As a short term corrective, using "she" instead of "he" is remarkably effective at making people conscious of the issue. As a long term corrective, the use of "they", as the AC below notes, is optimal.
Why should one use a masculine pronoun? I understand that it's the historically normal usage, but that implies nothing about what we should do. The writer's meaning is clear. What other consideration is relevant?
It's one of the many sexist pathologies of English that the male third person pronoun is used to indicate a generic third person. Using a female third person pronoun in a place where the context is obviously gender neutral highlights that pathology without sacrificing any meaning.
That it pisses you off indicates only that the pathology exists. This technique has existed for more than a decade in the humanities, and once you get used to it, it's as unnoticeable as 'he/him'--in other words, once that pathology has been exposed and turned off.
This is a far better way to remove a bit of useless baggage from the language than haranguing people to be PC or accusing them of being sexist. It just moves on to a better usage, and if that bothers you, it's only because you're trying to hang on to the old sexist trope.
Aside from the obvious 'correlation does not equal causation' and the absence of a correlation between cancer and EMF fields over the century we've had our houses wired, there are two reasons not to assume that the cancer you saw in that house was due to EMF fields: first, susceptibility to cancer is heritable, so it's not that surprising for multiple family members to get cancer, especially the same kind; second, statistical clumping is a normal and expected effect of any phenomena like cancer, meaning that, just like a series of die rolls will, over time, show long runs of sixes, you can expect to find clumped cases of cancer somewhere with a large enough sample.
In short, it's predictable that there would be a house with multiple cancer cases in it, as well as towns where the number of cancer cases is significantly higher than the average. This says nothing about local causes, either in favour or against. While it's understandable that the townsfolk would look for a reason, it's actually likely that there's nothing there but predictable statistical effects.
I think there's a pretty big difference between studies showing statistical effects, and a photograph showing that the goddamned tower wasn't even plugged in.
According to the article in the OP, there was third party confirmation that the tower was turned off.
I'm not sure if this is brilliant or crazy. On the one hand, the resale value of his house just dropped 30% if that little fact is revealed before closing. OTOH, a house with no outside signals getting in sounds amazingly peaceful.
When you run data centres around the world that are collectively the most powerful supercomputer known to man, you too can get a front page story on./ announcing your upgrade.
If you'd RTFAed, you'd have realized that Shaw isn't talking about quantifying programmers at all. Seriously, not one bit. Your whole... I don't know what the fuck it is... misses the point. And Shaw's point as well, which kind of just proves his.
I traveled to Japan in 2002 with a Japanese coworker who'd left in the mid-90s. He was shocked almost to tears at the number of blue-tarp squatting settlements in Ueno, which were totally absent in the 90s.
Yes, I'm quite terrified that the International Pacific Halibut Commission is exempt from prying eyes.
Any information in Interpol is available to all members of Interpol--that's its whole point. You wouldn't put information in there if you didn't want it to see wide distribution, and for all intents and purposes it's not secure, so no government will put something in there they don't want others to see.
Interpol itself has only about 600 employees--the rest are national law enforcement officers seconded to a local National Crime Bureau. In other words, the New York NCB is staffed by FBI, the Ottawa NCB by RCMP, etc., all of those people subject to national laws like FOIA just because they're local national law enforcement officers. What Obama did by signing his executive order was to give those 600 the same diplomatic protections with respect to local taxes, customs, and diplomatic pouches as the Red Cross.
This is not a powerful international organization, it's a co-ordinating committee.
Interpol doesn't enforce international law. They co-ordinate between the police forces of member countries. If the RCMP want to arrest a suspect in the U.S., they can go through Interpol as a co-ordinating agency to arrange for the FBI to make the arrest--which won't happen unless the arrest meets the requirements of the respective countries' extradition treaty.. That's all they do.
Mainly, if an actual Interpol employee works in the U.S. (say, in the National Crime Bureau staffed mostly by FBI agents on loan), he doesn't have to pay U.S. taxes, and his office can't be searched by court order. That's basically it. It's not diplomatic immunity they received, it's International Organization Immunity, and all Obama did was put them on the same footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission.
The impetus for doing this is that the U.S. finally got around in 2004 to setting up their own National Crime Bureau so Interpol had something to co-ordinate with.
Your absolutely and utterly incorrect, thanks for playing though
No, I was correct, and you're the moron.
They are in fact the EU equivalent of the FBI
No, they're not. You may have been thinking of Europol, or you may be lost in your own delusional fantasy. Either way, you're wrong. Interpol has a staff of around 600 people, and a budget of $60 million; the FBI has 32,700+ employees, and a $7 billion budget.
Which is why.. every member country has a national central office/bureau staffed with national law enforcement/police..
This is, in fact, correct. They are national law enforcement police who are subject to national laws. An FBI agent on loan to Interpol's office in New York receives no immunities or privileges he didn't have as an FBI agent. Obama's order is regarding the organization itself, the Interpol General Secretariat.
From the Wikipedia page on Interpol:
The NCB is the designated contact point for the Interpol General Secretariat, regional bureau and other member countries requiring assistance with overseas investigations and the location and apprehension of fugitives.
Read that closely: When two police agencies need to co-operate across borders, they go through Interpol. Interpol doesn't investigate and arrest them; national law enforcement does, with Interpol acting as the co-ordinating agency. They don't originate investigations, and they don't make arrests on their own authority--that's the whole point of each country setting up an NCB staffed by locals with the authority to be police officers.
And to be perfectly clear, a national law enforcement officer in the NCB receives no benefit from the order Obama signed, which doesn't confer diplomatic immunity anyway--it's a lesser form of organizational immunity granted to international organizations that applies to Interpol's records and bureaucratic operations, not to their personnel.
Got that? Interpol doesn't have diplomatic immunity, they have International Organizations Immunity:
The International Organizations Immunities Act, signed into law in 1945, established a special group of foreign or international organizations whose members could work in the U.S. and enjoy certain exemptions from US taxes and search and seizure laws.
In other words, if someone from the general secretariat works in the NY office, they don't have to pay NY taxes and their paperwork can't be searched. If they jerk off on the subway, they can still be arrested for indecent exposure.
If you'd read your own fucking article, you'd know that 1) the pictures of men with guns weren't Interpol agents, and 2) the Interpol guy was a pencil pusher working at the U.S. Embassy who was slipping info to the cartels.
No, diplomatic immunity doesn't mean that, but that's beside the point, because Interpol didn't get diplomatic immunity. They got a lesser form of administrative consideration that puts them on the same footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission (among others).
But beyond that, you ignorant twit, Interpol has no agents, they don't investigate crimes, and they certainly don't kidnap people. They co-ordinate information sharing between police agencies--that's it. They're staffed by international bureaucrats, and all they do is push paper around all day, between committee meetings.
If you learn not to wet your pants so much, your laundry bills will be lower.
The order signed by Obama puts Interpol on the same diplomatic footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission. Interpol has no agents; they don't investigate crimes or bring charges, and they certainly don't do anything that would deprive anyone of any rights. They're an information clearinghouse amongst worldwide police agencies. They're staffed by bureaucrats and hold a lot of committee meetings. That's it.
Interpol doesn't investigate crimes, you moron. They don't have agents, they have bureaucrats who co-ordinate information sharing between police agencies. They're on the same diplomatic footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission now, and about as dangerous.
Are you shitting me? Are you really so ignorant of 1) what Interpol is, and 2) what Obama signed that you're actually believing Alex Jones now?
Obama granted Interpol the same diplomatic status as the International Pacific Halibut Commission. Interpol has no agents; they investigate no crimes and bring no charges. They're an information sharing/clearinghouse staffed by international bureaucrats, and nothing else.
Now, go change your underwear, and quit listening to Glenn Beck, and to your coworker who repeats everything he says.
There's no such thing as an "Interpol Cop". They have no police agents; they make no arrests and don't investigate crimes. They're an information sharing clearinghouse with a bunch of bureaucrats and a nationally designated committee members.
This puts them on the same diplomatic footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission.
Interpol is not a police agency; it has no agents, and they don't investigate and prosecute crimes. They're an information sharing/clearinghouse organization that has bureaucrats and committee members.
You are ignorant. Interpol has no agents; it's a clearinghouse for information sharing, and it has a bunch of committees. It has never been subject to FOIA requests. Legal authorities working on behalf of Interpol are subject to the same restrictions they always have been. The RIAA has nothing to do with Interpol.
This move by the Obama administration puts Interpol on the same footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission. Oooh, scary!
Your example is correct, but it doesn't have to do with negatives. It's as hard to prove the statement "there have always been elephants in my office" without the same 100% accurate historical record (more plausibly, and as difficult to prove, "All life on Earth is carbon-based").
Negating a positive statement yields another positive statement: "There are elephants in my office" becomes "There are no elephants in my office", which is an assertion susceptible to falsification (i.e., looking for and finding no elephants in my office). Thus, I've proved a negative.
The slogan "you can't prove a negative" is meaningless outside a fairly narrow use in logic.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll add that it's impressive how sensitive men are to issues of sexism and gender discrimination when they perceive themselves to be the victims.
As a short term corrective, using "she" instead of "he" is remarkably effective at making people conscious of the issue. As a long term corrective, the use of "they", as the AC below notes, is optimal.
Why should one use a masculine pronoun? I understand that it's the historically normal usage, but that implies nothing about what we should do. The writer's meaning is clear. What other consideration is relevant?
No, it's a good choice.
It's one of the many sexist pathologies of English that the male third person pronoun is used to indicate a generic third person. Using a female third person pronoun in a place where the context is obviously gender neutral highlights that pathology without sacrificing any meaning.
That it pisses you off indicates only that the pathology exists. This technique has existed for more than a decade in the humanities, and once you get used to it, it's as unnoticeable as 'he/him'--in other words, once that pathology has been exposed and turned off.
This is a far better way to remove a bit of useless baggage from the language than haranguing people to be PC or accusing them of being sexist. It just moves on to a better usage, and if that bothers you, it's only because you're trying to hang on to the old sexist trope.
Aside from the obvious 'correlation does not equal causation' and the absence of a correlation between cancer and EMF fields over the century we've had our houses wired, there are two reasons not to assume that the cancer you saw in that house was due to EMF fields: first, susceptibility to cancer is heritable, so it's not that surprising for multiple family members to get cancer, especially the same kind; second, statistical clumping is a normal and expected effect of any phenomena like cancer, meaning that, just like a series of die rolls will, over time, show long runs of sixes, you can expect to find clumped cases of cancer somewhere with a large enough sample.
In short, it's predictable that there would be a house with multiple cancer cases in it, as well as towns where the number of cancer cases is significantly higher than the average. This says nothing about local causes, either in favour or against. While it's understandable that the townsfolk would look for a reason, it's actually likely that there's nothing there but predictable statistical effects.
I think there's a pretty big difference between studies showing statistical effects, and a photograph showing that the goddamned tower wasn't even plugged in.
According to the article in the OP, there was third party confirmation that the tower was turned off.
I'm not sure if this is brilliant or crazy. On the one hand, the resale value of his house just dropped 30% if that little fact is revealed before closing. OTOH, a house with no outside signals getting in sounds amazingly peaceful.
When you run data centres around the world that are collectively the most powerful supercomputer known to man, you too can get a front page story on ./ announcing your upgrade.
Until then, STFU.
*ahem* deep seated.
If you'd RTFAed, you'd have realized that Shaw isn't talking about quantifying programmers at all. Seriously, not one bit. Your whole... I don't know what the fuck it is... misses the point. And Shaw's point as well, which kind of just proves his.
I traveled to Japan in 2002 with a Japanese coworker who'd left in the mid-90s. He was shocked almost to tears at the number of blue-tarp squatting settlements in Ueno, which were totally absent in the 90s.
Yes, I'm quite terrified that the International Pacific Halibut Commission is exempt from prying eyes.
Any information in Interpol is available to all members of Interpol--that's its whole point. You wouldn't put information in there if you didn't want it to see wide distribution, and for all intents and purposes it's not secure, so no government will put something in there they don't want others to see.
Interpol itself has only about 600 employees--the rest are national law enforcement officers seconded to a local National Crime Bureau. In other words, the New York NCB is staffed by FBI, the Ottawa NCB by RCMP, etc., all of those people subject to national laws like FOIA just because they're local national law enforcement officers. What Obama did by signing his executive order was to give those 600 the same diplomatic protections with respect to local taxes, customs, and diplomatic pouches as the Red Cross.
This is not a powerful international organization, it's a co-ordinating committee.
Interpol doesn't enforce international law. They co-ordinate between the police forces of member countries. If the RCMP want to arrest a suspect in the U.S., they can go through Interpol as a co-ordinating agency to arrange for the FBI to make the arrest--which won't happen unless the arrest meets the requirements of the respective countries' extradition treaty.. That's all they do.
Mainly, if an actual Interpol employee works in the U.S. (say, in the National Crime Bureau staffed mostly by FBI agents on loan), he doesn't have to pay U.S. taxes, and his office can't be searched by court order. That's basically it. It's not diplomatic immunity they received, it's International Organization Immunity, and all Obama did was put them on the same footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission.
The impetus for doing this is that the U.S. finally got around in 2004 to setting up their own National Crime Bureau so Interpol had something to co-ordinate with.
No, I was correct, and you're the moron.
No, they're not. You may have been thinking of Europol, or you may be lost in your own delusional fantasy. Either way, you're wrong. Interpol has a staff of around 600 people, and a budget of $60 million; the FBI has 32,700+ employees, and a $7 billion budget.
This is, in fact, correct. They are national law enforcement police who are subject to national laws. An FBI agent on loan to Interpol's office in New York receives no immunities or privileges he didn't have as an FBI agent. Obama's order is regarding the organization itself, the Interpol General Secretariat.
From the Wikipedia page on Interpol:
Read that closely: When two police agencies need to co-operate across borders, they go through Interpol. Interpol doesn't investigate and arrest them; national law enforcement does, with Interpol acting as the co-ordinating agency. They don't originate investigations, and they don't make arrests on their own authority--that's the whole point of each country setting up an NCB staffed by locals with the authority to be police officers.
And to be perfectly clear, a national law enforcement officer in the NCB receives no benefit from the order Obama signed, which doesn't confer diplomatic immunity anyway--it's a lesser form of organizational immunity granted to international organizations that applies to Interpol's records and bureaucratic operations, not to their personnel.
Got that? Interpol doesn't have diplomatic immunity, they have International Organizations Immunity:
In other words, if someone from the general secretariat works in the NY office, they don't have to pay NY taxes and their paperwork can't be searched. If they jerk off on the subway, they can still be arrested for indecent exposure.
Thanks for playing, though.
If you'd read your own fucking article, you'd know that 1) the pictures of men with guns weren't Interpol agents, and 2) the Interpol guy was a pencil pusher working at the U.S. Embassy who was slipping info to the cartels.
No, diplomatic immunity doesn't mean that, but that's beside the point, because Interpol didn't get diplomatic immunity. They got a lesser form of administrative consideration that puts them on the same footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission (among others).
But beyond that, you ignorant twit, Interpol has no agents, they don't investigate crimes, and they certainly don't kidnap people. They co-ordinate information sharing between police agencies--that's it. They're staffed by international bureaucrats, and all they do is push paper around all day, between committee meetings.
If you learn not to wet your pants so much, your laundry bills will be lower.
The order signed by Obama puts Interpol on the same diplomatic footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission. Interpol has no agents; they don't investigate crimes or bring charges, and they certainly don't do anything that would deprive anyone of any rights. They're an information clearinghouse amongst worldwide police agencies. They're staffed by bureaucrats and hold a lot of committee meetings. That's it.
Interpol doesn't investigate crimes, you moron. They don't have agents, they have bureaucrats who co-ordinate information sharing between police agencies. They're on the same diplomatic footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission now, and about as dangerous.
Are you shitting me? Are you really so ignorant of 1) what Interpol is, and 2) what Obama signed that you're actually believing Alex Jones now?
Obama granted Interpol the same diplomatic status as the International Pacific Halibut Commission. Interpol has no agents; they investigate no crimes and bring no charges. They're an information sharing/clearinghouse staffed by international bureaucrats, and nothing else.
Now, go change your underwear, and quit listening to Glenn Beck, and to your coworker who repeats everything he says.
There's no such thing as an "Interpol Cop". They have no police agents; they make no arrests and don't investigate crimes. They're an information sharing clearinghouse with a bunch of bureaucrats and a nationally designated committee members.
This puts them on the same diplomatic footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission.
Interpol is not a police agency; it has no agents, and they don't investigate and prosecute crimes. They're an information sharing/clearinghouse organization that has bureaucrats and committee members.
You can come out from under the bed now.
You are ignorant. Interpol has no agents; it's a clearinghouse for information sharing, and it has a bunch of committees. It has never been subject to FOIA requests. Legal authorities working on behalf of Interpol are subject to the same restrictions they always have been. The RIAA has nothing to do with Interpol.
This move by the Obama administration puts Interpol on the same footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission. Oooh, scary!
Your example is correct, but it doesn't have to do with negatives. It's as hard to prove the statement "there have always been elephants in my office" without the same 100% accurate historical record (more plausibly, and as difficult to prove, "All life on Earth is carbon-based").
Negating a positive statement yields another positive statement: "There are elephants in my office" becomes "There are no elephants in my office", which is an assertion susceptible to falsification (i.e., looking for and finding no elephants in my office). Thus, I've proved a negative.
The slogan "you can't prove a negative" is meaningless outside a fairly narrow use in logic.