical fields. We're not asking dumb questions or non-sense. They might be naive and certainly are uninformed, but we are not stupid.
We can handle things like "I don't know" or "It hasn't really been decided yet". "I don't know what you're talking about" is the kind of answer you give a five-year-old when they ask something naive like "Do you think unicorns are real" and you feel like being mean and dismissive.
We are not looking for you to misinform us on the law, or to yell "Hell yeah!" and support our misconceptions, or 'tell us what we want to hear'.
Just treat us civilly, like intelligent *peers*. Most of us didn't go to law school, but we probably would 'get it', if you would have a little respect for our intellect, and a little patience to take the time and explain things fully.
I gave a decent defense of your answers here, but after reading your comment response, I have you say, you really are acting like a dick to some potential clientele, and could stand to learn some manners.
Just explain "Your question is fairly ambiguous; it's impossible to give a good answer without more details, but remember a lot of law has not yet been decided" instead of a terse "I don't know what you are talking about". Your reponse makes it sound like I just came up to you and spoke utter gibberish. And, to be honest and fair, you do have a very good idea of what all of us are talking about; you are choosing to play dumb and not volunteer information. There's probably good reason for that; but remember, as computer geeks, we really don't understand the lawyer mindset. It would help all of us if you took the time to explain why 'you don't know what we are talking about'.
Lawyers are a distinct type of nerd. Think of them, and the law, as a kind of computer, or programming language, with a little bit of intelligence.
Now, imagine if you typed into a computer, "create page with data pulled from database". You would get an error. A lawyer is a little bit smarter -- they can parse your sentence and specifically identify where your query or command has failed: "I don't know what you mean by 'create'" or "'page' is ambiguous"
Basically what the lawyer is saying when he says "I don't know what mp3s you're talking about" is "You haven't given me enough unambiguous information for me to give you the answer you are looking for". It's like those old text adventure games:
> listen mp3s
Sorry, I don't know what mp3s are.
> listen ipod
What ipod are you talking about?
> get ipod from desk OK. 1 ipod in inventory
> listen ipod.
These mp3s rock! You are really groovin' !
In order to get an answer from a lawyer, you have to have *exact* terminology. Now you know how normal people feel when they talk to computer geeks;)
We agree probably on 90% of what we've said. But here's what I would like to say to clarify my position:
What theocracy and facism share are practices of totalitarianism. Because a theocractic state might be tapping people's phones, doesn't mean that they are partly fascist. It's just that theocracy and fascism have totalitarian qualities in common.
When we talk about whether a society is fascist or theocratic, I ask, 'What is the most important institution?' What institute wields ultimate power? In a theocracy, it is the church (or temple or mosque). The scriptures and religious tradition are the basis for law and policy. Clergymen are the ultimate decision makers. The government is very important, yes, but ultimately, the church (temple, mosque) is on top. In fascism, the state, the party, and the ethnic identity of 'the people', and oftentimes a charismatic leader, are on top. So the ruling party makes all law and decision, usually in the name of ensuring the survival of the state and 'the people'. Yes, the church is very important in a facist state, but ultimately, the party is on top.
The Islamic terrorists we are fighting are not fighting for any particular leader, state, or ethnic identity. They are not fighting for Bin Laden, they are not fighting for Saudi Arabia, they are not fighting for Persians or Arabs. They are fighting to re-establish an Islamic Empire that spanned from Europe to Asia, which encompassed multiple states and ethnic groups. The ultimate authoritative institution in this Islamic Empire is the Mosque -- the ultimate decision makers would be the Imams, basing their jurisprudence on Islamic law. Therefore, they are theocratists.
Medicare is surprisingly effecient compared to private medical insurers -- its overhead is 3% compared to 12-20% for private insurers. Link.
Some argue that Medicare has an unfair advantage in that it doesn't have to advertise, doesn't have to offer competing plans, have agents, etc. I say we don't need any of that -- all of that stuff is simply churn. It just takes money away from providing health care, case in point Medicare compared to private industry.
There's been two. One was made in 1946, and it was lousy. Edmond O'Brien, as Winston Smith, had a 3-day beard and excess body fat in about the face after days or weeks of being tortured in the Ministry of Love.
The other one, made in 1984, stars John Hurt as Winston Smith, and it is incredible. Ironically, John Hurt plays Supreme Chancellor Sutler in V for Vendetta. I guess Smith had an incredible career after being released from the Ministry of Love;)
You are confusing fascism with theocracy. The terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11th want to establish a global caliphate ruled by Islamic law, with the ultimate decisions made by Imams, or Islamic Clerics. Rule by religious figures and religous law is called 'theocracy'.
On the other hand, Mussolini said "Fascism ought to more properly be called corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power." It requires that citizens give unrelenting support to the state and tough, charismatic leaders. The government oversees all aspects of life, and requires unquestioning obedience. You can read more
When Bush calls these people Islamofacists, it's as silly as calling them Islamo-communists. They have nothing to do with facism or communism. They are theocratists.
So no, you have never been threatened or injured by an Islamofacists. Misunderstanding the enemy will not aid us in our fight.
To co-opt a phrase from the Secertary of Defense: You keep the peace and rebuild the country with the force you have, not nessarily the force you should use.
Now that we are on the ground with 3,000 American soldiers dead, anywhere up to 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualities, 3 years afer the war against Saddam's government was over, almost no progress in rebuilding the infrastructure, 9 *billion* dollars unaccounted for, how do you propose we get *out* of this situation?
"Who cares if you are in a *war* and you hurt the enemy?"
How about if you are bogged down in a peace-keeping and rebuilding operation where 90% of the population wants you out of their country and the Prime Minister has said it's okay to kill American troops? What if the only way out is to win the hearts and minds of the people so that they think they are better off than before you conquered their country? What if you need to disperse and angry and violent crowd without killing anyone so that you don't turn more people against you and feed the insugency?
Does any of this resemble anything that's going on in the real world today? A situation the United States might find itself in right now?
Slashdot Mirror
Real-world measurements don't exactly work out the way you would have us believe.
"So why is it that electric fields follow the law of superposition, which is an additive law working precisely as we said addition should thousands of years before we ever imagined electric fields?"
Except when you actually do the measurements, you get a slight variance. Why should we get some discrepancy? I thought this was precise mathematics, proven sturdy for thousands of years. 'Well,' the answer goes, 'the measurement tools aren't precise enough.' So we make tools more precise, and the variance gets smaller, presumably ad infinitum. But does it really work out ad inifitum? I mean, it always works out on paper. Why shouldn't it be exact in real life then? Maybe it actually starts diverging at a certain scale? Maybe the mathematical model breaks down at some point? How do we know unless we go down all the way?
The answer is, "if we had perfect measurement, it would work out perfectly" Okay, but when you say that, you are making a metaphysical statement, not a scientific ( e. g. measurable or demonstrable ) statement.
As we have seen with Newtonian physics and Einsteinian space/time continuum, the model is always provisional. Newtonian physics works for the most part in our everyday experience. And hey, Newton 'pre-discovered' that the laws of motions were the same in the heavens as they were here on Earth -- that the moon was a falling body that never quite hit, unlike the apple. I would say that mathematics are just a model. The philosophy you are promoting is called 'platonism' which *basically* says that reality is the laws or mathematics, and this physical world we see is just some kind of epiphenomenon
" Our brains are part of the universe, so if the universe is goverrned by laws which can be well expressed in mathematical language, one might predict that brains would invent mathematics."
You would have to assume that brains can actually understand the 'laws', whatever they are. I predict that brains might also invent pseudo-math, which are human-invented models of reality that do a pretty good job of modelling and predicting the universe, but are incomplete or totally wrong in some places, but they are actually totally different than the laws that govern the universe. So how do we know whether we are using 'real' math or the psuedo-math? Judging from history, one would say we are creating better and better psuedo-math.
We still don't have a mathematical theory of everything.
Yes, but one thing to consider is generational loss. You can make a perfect copy of the data on the CD indefinitely. Each copy you make of analogue data gets a little bit ( or a lot ) worse.
NICE . Mod parent up.
OK, I am willing to consider fact -- good, solid, scientific fact.
Present your arguments in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, not in an advertisement, where any whacko with enough money can be heard, or in an editorial, where any whacko who can write decently can have their whacko views heard. I'm eager to hear these facts.
As pointed out in the commentary to earlier slashdot articles, the scandinavian idea of piracy (the high seas kind) goes hand-in-hand with economic liberalism. While the British and Dutch were establishing monoplies on commodities, controlling ports, pursuing embargoes, and charging tariffs, there were captains who traded goods freely with little concern for the laws of foreign governments.
Of course, this free trade threatened the income of the empires, so they outlawed piracy and charged their own captains to capture ships, sink ships, absorb crews, and confiscate booty of free-traders who ignored tariffs and embargoes. Free-traders chose to arm themselves instead of giving up their livelihood, and the ensuing violent arms race gave us our modern popular perception of pirates today.
" Sorry, but these aren't just a few employees, these are board members.
And the guilty members are stepping down and also under investigation by law enforcement officials. What more do you want?"
Remember that GP posted that "Lets note that the it was select individuals who were doing this... and not all of HP."
GP makes it sound like it was Bob in accounting, Mary in sales, and perhaps VP Gary who had knowledge about it.
This was just a few 'rogue employees', these were members of the board. The leaders. Titans of the Industry. Role models. Powerful, respectable people. I think what the poster wants is some recognition that these aren't just 'select individuals' but board members of one of the biggest companies in the world. This is a huge scandal.
I used to think that 'duplication' was just a waste of effort. Wouldn't it be better if we all put our effort together in harmony and came up with the Next Big Thing? United we stand, divided we fall?
The problem is, when your working on a huge monolithic project like that, people really don't work together. There are arguments and disagreements. Energetical people with radical, new ideas will encounter old farts who want to do things the old way, become disenfranchised and give up. Productive old workhorses will be frustrated by young upstarts trying to pull them in 100 different directions at once, selling a bad idea from 10 years ago as the latest, greatest idea. The project will proceed on the lowest common denominator, implementing vanilla ideas that are promoted simply because nobody could find a reason to reject them.
Would you like it if Apple and MS got together to make a unified desktop? Don't you think that the bureaucracy and organizational overhead would stymie the project and ultimately water down the end result?
Instead of waste and duplication, think of it as parallel development teams, developing, implementing, and polishing the latest new ideas as a presentation to the larger mindshare market. Those ideas might need to re-developed or re-implemented, or they may be ready to be included in larger projects, like KDE or Gnome. It's a very effective and efficient way to harness human motivation and inspiration and deliver new ideas to the masses.
It's a question of how do you respond to someone who is lowering the bar. Do you sink to their level, or do you respond differently? If you respond in kind to morons, it makes you look like a moron yourself. If you respond with class and politeness to a moron, you come off as the winner. I'm certain you don't know everything, and sooner or later someone will catch you.
From my perspective, as an average slashdot reader, I have no reason to trust you. Sure, you defend people against the RIAA, but maybe you are a lousy lawyer and you really don't know what you are doing. Here comes a guy on slashdot who makes a point with some information that makes him look well-informed. On slashdot, I regularly find knowledgeable people and insightful commentary that I honestly haven't found in any other media forum. So this random slashdotter makes what looks like a good point, and you say "I have no idea what you are talking about". Well, either A.) you really don't know the law and do suck as a lawyer or b.) you have no time or patience to educate us, even when that is what you have specifically chosen to do in agreeing to the interview. I'm chosing to believe B. The problem with B is it's unsportsmanlike conduct. You're not using civility and politeness, which is causing a lot of us slashdotters to think that you are being actively hostile towards us. Your responses are harsh and defensive. Several times over, you have responded in a similar manner. The fact that you are taking the time to make such terse, unfriendly responses makes it look like you just might enjoy being a dick.
That means to me that I shouldn't hire you to take on my case, should I ever need your services, because when I need an ally most in an arena I am totally unfamiliar with, you are going to be a terse jerk, humiliating me when I am trying to communicate with you. It would be a seriously unproductive and draining relationship.
I know that law school has trained to you be adversarial and not offer your opponents any opportunity to break your streategy or resolve. This mode of interaction is causing a lot of the hostility and negative repsonse you are encountering here in slashdot. In short, keep this stuff in the courtroom, meetings, and legal letters. It's inapropriate in this forum.
On slashdot, we are looking to all looking to learn. No matter what kind of geek we are, we always want to know more. We might think we now, and bodly assert so. Most of us want to learn from our mistakes and misunderstandings. However, some don't. They are called trolls. If you respond in kind to a troll, you look like a troll yourself. Here on the internet, we only know you by what you type. If you type like a troll, we have no way of knowing whether you can act any better in other forums. At that point most will start ignoring you like they ignore other trolls. To hip you to our slang, YHBT. YHL. HAND.
I make a living doing LAMP (that's MySQL/PHP) development. I haven't had any data problems with MySQL using version 4.1 to 5.0. Admitedly, I'm not doing fortune 500 work, but I making decent use of the relational features. I looked at Postgres around 2002, but couldn't get past the install and creation of users. I haven't run into a webhost that supports it yet. Basically I have no incentive to really dig into it yet. However, I have found a feature that I would like to see in MySQL.
I have some tables that need to be arbitratily sort by the user. The sorting isn't universal throughout the table, but rather within a foreign key value. So it would look like this:
cat_id | sort_order
1 1
1 2
1 3
2 1
2 2
2 3
It's a big PITA to keep this column properly serialized with the PHP when you want to insert a new value in the middle, or move the values around. I have a restriction to prevent duplicate sort_order keys within the cat_id. I found a serial column type in Postgres. I haven't used it, but it might automagically do that crap I have to take care of in the code.
I hope I'm not randomly selected at the airport to be searched with a video probe!
OK, then he could say "I'm sorry, but it sounds like you are asking me to validate your position. I can't do that, because your position is legally incorrect -- for these reasons: ..."
Instead he says, "I have no idea what you are talking about". Thank you, I am a blithering moron who makes no sense. Thanks for showing me where my reasoning went astray. You've been very helpful.
Yes, he is a lawyer and he is trained to argue in court. However, this is 'Ask Slashdot', not a court. I would expect him to recognise this and respond appropriately. Do you think he goes out to dinner with friends and says to someone "I have no idea what you are talking about" when someone asks him a question that isn't perfectly legally formed? (Well, he might)
I don't think anyone here is asking for legal advice. The original AskSlashdot posted specifically stated that we could not ask him for legal advice.
If he's clamming up so he doesn't reveal his tactics to the RIAA, then he would save a lot of grief and disparagement if he just said so.
Couldn't an easter egg also be ironic? ;)
Sorry, the first 1984 was made in 1956, not 1946.
No, man, you don't get it.
All that these people are looking for is a little respect and politeness. The slashdot crowd is highly intelligent. Many of these people have advanced degrees and work in high-end technical fields. We're not asking dumb questions or non-sense. They might be naive and certainly are uninformed, but we are not stupid.
We can handle things like "I don't know" or "It hasn't really been decided yet". "I don't know what you're talking about" is the kind of answer you give a five-year-old when they ask something naive like "Do you think unicorns are real" and you feel like being mean and dismissive.
We are not looking for you to misinform us on the law, or to yell "Hell yeah!" and support our misconceptions, or 'tell us what we want to hear'. Just treat us civilly, like intelligent *peers*. Most of us didn't go to law school, but we probably would 'get it', if you would have a little respect for our intellect, and a little patience to take the time and explain things fully.
I gave a decent defense of your answers here, but after reading your comment response, I have you say, you really are acting like a dick to some potential clientele, and could stand to learn some manners.
Just explain "Your question is fairly ambiguous; it's impossible to give a good answer without more details, but remember a lot of law has not yet been decided" instead of a terse "I don't know what you are talking about". Your reponse makes it sound like I just came up to you and spoke utter gibberish. And, to be honest and fair, you do have a very good idea of what all of us are talking about; you are choosing to play dumb and not volunteer information. There's probably good reason for that; but remember, as computer geeks, we really don't understand the lawyer mindset. It would help all of us if you took the time to explain why 'you don't know what we are talking about'.
Lawyers are a distinct type of nerd. Think of them, and the law, as a kind of computer, or programming language, with a little bit of intelligence.
;)
Now, imagine if you typed into a computer, "create page with data pulled from database". You would get an error. A lawyer is a little bit smarter -- they can parse your sentence and specifically identify where your query or command has failed: "I don't know what you mean by 'create'" or "'page' is ambiguous"
Basically what the lawyer is saying when he says "I don't know what mp3s you're talking about" is "You haven't given me enough unambiguous information for me to give you the answer you are looking for". It's like those old text adventure games:
> listen mp3s
Sorry, I don't know what mp3s are.
> listen ipod
What ipod are you talking about?
> get ipod from desk
OK. 1 ipod in inventory
> listen ipod.
These mp3s rock! You are really groovin' !
In order to get an answer from a lawyer, you have to have *exact* terminology. Now you know how normal people feel when they talk to computer geeks
We agree probably on 90% of what we've said. But here's what I would like to say to clarify my position:
What theocracy and facism share are practices of totalitarianism. Because a theocractic state might be tapping people's phones, doesn't mean that they are partly fascist. It's just that theocracy and fascism have totalitarian qualities in common.
When we talk about whether a society is fascist or theocratic, I ask, 'What is the most important institution?' What institute wields ultimate power? In a theocracy, it is the church (or temple or mosque). The scriptures and religious tradition are the basis for law and policy. Clergymen are the ultimate decision makers. The government is very important, yes, but ultimately, the church (temple, mosque) is on top. In fascism, the state, the party, and the ethnic identity of 'the people', and oftentimes a charismatic leader, are on top. So the ruling party makes all law and decision, usually in the name of ensuring the survival of the state and 'the people'. Yes, the church is very important in a facist state, but ultimately, the party is on top.
The Islamic terrorists we are fighting are not fighting for any particular leader, state, or ethnic identity. They are not fighting for Bin Laden, they are not fighting for Saudi Arabia, they are not fighting for Persians or Arabs. They are fighting to re-establish an Islamic Empire that spanned from Europe to Asia, which encompassed multiple states and ethnic groups. The ultimate authoritative institution in this Islamic Empire is the Mosque -- the ultimate decision makers would be the Imams, basing their jurisprudence on Islamic law. Therefore, they are theocratists.
"Or could there possibly be a non-evil reason to hire these clowns?""
Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer.
Medicare is surprisingly effecient compared to private medical insurers -- its overhead is 3% compared to 12-20% for private insurers. Link.
Some argue that Medicare has an unfair advantage in that it doesn't have to advertise, doesn't have to offer competing plans, have agents, etc. I say we don't need any of that -- all of that stuff is simply churn. It just takes money away from providing health care, case in point Medicare compared to private industry.
There's been two. One was made in 1946, and it was lousy. Edmond O'Brien, as Winston Smith, had a 3-day beard and excess body fat in about the face after days or weeks of being tortured in the Ministry of Love.
;)
The other one, made in 1984, stars John Hurt as Winston Smith, and it is incredible. Ironically, John Hurt plays Supreme Chancellor Sutler in V for Vendetta. I guess Smith had an incredible career after being released from the Ministry of Love
You are confusing fascism with theocracy. The terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11th want to establish a global caliphate ruled by Islamic law, with the ultimate decisions made by Imams, or Islamic Clerics. Rule by religious figures and religous law is called 'theocracy'.
On the other hand, Mussolini said "Fascism ought to more properly be called corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power." It requires that citizens give unrelenting support to the state and tough, charismatic leaders. The government oversees all aspects of life, and requires unquestioning obedience. You can read more
When Bush calls these people Islamofacists, it's as silly as calling them Islamo-communists. They have nothing to do with facism or communism. They are theocratists.
So no, you have never been threatened or injured by an Islamofacists. Misunderstanding the enemy will not aid us in our fight.
To co-opt a phrase from the Secertary of Defense: You keep the peace and rebuild the country with the force you have, not nessarily the force you should use.
Now that we are on the ground with 3,000 American soldiers dead, anywhere up to 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualities, 3 years afer the war against Saddam's government was over, almost no progress in rebuilding the infrastructure, 9 *billion* dollars unaccounted for, how do you propose we get *out* of this situation?
How do we know these methods are non-lethal? They haven't been tested yet, have they?
So who exactly do you propose killing, or waging war against? The entire civilian population of Iraq? Iraq has no military, after we disbanded it.
This looks more and more like it's going to be another Vietnam.
"Who cares if you are in a *war* and you hurt the enemy?"
How about if you are bogged down in a peace-keeping and rebuilding operation where 90% of the population wants you out of their country and the Prime Minister has said it's okay to kill American troops? What if the only way out is to win the hearts and minds of the people so that they think they are better off than before you conquered their country? What if you need to disperse and angry and violent crowd without killing anyone so that you don't turn more people against you and feed the insugency?
Does any of this resemble anything that's going on in the real world today? A situation the United States might find itself in right now?