Further minor nit pick - It does give Congress authority to act and collect tariffs in the following sections:
The Congress shall have power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
(Art I, Sec. 8, clause 1)
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
(Art. I, Sec. 8, clause 3)
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
(Art. I, Sec. 9, clause 5)
Section 10 didn't need to explicitly give Congress the authority, because the earlier sections explicitly gave that authority to Congress.
It should be pointed out that importation duties were one of the very first significant sources of revenue for the federal government under the Washington administration, and still are a rather important source of revenue to this day. This is an exclusive authority restricted only to Congress, unless it is a part of a state compact... which also requires congressional authority.
You can't get away from federal authority on this matter, and a state can not unilaterally act in this manner.
Wait, so if I buy a PS3 in Tennessee, and with it in my possession move to another state and use it there, I have to pay another tax on it?
Yes. You may get a credit for taxes previously paid to another state government, but if the tax rate is higher in the new state that you are moving to.... you would be liable for the sales taxes in the new state.
It is a tax that is seldom enforced, but it is on the books of most states. In Utah (where I live) you have to declare those taxes on your annual income tax return. Most people put "0" in that part of the return to keep it simple, and it usually doesn't prompt an audit when you put in zero, but it is a tax you are legally obligated to pay. Other states may have other policies, but it all ends up being the same... that you have to pay sales taxes and you can't make an end-run around it.
I wonder who, exactly, is the raving lunatic here?
A "pox" on the U.S. Constitution? Yeah, I'd like to see you live for more than a month without it... regardless of where you live in this world. Without that document and the governments created by it, this would would be a hellish place to live.
To ditto the anonymous coward who responded here, this is indeed a tariff and unconstitutional authority grab. There is indeed a good reason why the constitution explicitly prohibits states from imposing a tariff against each other. At the very least, read up on the tariff wars between New York and New Jersey if you want to get a history lesson to find out why the constitutional prohibition was put in against tariffs in the first place on the state level. The only taxes of this nature can be done by the Federal government, and even then only on goods imported into the USA, not on stuff manufactured for export.
For many, many years the import duties were about the only substantial form of revenue for the Federal government as well, so it will be a power jealously guarded by the feds as well.
As to if this particular "fee" or "tax" applies as a tariff, that is certainly up to debate on this issue. It is also a state sovereignty issue, where Minnesota doesn't have any sort of constitutional authority to regulate utilities in another state. If that is how North Dakota decides to generate income and revenue for its citizens, Minnesota can't impose any sort of regulations on that generation.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and in terms of the electricity coming into Minnesota via "importation", it will be very difficult to actually regulate how that electricity is generated in the first place for a place that is outside of its own borders. If they want to impose a fee for coal plants within their own state, they certainly could do that... but it isn't the same thing.
Too bad that far too few people have actually read the U.S. Constitution any more.
Marginally increase the cost of manufacturing? Electricity costs are about the most basic and pervasive costs you can have in any manufacturing process.
Of course now that almost everything is manufactured in China, I suppose that a tax on goods produced in Minnesota is mostly irrelevant. Look around to where Tonka Trucks are now made, which is an example of supposed American manufacturing prowess and ingenuity. This once famous Minnesota company is now nowhere to be found at all, and instead has been bought out by a huge international conglomerate and all of the manufacturing jobs that were once in Minnesota are now done by Chinese speakers in one form or another. It all started with some outsourcing to Mexico back elsewhen.
I could name other major Minnesota companies that have made a huge impact on the world and have faced similar kinds of very interesting ends. Some that are still around and others that have been absorbed and are good and dead. Minnesota was once the center of some significant manufacturing for America, but good bye to that kind of lifestyle.
The sad thing is that once a tax like this gets passed, it will almost never get repealed no matter how much the ordinary citizens hate the thing.
If you have ever worked with bloated or corrupted libraries, there certainly is a reason to "reinvent the wheel" from time to time.
Then again, it takes a very competent developer to know the difference between what is a bad library function and what is simply poor design that doesn't take into account all of the potential variables and what their valid ranges might be. Thinking that your program or software will only be used for x years is what caused most of the Y2K bugs in the first place, and similar bugs like this one in 2010.
My point is that using a library function is fine, but using a library that loads an extra meg of code for something that is a three line function is not an efficient use of software. This is precisely why Windows no longer even fits on a DVD disc any more, and they are moving on to Blu-ray discs for distribution.
Re:idiocy? Incompetence?
on
Y2.01K
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· Score: 4, Informative
Amen this this sentiment. The effort to make sure that the Y2K bug didn't cause more havoc and mayhem is precisely due to the herculean effort on the part of hundreds of thousands of programmers who worked overtime to see that it didn't happen.
I had the cell phone for my company to receive the complaints from customers seeking an engineering solution to fixing any potential problems on the night of December 31st, 1999. The company CEO had this number on speed dial for some very high end clients. That I got through the night with some excellent sleep is a testament to the work that did happen was well done.
It turned out for the company I worked for, there was a Y2K bug that did get missed, but it was relatively minor and only impacted the error logging system. Even funnier was that particular system had only been developed six months earlier, by a programmer who clearly should have known better. The date being logged was recorded as the year "19100" instead of 2000.
I'm far more worried about the 2038 Unix overflow bug, which is a much harder bug to try and root out of systems. We have 18 years to fix that bug, but I'm mainly worried that legacy applications on archaic computers used in situations that has no budget is where it will be the largest problem. Unix boxes in particular are known as workhorse computers that can be neglected and ignored... unlike a Windows computer that will most certainly be in the recycling bin within 18 years.
Also, one of the typical "fixes" for the Y2K bug was to set an arbitrary "century window" on the software.... with sometimes random intervals for when this window actually falls. Instead of Y2K biting you all on the same day, it will happen as a class of failures on random dates when some major epoch happens.... such as 2010. So for me, this isn't even news as this is something I'm expecting. 2020 is going to be another year to watch for similar bugs, and 2040 is going to be a particularly ugly year as 1940 was set as a common century epoch point for a great many companies. 1970 was more common, but I hope that the Y2K bug is finally fixed by 2070.
The problem here is that people like Bono are calling for and expecting laws passed that will perpetuate the current music industry business models. "Music industry" representatives go before congress and send delegates to international events like the WIPO conference demanding all sorts of copy protection and DRM schemes to be given the force of law so ordinary folks can't get their music except from the official gatekeepers.
It is your and my problem when our elected representatives are changing these laws to essentially promote somebody like Bono at the expense of anybody else coming into the market, and having folks with guns and prisons who will make the competition work in their favor. I'm all for competition in the "marketplace" and encouraging the best of the best to rise to the top, but the deck shouldn't be stacked against those with genuine talent because they are simply late to getting into the game. This includes both musicians and "alternative" music labels, or even a start-up recording studio that can find excellent talent and decides on innovative content distribution networks... like free internet downloads.
The law shouldn't be changed to simply squash the competition.
This isn't quite the same thing, as a GUI operating system in something mass-produced was first done by Apple Computer. Others (notably Xerox) had tried to come up with the technology, but the "parent" company in the case of the Xerox PARC simply was clueless about what exactly they had. Xerox really blew a huge business opportunity, as they had the patents and the engineers capable of pulling off the kind of computers that Apple is currently famous for.
In that Apple certainly deserve credit for the modern environment of graphical design, I'll certainly give credit. Apple did design many early graphic design tool and early innovator with graphical design. Apple also was a major innovator with their Apple ][ computer that also had some important early graphical design tools and major peripherals like plotters and hard drives that were just as influential in graphical design, so yeah, Apple's role is much more than just a side line and copying the GUI OS design from Xerox as well on the more famous Lisa and Mac. If anything, the real usurper is Microsoft, who didn't do much in terms of something original for many years.
IMHO this is more like saying that Al Gore "invented" the internet. Yeah, he may have provided some substantial early support from a critical location (aka the U.S. Congress), but he didn't really "invent" the thing.
My point is that the internet would have grown and expanded even without the web, as its growth was exponential even before the use of HTTP. Compuserv also did quite well for even consumer-grade internet applications well before the HTTP protocol was developed, and in fact it could be argued that Compuserv's role is even more critical than Tim Berners-Lee, as they came up with the GIF imaging format that made the web do something that didn't exist earlier: Display pictures along with the text. Other text retrieval systems existed prior to HTTP, most notably the Gopher networks that was an early "competitor" to HTTP, and HTTP really wasn't all that fancy or feature-rich as the competing formats of the era. In fact, I would argue it was the simplicity of HTTP and how easy it was to create an implementation of the standard that made HTTP catch on and work so well.
An "aircar" version of a HMMWV (aka "Humvee" or "Hummer") might be an interesting vehicle, and would have some tactical applications in terms of inserting some soldiers or marines at a critical location or to redistribute firepower during critical situations. Flying over improvised bombs and landmines might also have a practical side effect of rendering those kinds of attacks as an obsolete tactic.
So yeah, I can see a legitimate military application for this kind of vehicle.
As for civilian versions, I don't see the value of it either in terms of raw economics. Fuel consumption in terms of mile per gallon would be hideous, especially on short trips. If these vehicles were to be adopted in large quantities, traffic problems would also be a nightmare and would also require a massive overhaul of traffic laws, not to mention how the FAA would treat such vehicles as well.
As for antigravity research.... at least find the physical phenomena first that it at least works at all before dumping millions into R&D to get it working. At least nuclear fusion has a physical science theory to base technological research upon, unlike other even more far fetched ideas like zero point energy or anti-gravity research.
These only give exposure to a tiny number of acts anyway. Especially given that the modern idea is along the lines of "eliminate one a week" as opposed to "eliminate all but one a week".
This actually reinforces my point. Even the producers of American Idol have made changes because very good acts can and have been eliminated not because they are good but because of random chance and prejudice on the part of the judges involved.
My point is that the system is broken, and that American Idol is a symptom of that failure rather than a sign of health. That music competition wouldn't even exist if other means were available for really talented people to get into the music business.
Oh, I am quite aware that the American Idol model is a successful business model by itself... because the rest of the recording industry music model is so completely broken that it is the only way to "break into the biz".
Think of it this way, if there were other alternative approaches for really good performers/singer to get into the business without having to go through the gatekeepers known as "the Judges" (aka Simon Cowell, et al.), there wouldn't be nearly such good talent that they would be able to mine for such a competition. With a lack of talented performers, the quality of the talent found would be 2nd or 3rd tier talent and that caliber would make the show seem like the lounge show acts that Mr. Cowell seems to constantly complain about. More to the point, the television show wouldn't get many viewers because of the mediocre talent, nor would the advertisers be willing to pay for such extravagance. Simply put, the show should flop.
I'm not disputing that the producers of American Idol are laughing all of the way to the bank, but wondering at what cost to the rest of the country they are able to milk the system... and why the couple hundred singers who really are pretty good and made the first couple cuts can't seem to find gainful employment in the industry? I argue that the loss in potential revenue because those in the music biz are so stuck up on themselves that they can't find a way for really good people to make money. Many of these performers could certainly re-invigorate the music industry and overall end up selling more music than the loss of income that supposedly the music industry is facing today from "piracy", if you can even believe the numbers coming from music industry executives.
In short, the producers of American Idol, not to mention the recording studio execs that support that show, are ultimately shooting themselves in the foot by not seeking after this talent in a more organized fashion that would give them a genuine break. They would make far, far more money by actually reinvigorating the music industry with genuine new talent if the genuinely talented singers could somehow get to doing what they want to do: sing as a professional career choice.
Instead, they go for the same stale acts that make a trip to the music store disappointing each time you go there.
The "Web" had nothing to do with the expansion of the internet other than providing a "killer app" that most ordinary people would be willing to use. The "internet" was growing very well without HTTP and HTML, including sharing documents and providing methods for people to download/upload materials.
It annoys me to no end when I see people who should know better to make the assumption internet==web.
One funny experience I had was at Comdex when I cornered "salesman" trying to sell some set-top box that would connect "to the internet". I gave him a well-formed URL that would work on any web browser commonly used at the time... and his little box simply barfed up a sort of syntax error instead. It was an FTP site instead of a web browser, not that anybody remembers those kind of servers any more.
Even more frustrating is when firewalls presume that port 80 is the only access port you would ever use... or convincing IT security guys that you might want to use a port other than 80.
How long is it going to take to transition to IPv6 - probably 10 years or more.
Where is the time and money better spent?
The transition to IPv6 should have been 10 years ago. It is that old of a concept. That it might take 10 more years is essentially saying it will never happen.
I agree that IPv6 is the way to go, and it astounds me that there are folks even willing to issue IPv4 address blocks. If the harsh reality comes down that no new IP addresses are going to be allocated, folks will be much more prone to a solution like IPv6.
I remember nearly two decades ago that a discussion came up at the university that I attended (which had a/16 address block... or old "Class B" for those in the know) started to go through having to justify all 65k IP addresses that they had and how they were going to be used in the future. Quite literally, every PC in every department plus ones for all of the students were allocated to "justify" keeping the full block. The situation hasn't really changed there either, and that university is quite jealous at keeping its IP block too.
What is funny, however, is folks allocating IPv6 are even more stingy at allocating IP addresses than those involved with IPv4 ever were.
Last time I heard, free beer tends to enable free speech.
Sometimes the free speech is a little more free than the speaker had hoped, but they certainly let it loose.
As a (former) politician, it turns out that free beer is one of the few ways to genuinely earn votes as well. Getting a brewery to support your political cause is a guaranteed way to win.
If he was seriously talking about future artists or the small time artists that are trying to break into the musical big leagues, he would look far more seriously at why competitions like "American Idol" or "Pop Idol" have to be created in order to find the talent for tomorrow's music.
There is something seriously broken in the music industry, and it isn't the "illegal music pirates" on the internet that is the problem. There really isn't a reasonable farm system any more for getting young and promising talent to move up without going outside of the system. Recording contracts are absolutely hideous and filled with clauses that keep any aspiring musician from being able to become a genuinely professional musician.
Furthermore, there is a problem with groups like the RIAA, ASCAP, and other groups who supposedly are accepting licensing fees on behalf of these small time artists to actually pay up and get some money, any money, to this new and rising generation of musicians. The current royalty collection system only works for artists like Bono who are at the top of the game, and it is the little guys that get squeezed out in the process.
I'll also want to respond to this statement:
The only thing protecting the movie and TV industries from the fate that has befallen music and indeed the newspaper business is the size of the files. The immutable laws of bandwidth tell us we’re just a few years away from being able to download an entire season of “24” in 24 seconds. Many will expect to get it free.
Last time I checked, a typical op-ed column or even an entire newspaper edition is an order of magnitude smaller than a MP3 file. If you add pictures and put it in a PDF file, it might be of comparable size.... to a single music file. I don't see the comparison here either. There is copyrighted on-line content that has subscribers, and those models work... as does advertising-based publications as well.
The problem with the music industry isn't the freeloaders, but rather with venues for new musicians where the up and coming artists will actually get paid at all in the first place. Even if you "unmake" the internet, these new musicians won't be paid by the major record labels no matter how hard the new musicians work or try to find customers/listeners.
A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators
No, those who it hurts the most are the recording studio executives who no longer have a gravy train ride to profits, and somehow have to work to earn a living now. The old business models are broken and no longer work... because the world has changed. If you are creative, people will pay for music. They want to pay for good music, and there are many people who are actively looking for new musicians to support. The days that a recording executive in Hollywood might be able to cherry pick some random slob from an inner city ghetto and bring them to stardom through payola and graft with radio stations is over. They want to make their money off of vinyl or optical discs, and the world has moved on to other media.
I'd much rather support some new and aspiring artist than folks like Bono. Unfortunately, when the government gets into the act, it is the old dinosaurs that get all of the money and they keep it from going to the new and upcoming musicians.
I never said these are accidents. I did say that they were mis-guided, perhaps "twisted minds of stupid people" as you so eloquently put it.
I'll also admit that some religious traditions tend to encourage more violence than others. For example, when was the last time you heard of a Quaker suicide terrorist, or a Buddhist one for that matter? Yet "Islamic fanatical terrorist" certainly stretches no imagination to see, or read about in the news.
Not withstanding the papacy and other European state religions, Christianity does have an anti-authoritarianism bent to its philosophies that encourages people to question leaders and those "in charge", and to seek out for themselves "God's will". That is, in part, why there are thousands of different forms of Christian thought, and why it is often Christian religious leaders who are at the forefront of seeking social changes. Regardless of what the current folks engaged in what is called "liberalism" today think about it, the roots of "progressive socialism" can be found in Christian thought and philosophies.
It seems all that more ironic that it is "conservative Christians" who are fighting that philosophy today.
Atheism is simply a lack of belief in god. Religious people tend not to grok this; they think everybody is like them so atheists have to believe in SOMETHING.
Being an atheist does not predict or imply any particular moral or ethical behavior any more than does being religious (in the real world). But unlike the religious, atheists take responsibility for and have to justify their actions, good or bad.
How little you know about both the "religious types" and atheists as well. While I will admit that there are some "pure" atheists that don't accept any religion at all, there are certainly some self-professed atheists who exhibit a display of worship for some things that in almost every aspect but formal profession... sometimes even engaging in a sort of formal religious ceremony.
I've also seen some narcissistic behavior from many self-professed atheists, but then again I've seen that even from those who have professed religious beliefs. The more public you find the preachers, the more you find this tendency as well, so it isn't surprising that it becomes something to attack in terms of being critical of organized religion. To say that atheists are immune from this kind of behavior simply ignores human psychology altogether.
BTW, the correlation between religion and the persecuted groups was not just incidental, it was essential and explicit in the case of both the Chinese and Russian programs of extermination. I suppose I can't convince you otherwise, but for somebody else reading this, look up your history. You will be shocked... except for those kind of folks who are also German holocaust deniers. Instead of sending folks into concentration camps, Russia simply marched whole villages to the Pacific Ocean at gunpoint.... from the Ukraine, in January, without food or drink other than what they found enroute. Needless to say, few got past the Ural mountains, if even they got that far.
The difference between what Russia did and what Germany did during WWII was that Russia didn't bother with things like keeping records of who died. The Germans, on the other hand, kept detailed records of their genocide so they end up being considered the bad guys of history and the Russians as "liberators".
It is one thing for a group of folks who happen to have a religious philosophy to be singled out for their heinous actions and blame that religious philosophy for that action.
It is something completely different to condemn a religious movement whose leaders have killed others in the name of that religion and invoked the name of God to further their military conquests.
That could be said for both the Crusades of the 10th through roughly 13th Centuries (give or take, with some strong disagreements about when they began and ended), and the Jihads of Islam... both of the 14th Century variety and what has been happening at the beginning of the 21st Century.
These kind of religious wars should be justifiably condemned as actions that are ignoring the basic tenants of their religious founders and something of a misguided group of individuals.
Also, in terms of the Crusades, other political and social considerations came into play there too. There was the encroachment of Islam upon Europe that was viewed with legitimate hostility, and a problem with improving health in Europe that had 3rd and 4th sons of nobility without a chance to receive a title or inheritance... and sought instead to conquer new territories to gain a title of nobility instead. It is no small coincidence that one of the major acts of the 1st Crusade was to sack and virtually eliminate the Christian (at the time) city of Constantinople.
As far as the pograms in Russia and the "Cultural Revolution" in China, both were done explicitly to persecute and eliminate through genocide specific groups of people who had a religious viewpoint. This was not done in spite of religion, but explicitly because of religion. I suppose it could be called an "extremist" viewpoint, but when you start to get into eight and nine significant digits in terms of the number of people killed in these action as a means to spread atheism, it starts to get a little off to say it was just a few people killed here. These were people promoting atheism, and killing those who would not accept atheism. In this aspect, I would certainly assert that atheist have killed people in this world... perhaps more people than has been done by all other forms of religious persecution combined in the entire history of mankind.
As to if either the Russian or Chinese brand of Communism could in its own right be called a "religion" as something distinct and different from other non-deity "religious-like movements" such as environmentalism or "secular humanism", that certainly is a viewpoint to make as well. I don't like to paint all atheism with a broad brush as being all the same, as atheism takes on many distinct forms and even blends of those forms. There isn't necessarily anything evil or heinous about being an atheist. There are certainly some political or social philosophies (like eugenics) that tend to create more crazy folks than others, and certainly communism as practiced under Mao and Stalin led to some horrible acts. At the same time, I do think that most atheists simply want to be left to themselves and don't desire harm to others, as is true of most people in general.
Hitler claimed to be a christian. Mao and Stalin killed people for 'the greater good' or something like that. I'm actually hard pressed to find any incidents where a bunch of atheists killed people for being religious.
If anything Hitler was against Christianity, but felt that the time to deal with Christians was to be left to a time well after the other "lesser races" were dealt with. There clearly was anti-Christian bias in some of the letters and writings of Hitler, and a sort of psuedo-religious cult that came up in the form of Nazism that transcended Christianity.
Certainly the anti-Jewish sentiment in Nazism was not grounded in Christianity, but rather in something far more profound and a sort of religion in its own right.
As for being hard-pressed to look for any incident where a bunch of avowed atheists have explicitly killed those harboring religious beliefs as their only "crime"? I don't think you have looked hard enough. Millions have died at the hands of atheists, or at least governments that have sought explicitly to purge religious thought. Both Mao and Stalin were involved in that killing, and both professed official atheism. It wasn't merely "the greater good", but that was indeed the rationale. It also involved more than just these two men.
Even today in China, if you tried to open a church or express your religious beliefs in a public manner without formal state approval you will get arrested and possibly even killed on the spot for what in most "western" nations would be considered a non-violent protest. I'm not talking twenty or forty years ago, I'm talking today. People are still being killed today in the name of atheism, or because they don't disavow their religious beliefs.
I've run several Dungeons and Dragons campaigns that have a religious theme, and at best introducing Christianity into role-playing games makes it rather difficult to really concentrate on simply having fun. It can be interesting to try and study the Crusades or something of a fantasy literature genera like the tales of King Arthur and the Quest for the Holy Grail (aka the cup Jesus used for the Last Supper), but it is difficult to try and keep a neutral point of view about Christianity when you are engaged in such games.
All of this also applies, perhaps even more so, to video games. If Christianity is introduced, it is usually in the form of a backstory, something that simply IS there, not necessarily something that is promoted or discouraged. Face it, most fantasy games are involved with the destruction of property and the taking of life in some form or another. Living the life of a Benedictine monk, if you went into the full details, would be for most 13-18 year olds to be rather boring to the point of tearing out hair.
One successful treatment of religion in games, as a critical element of the game, was in Civilization IV. From the viewpoint of somebody who is religious (myself), I find the treatment of religion here to be quite interesting.... particularly in dealing with things like missionary activity and overtly discussing the role of a resurrected savior. Having played the game, it is a rather interesting element to have hoards of missionaries go forth to "spread the word", where you can conquer the world through cultural battles and trade rather than the force of arms. Battles between Islam and Christianity are particularly interesting to do in some scenarios. The interesting thing about this particular game, however, is a viewpoint of religious tolerance that I haven't really seen done in too many other games. For reasons of gameplay, the major religions are all put on an equal footing and have similar effects compared to each other, and it gets interesting to see Moses, Mohammed, and Paul (of Tarsus) standing quite literally next to each other. In the context of the game, these are all called "Great Prophets" and have some interesting abilities... as "military units". I do think it was wise for the game designers to not put in Jesus of Nazareth.
Most games, if they do put religion into the game, either work from an old world pagan mythos (aka the Norse or Greek gods), or make up their own mythos from whole cloth. One game I can think of is Runescape, where the primary gods are Zamorak and Saradomin. Basically this is good (Saradomin) vs. evil (Zamorak), mostly renamed and put into a context that keeps the religious topics in a fantasy element that avoids even getting into "real world religion". Christianity is touched lightly in the form of King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable, and there is a "quest for the holy grail", but the Christianity is only briefly mentioned and not a critical element to the story. Even with that, it is said that Arthur was put into the game by a "powerful mage" who pulled them in from another universe to keep even that element from getting involved into the game in any more detail. The made-up mythos does play a role in the game, and there are in fact philosophical battles between players about which "god" is the best as well as game elements that involve dealing with the in-game religions, but it is kept as an element of fun rather than specific types of worship. By far and away, when religion is dealt with in a fantasy setting, this is quite typical. The role of prayer in Runescape is also quite interesting... particularly as it is considered a "combat" skill. Essentially, it is treated as a sort of divine magic, although which deity that is involved in granting that "magic" is not really discussed.
For somebody from the evangelical Christian community to explicitly design a game involving elements of Christianity in an overt way into the game, I'm not entire
When I see the sheer ignorance here of such monumental proportion, I just drop my jaw:
However, it was considered a bad thing (rightly so), and so people kept quiet about it.
It was a bad thing, rightly so?!?!? This one statement seems to think the pograms of Stalin were a good thing! This was genocide on a scale involving millions of people being forced at gunpoint to their deaths. It makes the "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo look like a sneeze. Seriously, I just can't believe what I'm seeing here with stuff like this.
If you talk to a vast majority of people around here and ask them what it was like, they'll tell you, people were religious, they just didn't jam it in peoples faces, else they could be killed.
This was simply acknowledging reality.... these guys running the USSR were blood thirsty tyrants, but they did want to rule and govern some folks, and that unfortunately included the religious. It wasn't jamming it into people's faces, it was having abject fear that the KGB would find out if you were engaged in religious activity of any kind and being ground down into abject poverty if you showed any kind of religious leanings. Supporting a religion was considered a mental illness, and often "treated" with medicine and/or a trip to a Gulag.
The point you're trying to make, which is unjustified, is that Atheist killed people because of their religion. While these people were Atheist and did kill people because of their religion, the amount of THESE deaths was relatively small, especially compared to the inquisition. Stalin's Russia killed many people, but not for their religion, this was due to the tyranny of the state.
The number of people killed was small? It was in the TENs of MILLIONS killed in the name of atheism, explicitly to drive out and commit genocide of peoples who had a specific cultural bias supporting religion that would otherwise be difficult to take out through "education".
Those killed in the inquisition? A few thousand. There were easily 1000 people killed under the USSR and explicitly purges of entire regions of "undesirable" peoples for each person killed during the inquisition. Never at any time did the Catholic Church or the states that supported the Inquisition (France and Spain primarily) wipe out entire villages. Yes, it wasn't pretty, but it is hardly the same thing.
So, here's an idea churchy, next time you think you're really smart and recite what some priest told you, perhaps you should do some research first, before repeating it as fact, to see if the guy who makes shit up (The priest), is still making shit up.
This isn't some things that came from my "priest" who told be a bit of stuff to scare me, this is learning about history and studying from my father and grandfather.... cold warriors who thank god (my GOD!) fought against the USSR in the one and only way that the USSR respected: The blunt use of arms including nuclear arms to try and keep this evil empire under control. I had uncles who died in the Cold War as military combatants. This wasn't some made-up story to scare some little kiddies, but real evil men who wanted world domination and had a strong desire to exterminate any and all religious thought.
Even under Gorbachev, life wasn't all that rosy either. I think some folks really don't know what the USSR really was, how it worked, or how completely it dominated the life of the Russian peoples. And if you weren't a Russian in the USSR, you were clearly an oppressed minority where programs like "Russification" of the people is still having an impact in places like Georgia and the Ukraine.
This is most certainly not "making shit up", it is knowing a bit or two about history, a history that is apparently being ignored and discarded.
Re:a game that tells the truth about religion
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Religion in Video Games
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· Score: 1, Informative
In the case of the Soviet Union, it was precisely to "spread their religion" as atheism was explicitly the established state policy and explicitly by law persecuted all other religious philosophies with the ultimate goal of extinction of those philosophies.
I see little difference between the kinds of persecution that happened under the Soviet Union and that which was done in the 2nd & 3rd Centuries (AD, or "common era") against the Christians in the Roman Empire. Both were done for the very same reasons: to support and sustain the state religion.
Of current modern philosophies in play, that religion which is most intolerant of other philosophies is currently Islam. Comparing the number of incidents caused by "Christian terrorists" vs. "Islamic terrorists" or "Jewish terrorists" is no contest. And yes, both Christian (Northern Ireland) and Jewish (Palestine) terrorists have existed in the past, but they don't hold a candle to the destructive nature currently being done. It is also hard to compare the Crusades by King Richard (of England) vs. the Jihad of Saladin as both were destructive.
But I'd still go with the grandparent to point out that the Soviet Union, in the name of atheism, killed more than almost all of these religious crusades/jihads combined throughout nearly the entire history of mankind. It was certainly multiple times that killed by Hitler for religious reasons under the Third Reich. I was by far and away a much larger threat to other religious philosophies than any other philosophical movement ever.
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Further minor nit pick - It does give Congress authority to act and collect tariffs in the following sections:
(Art I, Sec. 8, clause 1)
(Art. I, Sec. 8, clause 3)
(Art. I, Sec. 9, clause 5)
Section 10 didn't need to explicitly give Congress the authority, because the earlier sections explicitly gave that authority to Congress.
It should be pointed out that importation duties were one of the very first significant sources of revenue for the federal government under the Washington administration, and still are a rather important source of revenue to this day. This is an exclusive authority restricted only to Congress, unless it is a part of a state compact... which also requires congressional authority.
You can't get away from federal authority on this matter, and a state can not unilaterally act in this manner.
Wait, so if I buy a PS3 in Tennessee, and with it in my possession move to another state and use it there, I have to pay another tax on it?
Yes. You may get a credit for taxes previously paid to another state government, but if the tax rate is higher in the new state that you are moving to.... you would be liable for the sales taxes in the new state.
It is a tax that is seldom enforced, but it is on the books of most states. In Utah (where I live) you have to declare those taxes on your annual income tax return. Most people put "0" in that part of the return to keep it simple, and it usually doesn't prompt an audit when you put in zero, but it is a tax you are legally obligated to pay. Other states may have other policies, but it all ends up being the same... that you have to pay sales taxes and you can't make an end-run around it.
I wonder who, exactly, is the raving lunatic here?
A "pox" on the U.S. Constitution? Yeah, I'd like to see you live for more than a month without it... regardless of where you live in this world. Without that document and the governments created by it, this would would be a hellish place to live.
To ditto the anonymous coward who responded here, this is indeed a tariff and unconstitutional authority grab. There is indeed a good reason why the constitution explicitly prohibits states from imposing a tariff against each other. At the very least, read up on the tariff wars between New York and New Jersey if you want to get a history lesson to find out why the constitutional prohibition was put in against tariffs in the first place on the state level. The only taxes of this nature can be done by the Federal government, and even then only on goods imported into the USA, not on stuff manufactured for export.
For many, many years the import duties were about the only substantial form of revenue for the Federal government as well, so it will be a power jealously guarded by the feds as well.
As to if this particular "fee" or "tax" applies as a tariff, that is certainly up to debate on this issue. It is also a state sovereignty issue, where Minnesota doesn't have any sort of constitutional authority to regulate utilities in another state. If that is how North Dakota decides to generate income and revenue for its citizens, Minnesota can't impose any sort of regulations on that generation.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and in terms of the electricity coming into Minnesota via "importation", it will be very difficult to actually regulate how that electricity is generated in the first place for a place that is outside of its own borders. If they want to impose a fee for coal plants within their own state, they certainly could do that... but it isn't the same thing.
Too bad that far too few people have actually read the U.S. Constitution any more.
Marginally increase the cost of manufacturing? Electricity costs are about the most basic and pervasive costs you can have in any manufacturing process.
Of course now that almost everything is manufactured in China, I suppose that a tax on goods produced in Minnesota is mostly irrelevant. Look around to where Tonka Trucks are now made, which is an example of supposed American manufacturing prowess and ingenuity. This once famous Minnesota company is now nowhere to be found at all, and instead has been bought out by a huge international conglomerate and all of the manufacturing jobs that were once in Minnesota are now done by Chinese speakers in one form or another. It all started with some outsourcing to Mexico back elsewhen.
I could name other major Minnesota companies that have made a huge impact on the world and have faced similar kinds of very interesting ends. Some that are still around and others that have been absorbed and are good and dead. Minnesota was once the center of some significant manufacturing for America, but good bye to that kind of lifestyle.
The sad thing is that once a tax like this gets passed, it will almost never get repealed no matter how much the ordinary citizens hate the thing.
If you have ever worked with bloated or corrupted libraries, there certainly is a reason to "reinvent the wheel" from time to time.
Then again, it takes a very competent developer to know the difference between what is a bad library function and what is simply poor design that doesn't take into account all of the potential variables and what their valid ranges might be. Thinking that your program or software will only be used for x years is what caused most of the Y2K bugs in the first place, and similar bugs like this one in 2010.
My point is that using a library function is fine, but using a library that loads an extra meg of code for something that is a three line function is not an efficient use of software. This is precisely why Windows no longer even fits on a DVD disc any more, and they are moving on to Blu-ray discs for distribution.
Amen this this sentiment. The effort to make sure that the Y2K bug didn't cause more havoc and mayhem is precisely due to the herculean effort on the part of hundreds of thousands of programmers who worked overtime to see that it didn't happen.
I had the cell phone for my company to receive the complaints from customers seeking an engineering solution to fixing any potential problems on the night of December 31st, 1999. The company CEO had this number on speed dial for some very high end clients. That I got through the night with some excellent sleep is a testament to the work that did happen was well done.
It turned out for the company I worked for, there was a Y2K bug that did get missed, but it was relatively minor and only impacted the error logging system. Even funnier was that particular system had only been developed six months earlier, by a programmer who clearly should have known better. The date being logged was recorded as the year "19100" instead of 2000.
I'm far more worried about the 2038 Unix overflow bug, which is a much harder bug to try and root out of systems. We have 18 years to fix that bug, but I'm mainly worried that legacy applications on archaic computers used in situations that has no budget is where it will be the largest problem. Unix boxes in particular are known as workhorse computers that can be neglected and ignored... unlike a Windows computer that will most certainly be in the recycling bin within 18 years.
Also, one of the typical "fixes" for the Y2K bug was to set an arbitrary "century window" on the software.... with sometimes random intervals for when this window actually falls. Instead of Y2K biting you all on the same day, it will happen as a class of failures on random dates when some major epoch happens.... such as 2010. So for me, this isn't even news as this is something I'm expecting. 2020 is going to be another year to watch for similar bugs, and 2040 is going to be a particularly ugly year as 1940 was set as a common century epoch point for a great many companies. 1970 was more common, but I hope that the Y2K bug is finally fixed by 2070.
The problem here is that people like Bono are calling for and expecting laws passed that will perpetuate the current music industry business models. "Music industry" representatives go before congress and send delegates to international events like the WIPO conference demanding all sorts of copy protection and DRM schemes to be given the force of law so ordinary folks can't get their music except from the official gatekeepers.
It is your and my problem when our elected representatives are changing these laws to essentially promote somebody like Bono at the expense of anybody else coming into the market, and having folks with guns and prisons who will make the competition work in their favor. I'm all for competition in the "marketplace" and encouraging the best of the best to rise to the top, but the deck shouldn't be stacked against those with genuine talent because they are simply late to getting into the game. This includes both musicians and "alternative" music labels, or even a start-up recording studio that can find excellent talent and decides on innovative content distribution networks... like free internet downloads.
The law shouldn't be changed to simply squash the competition.
This isn't quite the same thing, as a GUI operating system in something mass-produced was first done by Apple Computer. Others (notably Xerox) had tried to come up with the technology, but the "parent" company in the case of the Xerox PARC simply was clueless about what exactly they had. Xerox really blew a huge business opportunity, as they had the patents and the engineers capable of pulling off the kind of computers that Apple is currently famous for.
In that Apple certainly deserve credit for the modern environment of graphical design, I'll certainly give credit. Apple did design many early graphic design tool and early innovator with graphical design. Apple also was a major innovator with their Apple ][ computer that also had some important early graphical design tools and major peripherals like plotters and hard drives that were just as influential in graphical design, so yeah, Apple's role is much more than just a side line and copying the GUI OS design from Xerox as well on the more famous Lisa and Mac. If anything, the real usurper is Microsoft, who didn't do much in terms of something original for many years.
IMHO this is more like saying that Al Gore "invented" the internet. Yeah, he may have provided some substantial early support from a critical location (aka the U.S. Congress), but he didn't really "invent" the thing.
My point is that the internet would have grown and expanded even without the web, as its growth was exponential even before the use of HTTP. Compuserv also did quite well for even consumer-grade internet applications well before the HTTP protocol was developed, and in fact it could be argued that Compuserv's role is even more critical than Tim Berners-Lee, as they came up with the GIF imaging format that made the web do something that didn't exist earlier: Display pictures along with the text. Other text retrieval systems existed prior to HTTP, most notably the Gopher networks that was an early "competitor" to HTTP, and HTTP really wasn't all that fancy or feature-rich as the competing formats of the era. In fact, I would argue it was the simplicity of HTTP and how easy it was to create an implementation of the standard that made HTTP catch on and work so well.
An "aircar" version of a HMMWV (aka "Humvee" or "Hummer") might be an interesting vehicle, and would have some tactical applications in terms of inserting some soldiers or marines at a critical location or to redistribute firepower during critical situations. Flying over improvised bombs and landmines might also have a practical side effect of rendering those kinds of attacks as an obsolete tactic.
So yeah, I can see a legitimate military application for this kind of vehicle.
As for civilian versions, I don't see the value of it either in terms of raw economics. Fuel consumption in terms of mile per gallon would be hideous, especially on short trips. If these vehicles were to be adopted in large quantities, traffic problems would also be a nightmare and would also require a massive overhaul of traffic laws, not to mention how the FAA would treat such vehicles as well.
As for antigravity research.... at least find the physical phenomena first that it at least works at all before dumping millions into R&D to get it working. At least nuclear fusion has a physical science theory to base technological research upon, unlike other even more far fetched ideas like zero point energy or anti-gravity research.
These only give exposure to a tiny number of acts anyway. Especially given that the modern idea is along the lines of "eliminate one a week" as opposed to "eliminate all but one a week".
This actually reinforces my point. Even the producers of American Idol have made changes because very good acts can and have been eliminated not because they are good but because of random chance and prejudice on the part of the judges involved.
My point is that the system is broken, and that American Idol is a symptom of that failure rather than a sign of health. That music competition wouldn't even exist if other means were available for really talented people to get into the music business.
Oh, I am quite aware that the American Idol model is a successful business model by itself... because the rest of the recording industry music model is so completely broken that it is the only way to "break into the biz".
Think of it this way, if there were other alternative approaches for really good performers/singer to get into the business without having to go through the gatekeepers known as "the Judges" (aka Simon Cowell, et al.), there wouldn't be nearly such good talent that they would be able to mine for such a competition. With a lack of talented performers, the quality of the talent found would be 2nd or 3rd tier talent and that caliber would make the show seem like the lounge show acts that Mr. Cowell seems to constantly complain about. More to the point, the television show wouldn't get many viewers because of the mediocre talent, nor would the advertisers be willing to pay for such extravagance. Simply put, the show should flop.
I'm not disputing that the producers of American Idol are laughing all of the way to the bank, but wondering at what cost to the rest of the country they are able to milk the system... and why the couple hundred singers who really are pretty good and made the first couple cuts can't seem to find gainful employment in the industry? I argue that the loss in potential revenue because those in the music biz are so stuck up on themselves that they can't find a way for really good people to make money. Many of these performers could certainly re-invigorate the music industry and overall end up selling more music than the loss of income that supposedly the music industry is facing today from "piracy", if you can even believe the numbers coming from music industry executives.
In short, the producers of American Idol, not to mention the recording studio execs that support that show, are ultimately shooting themselves in the foot by not seeking after this talent in a more organized fashion that would give them a genuine break. They would make far, far more money by actually reinvigorating the music industry with genuine new talent if the genuinely talented singers could somehow get to doing what they want to do: sing as a professional career choice.
Instead, they go for the same stale acts that make a trip to the music store disappointing each time you go there.
The "Web" had nothing to do with the expansion of the internet other than providing a "killer app" that most ordinary people would be willing to use. The "internet" was growing very well without HTTP and HTML, including sharing documents and providing methods for people to download/upload materials.
It annoys me to no end when I see people who should know better to make the assumption internet==web.
One funny experience I had was at Comdex when I cornered "salesman" trying to sell some set-top box that would connect "to the internet". I gave him a well-formed URL that would work on any web browser commonly used at the time... and his little box simply barfed up a sort of syntax error instead. It was an FTP site instead of a web browser, not that anybody remembers those kind of servers any more.
Even more frustrating is when firewalls presume that port 80 is the only access port you would ever use... or convincing IT security guys that you might want to use a port other than 80.
I was more worried about my own private /8 block:
10.0.0.0
Of course I could still settle with simply
192.168.0.0
I've used both plenty of times.
I am curious.... how did you know the address to my web server?
How long is it going to take to transition to IPv6 - probably 10 years or more.
Where is the time and money better spent?
The transition to IPv6 should have been 10 years ago. It is that old of a concept. That it might take 10 more years is essentially saying it will never happen.
I agree that IPv6 is the way to go, and it astounds me that there are folks even willing to issue IPv4 address blocks. If the harsh reality comes down that no new IP addresses are going to be allocated, folks will be much more prone to a solution like IPv6.
I remember nearly two decades ago that a discussion came up at the university that I attended (which had a /16 address block... or old "Class B" for those in the know) started to go through having to justify all 65k IP addresses that they had and how they were going to be used in the future. Quite literally, every PC in every department plus ones for all of the students were allocated to "justify" keeping the full block. The situation hasn't really changed there either, and that university is quite jealous at keeping its IP block too.
What is funny, however, is folks allocating IPv6 are even more stingy at allocating IP addresses than those involved with IPv4 ever were.
Last time I heard, free beer tends to enable free speech.
Sometimes the free speech is a little more free than the speaker had hoped, but they certainly let it loose.
As a (former) politician, it turns out that free beer is one of the few ways to genuinely earn votes as well. Getting a brewery to support your political cause is a guaranteed way to win.
If he was seriously talking about future artists or the small time artists that are trying to break into the musical big leagues, he would look far more seriously at why competitions like "American Idol" or "Pop Idol" have to be created in order to find the talent for tomorrow's music.
There is something seriously broken in the music industry, and it isn't the "illegal music pirates" on the internet that is the problem. There really isn't a reasonable farm system any more for getting young and promising talent to move up without going outside of the system. Recording contracts are absolutely hideous and filled with clauses that keep any aspiring musician from being able to become a genuinely professional musician.
Furthermore, there is a problem with groups like the RIAA, ASCAP, and other groups who supposedly are accepting licensing fees on behalf of these small time artists to actually pay up and get some money, any money, to this new and rising generation of musicians. The current royalty collection system only works for artists like Bono who are at the top of the game, and it is the little guys that get squeezed out in the process.
I'll also want to respond to this statement:
Last time I checked, a typical op-ed column or even an entire newspaper edition is an order of magnitude smaller than a MP3 file. If you add pictures and put it in a PDF file, it might be of comparable size.... to a single music file. I don't see the comparison here either. There is copyrighted on-line content that has subscribers, and those models work... as does advertising-based publications as well.
The problem with the music industry isn't the freeloaders, but rather with venues for new musicians where the up and coming artists will actually get paid at all in the first place. Even if you "unmake" the internet, these new musicians won't be paid by the major record labels no matter how hard the new musicians work or try to find customers/listeners.
No, those who it hurts the most are the recording studio executives who no longer have a gravy train ride to profits, and somehow have to work to earn a living now. The old business models are broken and no longer work... because the world has changed. If you are creative, people will pay for music. They want to pay for good music, and there are many people who are actively looking for new musicians to support. The days that a recording executive in Hollywood might be able to cherry pick some random slob from an inner city ghetto and bring them to stardom through payola and graft with radio stations is over. They want to make their money off of vinyl or optical discs, and the world has moved on to other media.
I'd much rather support some new and aspiring artist than folks like Bono. Unfortunately, when the government gets into the act, it is the old dinosaurs that get all of the money and they keep it from going to the new and upcoming musicians.
I never said these are accidents. I did say that they were mis-guided, perhaps "twisted minds of stupid people" as you so eloquently put it.
I'll also admit that some religious traditions tend to encourage more violence than others. For example, when was the last time you heard of a Quaker suicide terrorist, or a Buddhist one for that matter? Yet "Islamic fanatical terrorist" certainly stretches no imagination to see, or read about in the news.
Not withstanding the papacy and other European state religions, Christianity does have an anti-authoritarianism bent to its philosophies that encourages people to question leaders and those "in charge", and to seek out for themselves "God's will". That is, in part, why there are thousands of different forms of Christian thought, and why it is often Christian religious leaders who are at the forefront of seeking social changes. Regardless of what the current folks engaged in what is called "liberalism" today think about it, the roots of "progressive socialism" can be found in Christian thought and philosophies.
It seems all that more ironic that it is "conservative Christians" who are fighting that philosophy today.
Atheism is simply a lack of belief in god. Religious people tend not to grok this; they think everybody is like them so atheists have to believe in SOMETHING.
Being an atheist does not predict or imply any particular moral or ethical behavior any more than does being religious (in the real world). But unlike the religious, atheists take responsibility for and have to justify their actions, good or bad.
How little you know about both the "religious types" and atheists as well. While I will admit that there are some "pure" atheists that don't accept any religion at all, there are certainly some self-professed atheists who exhibit a display of worship for some things that in almost every aspect but formal profession... sometimes even engaging in a sort of formal religious ceremony.
I've also seen some narcissistic behavior from many self-professed atheists, but then again I've seen that even from those who have professed religious beliefs. The more public you find the preachers, the more you find this tendency as well, so it isn't surprising that it becomes something to attack in terms of being critical of organized religion. To say that atheists are immune from this kind of behavior simply ignores human psychology altogether.
BTW, the correlation between religion and the persecuted groups was not just incidental, it was essential and explicit in the case of both the Chinese and Russian programs of extermination. I suppose I can't convince you otherwise, but for somebody else reading this, look up your history. You will be shocked... except for those kind of folks who are also German holocaust deniers. Instead of sending folks into concentration camps, Russia simply marched whole villages to the Pacific Ocean at gunpoint.... from the Ukraine, in January, without food or drink other than what they found enroute. Needless to say, few got past the Ural mountains, if even they got that far.
The difference between what Russia did and what Germany did during WWII was that Russia didn't bother with things like keeping records of who died. The Germans, on the other hand, kept detailed records of their genocide so they end up being considered the bad guys of history and the Russians as "liberators".
It is one thing for a group of folks who happen to have a religious philosophy to be singled out for their heinous actions and blame that religious philosophy for that action.
It is something completely different to condemn a religious movement whose leaders have killed others in the name of that religion and invoked the name of God to further their military conquests.
That could be said for both the Crusades of the 10th through roughly 13th Centuries (give or take, with some strong disagreements about when they began and ended), and the Jihads of Islam... both of the 14th Century variety and what has been happening at the beginning of the 21st Century.
These kind of religious wars should be justifiably condemned as actions that are ignoring the basic tenants of their religious founders and something of a misguided group of individuals.
Also, in terms of the Crusades, other political and social considerations came into play there too. There was the encroachment of Islam upon Europe that was viewed with legitimate hostility, and a problem with improving health in Europe that had 3rd and 4th sons of nobility without a chance to receive a title or inheritance... and sought instead to conquer new territories to gain a title of nobility instead. It is no small coincidence that one of the major acts of the 1st Crusade was to sack and virtually eliminate the Christian (at the time) city of Constantinople.
As far as the pograms in Russia and the "Cultural Revolution" in China, both were done explicitly to persecute and eliminate through genocide specific groups of people who had a religious viewpoint. This was not done in spite of religion, but explicitly because of religion. I suppose it could be called an "extremist" viewpoint, but when you start to get into eight and nine significant digits in terms of the number of people killed in these action as a means to spread atheism, it starts to get a little off to say it was just a few people killed here. These were people promoting atheism, and killing those who would not accept atheism. In this aspect, I would certainly assert that atheist have killed people in this world... perhaps more people than has been done by all other forms of religious persecution combined in the entire history of mankind.
As to if either the Russian or Chinese brand of Communism could in its own right be called a "religion" as something distinct and different from other non-deity "religious-like movements" such as environmentalism or "secular humanism", that certainly is a viewpoint to make as well. I don't like to paint all atheism with a broad brush as being all the same, as atheism takes on many distinct forms and even blends of those forms. There isn't necessarily anything evil or heinous about being an atheist. There are certainly some political or social philosophies (like eugenics) that tend to create more crazy folks than others, and certainly communism as practiced under Mao and Stalin led to some horrible acts. At the same time, I do think that most atheists simply want to be left to themselves and don't desire harm to others, as is true of most people in general.
Hitler claimed to be a christian. Mao and Stalin killed people for 'the greater good' or something like that. I'm actually hard pressed to find any incidents where a bunch of atheists killed people for being religious.
If anything Hitler was against Christianity, but felt that the time to deal with Christians was to be left to a time well after the other "lesser races" were dealt with. There clearly was anti-Christian bias in some of the letters and writings of Hitler, and a sort of psuedo-religious cult that came up in the form of Nazism that transcended Christianity.
Certainly the anti-Jewish sentiment in Nazism was not grounded in Christianity, but rather in something far more profound and a sort of religion in its own right.
As for being hard-pressed to look for any incident where a bunch of avowed atheists have explicitly killed those harboring religious beliefs as their only "crime"? I don't think you have looked hard enough. Millions have died at the hands of atheists, or at least governments that have sought explicitly to purge religious thought. Both Mao and Stalin were involved in that killing, and both professed official atheism. It wasn't merely "the greater good", but that was indeed the rationale. It also involved more than just these two men.
Even today in China, if you tried to open a church or express your religious beliefs in a public manner without formal state approval you will get arrested and possibly even killed on the spot for what in most "western" nations would be considered a non-violent protest. I'm not talking twenty or forty years ago, I'm talking today. People are still being killed today in the name of atheism, or because they don't disavow their religious beliefs.
I've run several Dungeons and Dragons campaigns that have a religious theme, and at best introducing Christianity into role-playing games makes it rather difficult to really concentrate on simply having fun. It can be interesting to try and study the Crusades or something of a fantasy literature genera like the tales of King Arthur and the Quest for the Holy Grail (aka the cup Jesus used for the Last Supper), but it is difficult to try and keep a neutral point of view about Christianity when you are engaged in such games.
All of this also applies, perhaps even more so, to video games. If Christianity is introduced, it is usually in the form of a backstory, something that simply IS there, not necessarily something that is promoted or discouraged. Face it, most fantasy games are involved with the destruction of property and the taking of life in some form or another. Living the life of a Benedictine monk, if you went into the full details, would be for most 13-18 year olds to be rather boring to the point of tearing out hair.
One successful treatment of religion in games, as a critical element of the game, was in Civilization IV. From the viewpoint of somebody who is religious (myself), I find the treatment of religion here to be quite interesting.... particularly in dealing with things like missionary activity and overtly discussing the role of a resurrected savior. Having played the game, it is a rather interesting element to have hoards of missionaries go forth to "spread the word", where you can conquer the world through cultural battles and trade rather than the force of arms. Battles between Islam and Christianity are particularly interesting to do in some scenarios. The interesting thing about this particular game, however, is a viewpoint of religious tolerance that I haven't really seen done in too many other games. For reasons of gameplay, the major religions are all put on an equal footing and have similar effects compared to each other, and it gets interesting to see Moses, Mohammed, and Paul (of Tarsus) standing quite literally next to each other. In the context of the game, these are all called "Great Prophets" and have some interesting abilities... as "military units". I do think it was wise for the game designers to not put in Jesus of Nazareth.
Most games, if they do put religion into the game, either work from an old world pagan mythos (aka the Norse or Greek gods), or make up their own mythos from whole cloth. One game I can think of is Runescape, where the primary gods are Zamorak and Saradomin. Basically this is good (Saradomin) vs. evil (Zamorak), mostly renamed and put into a context that keeps the religious topics in a fantasy element that avoids even getting into "real world religion". Christianity is touched lightly in the form of King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable, and there is a "quest for the holy grail", but the Christianity is only briefly mentioned and not a critical element to the story. Even with that, it is said that Arthur was put into the game by a "powerful mage" who pulled them in from another universe to keep even that element from getting involved into the game in any more detail. The made-up mythos does play a role in the game, and there are in fact philosophical battles between players about which "god" is the best as well as game elements that involve dealing with the in-game religions, but it is kept as an element of fun rather than specific types of worship. By far and away, when religion is dealt with in a fantasy setting, this is quite typical. The role of prayer in Runescape is also quite interesting... particularly as it is considered a "combat" skill. Essentially, it is treated as a sort of divine magic, although which deity that is involved in granting that "magic" is not really discussed.
For somebody from the evangelical Christian community to explicitly design a game involving elements of Christianity in an overt way into the game, I'm not entire
When I see the sheer ignorance here of such monumental proportion, I just drop my jaw:
However, it was considered a bad thing (rightly so), and so people kept quiet about it.
It was a bad thing, rightly so?!?!? This one statement seems to think the pograms of Stalin were a good thing! This was genocide on a scale involving millions of people being forced at gunpoint to their deaths. It makes the "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo look like a sneeze. Seriously, I just can't believe what I'm seeing here with stuff like this.
If you talk to a vast majority of people around here and ask them what it was like, they'll tell you, people were religious, they just didn't jam it in peoples faces, else they could be killed.
This was simply acknowledging reality.... these guys running the USSR were blood thirsty tyrants, but they did want to rule and govern some folks, and that unfortunately included the religious. It wasn't jamming it into people's faces, it was having abject fear that the KGB would find out if you were engaged in religious activity of any kind and being ground down into abject poverty if you showed any kind of religious leanings. Supporting a religion was considered a mental illness, and often "treated" with medicine and/or a trip to a Gulag.
The point you're trying to make, which is unjustified, is that Atheist killed people because of their religion. While these people were Atheist and did kill people because of their religion, the amount of THESE deaths was relatively small, especially compared to the inquisition. Stalin's Russia killed many people, but not for their religion, this was due to the tyranny of the state.
The number of people killed was small? It was in the TENs of MILLIONS killed in the name of atheism, explicitly to drive out and commit genocide of peoples who had a specific cultural bias supporting religion that would otherwise be difficult to take out through "education".
Those killed in the inquisition? A few thousand. There were easily 1000 people killed under the USSR and explicitly purges of entire regions of "undesirable" peoples for each person killed during the inquisition. Never at any time did the Catholic Church or the states that supported the Inquisition (France and Spain primarily) wipe out entire villages. Yes, it wasn't pretty, but it is hardly the same thing.
So, here's an idea churchy, next time you think you're really smart and recite what some priest told you, perhaps you should do some research first, before repeating it as fact, to see if the guy who makes shit up (The priest), is still making shit up.
This isn't some things that came from my "priest" who told be a bit of stuff to scare me, this is learning about history and studying from my father and grandfather.... cold warriors who thank god (my GOD!) fought against the USSR in the one and only way that the USSR respected: The blunt use of arms including nuclear arms to try and keep this evil empire under control. I had uncles who died in the Cold War as military combatants. This wasn't some made-up story to scare some little kiddies, but real evil men who wanted world domination and had a strong desire to exterminate any and all religious thought.
Even under Gorbachev, life wasn't all that rosy either. I think some folks really don't know what the USSR really was, how it worked, or how completely it dominated the life of the Russian peoples. And if you weren't a Russian in the USSR, you were clearly an oppressed minority where programs like "Russification" of the people is still having an impact in places like Georgia and the Ukraine.
This is most certainly not "making shit up", it is knowing a bit or two about history, a history that is apparently being ignored and discarded.
In the case of the Soviet Union, it was precisely to "spread their religion" as atheism was explicitly the established state policy and explicitly by law persecuted all other religious philosophies with the ultimate goal of extinction of those philosophies.
I see little difference between the kinds of persecution that happened under the Soviet Union and that which was done in the 2nd & 3rd Centuries (AD, or "common era") against the Christians in the Roman Empire. Both were done for the very same reasons: to support and sustain the state religion.
Of current modern philosophies in play, that religion which is most intolerant of other philosophies is currently Islam. Comparing the number of incidents caused by "Christian terrorists" vs. "Islamic terrorists" or "Jewish terrorists" is no contest. And yes, both Christian (Northern Ireland) and Jewish (Palestine) terrorists have existed in the past, but they don't hold a candle to the destructive nature currently being done. It is also hard to compare the Crusades by King Richard (of England) vs. the Jihad of Saladin as both were destructive.
But I'd still go with the grandparent to point out that the Soviet Union, in the name of atheism, killed more than almost all of these religious crusades/jihads combined throughout nearly the entire history of mankind. It was certainly multiple times that killed by Hitler for religious reasons under the Third Reich. I was by far and away a much larger threat to other religious philosophies than any other philosophical movement ever.
No, I would think that IP is "intellectual property". Well, I guess it would matter based on context and other issues as well.
If I was a hardware designer, asking for your "IP" certainly would not be a numeric address, but a source code file.