You HAVE noticed that dictionaries are regularly updated to incorporate the new meanings of words, right?
Merriam-Webster would appear to concur with me that the word "communism" can mean a "totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production". So there's no need to burn the dictionaries. Or is the Merriam-Webster dictionary not valid? Is it just a hippy tract written by a bunch of liberal wackos who have committed the heinous crime of making their dictionary relevant to real-world usage?
Incidentally, I do use these words regularly. You may not be able to reconcile a large vocabulary with not being a pedantic jackass, but I can. "Immutable" is a particularly interesting one because I picked it up in my computer science classes, where it comes up quite regularly. Funny how no one here in Canada so much as blinks when people are audacious enough to use multisyllabic words.
I particularly like the comment about having "unleaded" -- as if I should be ashamed of working while I get my degree. How does it feel to know that all your education can't buy you one single ounce of respect?
Hey, it turns out that wikipedia has several relevant articles. Enlightenment may yet be within your grasp. Of course, I'd love to see so much as a single reference contradicting me; before now, I've never even heard of anyone trying to suggest that words were eternally fixed and immutable (okay, this time I'm just using that word to annoy you... maybe I'll use the words "transient" or "declarative" and ruin your entire week! Programming terminology rocks).
I think these make a very good case. Naturally, being a pedantic jackass, your initial response will be to cast dispersions at the validity of wikipedia, but you'll note that the article about semantic change make reference to -- among other things -- The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. So much for burning dictionaries...
Hey, is it alright if I dump my trash on your lawn? No? So why do you think it's okay to dump carbon monoxide in my air?
You're right of course -- there is no free lunch. And using MY air that I as a dumping ground for the byproducts of getting power your way is no different. Seriously man, fuck you. You really don't have even the slightest concept of how your actions affect others, of how fundamentally interconnected we all are. My kids are more likely to suffer from asthma because of the shit that's dumped into the air by neighbours that are such incredible cowards that they need a scaled-down troop transport vehicle for their daily commute. They're more likely to have serious respiratory problems because you're too much of an idiot to pay for the real cost of your power -- and the real cost of your power includes the medical bills for every child that gets a chronic lung disorder, people who any of the serious problems that arise from never seeing the sun because of smog, the lost revenue from every economically productive lake that is acidified to the point where life can not grow there, the lost revenue from every working forest that is scoured for a strip-mine, etc.
You'll ultimately have to start paying hefty, hefty taxes to pollute the commons, whether directly or indirectly. And you've just got to learn to deal with that. It's not stealing from you, it's making you pay the real costs.
But if you disagree, how about you let me dump my trash on your lawn where you can clean it up? Or how about I just run the vent from generator into one of the windows of your house? Because that's what coal and gas power are doing; they just do it on a distributed scale that affects everyone. Most of those people get absolutely no say in the matter. If I switch to nuclear and drive an electric car, will the state start keeping smog off of my property and out of the air that I breathe? Until they do, YOU FUCKING OWE ME. My lung tissue isn't free -- if anything, you're getting it at a bargain-rate price.
Yeah, but the odometer displayed European miles, which are actually 0.002 lightyears each. Good luck getting even the second digit to turn over. *snort*
Lots of things were defined one way or another at some point by someone. That means exactly ZERO in the real world. In a specialized domain with a clearly laid-out and normalized jargon, sure -- you can resort to underlying definitions. Mathematics and law are examples of this. But outside of those specialized domains, where the vernacular is, definitions mean absolutely nothing. All that matters is what people use the words in question to refer to.
Let's be honest now -- outside of a political science classroom, how often do you hear the word "communism" used to refer to Marx's ideas, and how often do you hear the word "communism" used to refer to the system of politics and economics in North Korea, Cuba, China, or the USSR? You know exactly which is the common usage -- the usage that is meaningful in the language that we speak. You know which usage people will assume you are using in casual conversation. Similarly, capitalism -- in the vernacular -- has nothing to do with Adam Smith and everything to do with what the guy at the service station will use as an excuse when you bitch that gas prices are too high. Most people who talk about capitalism have never even HEARD of Adam Smith, and wouldn't have the slightest idea what his ideas were. They use the word to denote something rather different.
Now I remember exactly why I didn't take philosophy classes, and why "philosophy major" is synonymous with "pedantic jackass" at almost every university on Earth.
The problem with your analysis is that you're assuming Osama's goals are political. They are not. They are religious. Consequently, they make no sense from purely political perspective, but do make perfect sense from the point of view of a religious fanatic operating on apocalyptic agenda and delusions of righteousness.
It's all politics. Religion has never been anything more than an arbitrary way to divide people into groups (for situations where race is not sufficiently clear-cut). If religion made even the slightest bit of difference, why would there even BE religious war? The Koran is VERY clear about the importance of not hurting Jews and Christians. There is no ambiguity whatsoever in that regard. Christianity is 100% clear that revenge is bad (turn the other cheek), killing is bad, being rich is bad (easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, etc), and that if someone comes to kill you or your family, just roll with it (Lot and his daughters? Come on now!) True "Christians" are obliged to be chaste penniless hippies with no families, assuming you believe even a single word that came out of Saint Paul's mouth. Buddhists are supposed to, quite literally, accept being murdered with utter tranquility. "Religious" war is basically impossible for Christians and Buddhists, and only possible for Muslims if the opponents do not follow an Abrahamaic religion. Clearly then, these wars are NOT religious in nature. Not really. They're political. Leaders may use religious fervour to manipulate people, but that's a very different thing. A people may use religious divisions to determine who is an enemy and who is not, but that too is different. The goals are still political:
Lebensraum for me and my children
Access to the oil-fields of central Asia
Preventing the enemy from installing ICBMs just a few miles off our shore
Many of these conflicts were wrapped in religious or racial terms. But religion and race were absolutely tertiary. It all actually comes down to politics.
All war is political. It can never be any other way. And Bin Laden is just a particularly bloody-minded and ineffectual politician (any politician that has to live in a cave is a failure). Think about it this way: anyone who releases propaganda is a politician. Pat Robertson? Totally political. He doesn't give a shit about god (if he did, he wouldn't use the lord's name in vain on a daily basis). He's just a big blowhard who's trying to exert political influence. When Bush babbles like a retarded chimpanzee about being God's personal messenger on Earth, that's just his way of duping idiots into voting for him. When Bin Laden grossly misinterprets and selectively edits the Koran, he's just trying to get chumps to do his dirty work for him.
Everything, and I mean everything, that you put into your mouth, is crawling with bacteria and fungal spores. Bacteria are far less harmful than people think. The fact that the bacteria is new and strange is a BENEFIT, because it means that the bacteria isn't adapted to living in the Human body. The more foreign a bacteria is, the less dangerous it is to be exposed to it.
The dangerous bacteria are ones that live in people (or other mammals) already. when you get exposed to these bacteria, they have the upper hand because they're already adapted to living in the mammalian colon, but your immune system hasn't adapted to keep that bacteria under control. And the bacteria may not be perfectly adapted to your system, so it may over-produce itself or its byproducts, making you sick -- something that your own native flora usually don't do.
It's funny that you would mention cheese, since the cheese that most Americans and Canadians are familiar with is Cheddar -- the one and only cheese (to my knowledge) that is NOT pasteurized here. Probably why it's so popular.
Frankly, I'm surprised European cheese producers have never launched a WTO grievance over our bizarre pasteurization laws, which mostly just keep European cheeses out of our markets. Research has shown that pasteurizing cheese increases the chances of a pathogenic strain of bacteria taking hold, since there will be no competing bacteria to inhibit the pathogen's development should one take hold.
I'd comment on the cigars too, but I'm not American so it wouldn't really mean anything. At the job I do to pay for school, I sell several cuban cigarillos a day (and usually at least one pack of American cigars). Ironically the cubans that we have are of very low quality, so the Americans sell rather better -- entire packs at a time rather than singles. Funny how these things work out.
I think you're confusing terrorism with genocide. What's going on in Iraq, that's slaughtering the infidels (the infidels in that case being the Sunni, as far as the Shia are concerned, and the Shia as far as the Sunni are concerned). When the Ayatollahs talk about exterminating the people of Israel, that's slaughtering the infidels (or at least talk of slaughtering the infidels).
Bin Laden is an entirely different manner of thing. If Al Qaeda wanted to slaughter the infidels, they'd just DO it. There are more than enough Americans living abroad that they could kill thousands every month. But that's not what they want. They want to accomplish a particular set of political goals: they want America to abandon Israel, they want America to remove it's military bases from "the holy land" (ie: the entire middle east), and a few other bits of ridiculous nonsense. And what has happened? America now has a major military presence in Iraq and an increased military presence in other allied middle-eastern nations. America is now less likely than ever to turn against Israel -- Israel is the West's ace in the hole. A trump card to played if things ever get too desperate. And an entire muslim government has been basically destroyed (the Taliban isn't quite out of it yet, but they're close). Pakistan is practically a puppet of the US now, and that kind of tolerant atmosphere can only lead to horrors like bilateral trade deals and human rights agreements.
So what we see is that Bin Laden has accomplished precisely the opposite of anything that is, from the perspective of Islamic extremists, positive. Radical Islam has taken a severe blow; there is now MORE democracy and LESS Islamic theocracy in the world. Being a muslim is on about the same level as having leprosy throughout most of the world. The "holy land" is being trampled by boots that have "Made in America" written in relief in the sole.
So what do we call people like Osama Bin Laden, who fuck up so completely and utterly? To call them doofuses is about as nice as it gets. Most other suitable terms would not be appropriate to use in front of children.
Meanwhile, the Bush government has accomplished EXACTLY what they have intended to, more or less. They have used fear to control the American people. They have used patriotism, cowardice, religion, bigotry, lies, and non-stop propaganda to dupe the people into waging a war. The goal? To let companies like Halliburton rape the United States for trillions of dollars in tax money. Funny how most of the major members of the Bush government are closely tied to the businesses that are being paid out of YOUR pocket for the reconstruction of Iraq, huh?
Everything that's happened has been in accordance with what is best for people like Bush and Cheney. Even when their government falls, America will still be in Iraq, and will still be stealing money from YOUR pocket to pay Bush and Cheney's business interests to rebuild Iraq. They'll be making incredble amounts of money for years or decades to come. Actually holding power is irrelevant once they've gotten things lined up how they want them.
Bush and Cheney are the ones that set the trap. The victims? Muslims (who are trapped in the middle of all of this). The American people -- who are having their hard-earned income stolen with basically NOTHING to show for it. And I'd even go so far as to say the Republican party -- who are gradually becoming Pariahs because of the corruption and evil of the GOP. As much as I oppose Republican politics, I can't help but feel bad for sane and reasonable Republicans, who are being blamed for what a handful of greedy monsters and religious psychopaths are doing.
You know, you'd think that if accountants can figure out how to count things and get consistent results, democracy would be a no-brainer. Maybe I'm giving Humans too much credit...
Yeah, but that would make them not worth half a shit in a tin can. Anyone who would deliberately do their job badly in order to get money that will supposedly let them do their job well... that's a group that isn't worth a whole lot. Meanwhile, half a shit in a tin can is at least worth a good laugh, and possibly more where post-modern art is involved.
I think that's EXACTLY the purpose of the NSA. The CIA monitors foreign threats, the NSA domestic threats. The FBI is just a variant of the police. They're more about trying to disrupt crimes in progress and capture people that have already committed a crime. The NSA is the one that is supposed to monitor for serious domestic plots and conspiracies and avert them ahead of time.
People do seem to give the NSA a little too much credit. I mean, this is a group whose main claims to fame are that they own the world's largest incinerator, that they can spy on hundreds of millions of people that haven't done anything, and that they lack the manpower to actually check more than a tiny fraction of the surveillance they've done.
Any big group that operates as part of a government, particularly a government as enormous as that of the USA, WITHOUT extensive public oversight, will be hopelessly crippled by earmarking, cronyism, and all other manner of corruption and incompetence. I mean, if the NSA was worth half a shit in a tin can they'd have been able to stop people like McVeigh, Kaczynski, or the doofuses* that thought it would be a good idea to hijack a few planes.
A handful of really bright people working on a project that they truly care about can perform miracles of creativity and insight. If governments really want to get things done, they need to focus more on identifying those people and giving them the support they need -- whether it's a research grant, a loan with which to start a small business, or even just an environment where creativity and hard work are appreciated and respected. A "keep up the good work" now and then can go a long, long way (a woman I talked to who worked in HR suggested that a bit of respect and encouragement could easily avert 90% of the labour issues that her department dealt with BEFORE they became severe enough that HR had to waste time and money on them).
* Doofuses? Just look how well that has worked out for their feelow Muslims... their 70 virgins are probably going to turn out to be 70 desperate truckers with a taste for the dark meat...
So what is a "spade"? Sorry, but you really are deeply, deeply incorrect about this. Is a spade a type of sword? A small flat shovel? Any type of shovel whatsoever? The act of using a shovel? A derogatory term for a black person? A component of large guns? A playing card suit? A card game? A term used to denote great amounts? A completely abstract item that is named as itself in a particular idiom? Even the very word that you chose to use has multiple meanings that have come and gone over the years. It truly is better to live in the real world, where words simply are not immutable (there's that word again! Try not to pop a vein just because I don't restrict myself to a 500 word vocabulary). Take some linguistics classes, or even a philosophy class (if you're masochistic enough to subject yourself to that horrible environment). One of the first things they get into is the importance of accepting that language is a dynamic and fluid thing. For Historians this is doubly true, if their work is to make even the slightest bit of sense.
Language changes all the time. Basic underlying concepts change. We use ancient words to describe things that people in the ancient world could never have understood. They used these same words in ways that are long forgotten, and which we would not and possibly could not recognize. So yes, when I say that Communism refers to a totalitarian system of state ownership, I am using the current meaning of that word. The meaning that 99.9% of the world uses. You can go around using the old definition and making no sense to anyone but yourself and a few other pedantic nobodies that refuse to accept change, but who's the real winner? The point of language is to communicate successfully. So you either use the definitions of words that are accepted by the society of which you are a part, or you don't communicate successfully and end up in a lot of arguments with people that you ultimately agree with, just because you were too much of an ass to bother learning how English is used NOW.
Congratulations -- you get the "illiterate dumbass who didn't read the fucking article" award for the day.
There was a recount in this case because STATE LAW DICTATED THAT IT BE SO. Are you seriously suggsting that Ohio does not have the right to perform recounts, just because it offends your political sensibilities? Ohio should tolerate election fraud just because other states may have abused the recount process? No offense (just kidding, offense is totally intended), but fuck you. Fuck you right in the ear. Recounts are awesome. I'll take a hundred recounts, if the alternative is the selection of the head of state by a council of presidential appointees. If it requires a hundred recounts and total openness about the results of every single ballot, well then good. It's about time.
These traitors have already admitted that they broke the law, and rigged the recount. It doesn't matter who won -- they rigged the recount and broke the law. The interfered with the democratic process. They need to hang. It's as simple as that.
I know you're bitter that America is turning against the politics of cowardice, torture, paranoid delusions, and perpetual warfare -- but that's just progress, and you've got to learn to accept with it. The world described in 1984 was supposed to be a dire warning of things to come, not a proposal for the utopian society.
Sadly, in any discussion whatsoever, the guy who takes the position involving the immutability of the definitions of words is wrong. Inherently wrong. Language evolves -- deal with it. Many words mean radically different things than they used to. Like it or not, communism is -- for all intents and purpose -- the thing that the communist party of the USSR did and which the communist party of China does. Socialism is -- for all real-world purposes -- the thing that socialist parties are endorsing. And a welfare state is a state in which there is a strong welfare system, and in which most people work -- ultimately -- for the government. And most Americans do work for the government either directly (the army, the civil service, and the gargantuan beauracracy) or indirectly (every single person working for a company that does government or military contracting of any kind whatsoever). The fact that Americans try to ignore this and bray about how wonderfully capitalist they are is one of the many reasons that we can all have a good laugh at the expense of American intlligence.
Even proper nouns change in meaning over time. It's an unfortunate reality, and one that makes any examination of history a dicey prospect without a proper grounding in linguistics.
Yeah? Name one time the second amendment has actually protected the first.
This is just one of those pieces of nonsense that idiots blather about. It makes no fucking sense. What does the right to form an armed militia have to do with not dying, not becoming a slave, or not being denied the right to pursue happiness? The police and government control whether or not you can do those things, and if you even SUGGEST that you will use a gun to influence their decisions, you'll lose your liberty, you'll lose any and all opportunities to pursue happiness, and you'll quite likely lose your life.
Don't misunderstand me: I support peoples' right to own guns. The first amendment IMPLIES the second -- owning a gun makes some degenerate psychopaths happy, and banning guns goes against the idea of liberty.
But suggesting that having a gun will protect you when the government bans the things that make you happy? That's just stupid. Being able to marry would make a lot of homosexuals happy, and so the first-amendment suggests that they should be allowed to do so. Nevertheless, no amount of guns will make it happen. Japanese-Americans were locked in concentration camps during WW2 -- if they had tried to protect their liberty using guns, they would simply have gotten themselves killed. If you are arrested for a crime that you didn't commit, do you think that having a gun, either in your hands or those of a militia, will make the slightest difference? If you challenge the government's right to use deadly force, you DIE. PERIOD.
The first amendment stands or falls alone. The second is just a relic of revolutionary times. It means absolutely nothing anymore. If guns are to remain legal, it has to be on the basis of freedom, not on some stupid fantasy about being able to protect yourself from the power of state. To wield power against the state, you would need tanks, bombs, rockets, planes, ICBMS, etc. Having guns wont help you anymore than having field rations or combat fatigues will.
Way to miss the point. The majority of people that criticize them? Are you actually suggesting that the majority of (50%+1) of the bloggers that criticize the democrats are only doing so because they are being paid more than $25,000 a year to do so? There are only a handful of bloggers in all of the united states that are paid to blog. No more than a few hundred are paid more than $25,000 to do so. And only a fraction of them criticize the democrats, leaving probably no more than 10. And according to you, that miniscule number of bloggers constitutes at least 50% of all bloggers that criticise the democrats. Meanwhile, there are literally hundreds of thousands of blogs criticising the Republicans. So, according to your retarded didn't-read-the-article logic, bloggers that criticise the republicans outnumber bloggers that criticise the democrats by a factor in at least the tens of thousands.
Frankly, I can't believe that the democrats that loved. I can't believe that there are only 20 or so bloggers that criticise the democrats. I thought they were substantially more contemptible than that.
Or maybe you can READ THE DAMN ARTICLE next time. If you had read it, you would know that the legislation only applies to professional bloggers who are paid more than $25,000 a year to promote a political position. This is VERY different than simply trying to regulate all blogging. Not that it's a good idea, mind you. Voting it down was a very sensible move. Campaign finance reform is important and necessary, but it can't come at the cost of free speech, even when that free speech is for-pay.
The target was actually, in this case, astroturfing. The republicans have already demonstrated their complete willingness to be duped by astroturf, so it's not surprising that the democrats would move against it.
To be clear, astroturfing is undeniably a heinous activity. Trying to usurp democracy is the kind of thing that should get people lynched. But the answer here is to ELECT PEOPLE THAT AREN'T RETARDS (yes, that would mean occasionally voting for the guy that DOESN'T have the better haircut, but there it is). Anyone that isn't collosally stupid and incompetent can see through astroturf. Trying to micromanage bloggers is pretty much the exact opposite of a good answer in this case. It's not only a violation of free speech, it's a completely intractable problem. It's like trying to herd cats... hundred of thousands of cats... with nothing but a taser and the carboard-tube from a roll of wrapping paper.
The democrats had their hearts in the right place... just not their heads. Their heads were someplace terrible and foul. Possibly up their asses, but then again, even the dumbest of asses has the occasional nugget of sense hidden away in its folds somewhere. I can't even think of where their heads were at while developing such a ridiculously monstrous piece of legislation.
I promise I'll shutup about abortion if I can carry a gun and smoke in a bar.
Best deal ever! I love all three *. Hey, what will you trade for letting me smoke pot and see explicit sexual activity on broadcast television? Can you offer any good deals on prostitution? What about getting rid of copyright and other market-interventionist bullshit? I'll give you complete deregulation of firecrackers and fireworks as a bonus for any of 'em.;)
* (Actually, I hate guns. But I don't particularly care if other people want to own a tool that is far more likely to be used on themselves or their family than it is on anyone else. As long as gun-owners are held legally responsible being dumbasses or for allowing their guns to fall into the hands of criminals, there's no problem, eh?)
What on earth are you blithering about?! The Democrats are NOT the government. Dubya and company are the government. Saying the democrats need to "consolidate power" is just saying that they need to cooperate and demonstrate that they can get legislation passed, so that people will take them seriously (which is something that they presumably want). I'm not even suggesting that this would be a good thing to have happen. I'm saying that, if I were a Democrat, I'd avoid trying to push through any piece of legislation that will divide my party. It's a completely fucking stupid move, and makes the Democrats look like a bunch of idiots. Part of the reason Dubya has done so well is that he's kept his party relatively united. I'm not talking about the Democrats passing a law that says the Congress have the president ceremonially beat or anything like that, or any other kind of new power. I'm suggesting that if the Democrats have even an ounce of sense among the lot of them, they'll work together rather than letting the Republicans slap them around like a ten dollar hooker.. which is what they've been doing for the last six years.
You don't consolidate "a power". You consolidate "power". That is, you demonstrate that you can get things done. And isn't that the point of congress? If the Democrats want to control congress, they have to get things done. If they can't pass a simple bill, then they have no power, and will find themselves standing in the food-stamp line at the grocery store soon enough. And that's why trying to pass a stupid bill that members of your own party don't support is an enormous mistake. I'd say exactly the same thing if the republicans tried to pass a bill and it was voted down by other republicans. That's the kind of thing that causes entire political parties to die in many countries. More's the pity that the Republican and Democratic parties DON'T die...
I wouldn't agree with that. Socialism, at least in the modern parlance, is concerned with the good of the individual. That is, providing mechanisms to protect and support individuals. IE: the welfare state (which America is already an example of, albeit a shoddy one). The classical definition is no longer very relevant. It's comparable to the way in which communism, which originally referred to a system of economics and politics in which wealth and political power were both completely decentralized (anarcho-syndicalism is probably the closest analog to classical communism these days). Now it refers to a totalitarian system of state ownership, which is completely the opposite of what Marx envisioned.
The meaning of these terms changes in time. Consider the fact that liberal and conservative, in Canada, used to refer to precisely the opposite of what they do now. Conservativism in Canada was originally, for all intents and purposes, a political ideology of remaining as separate as possible from the USA in every regard. Liberalism embraced most things American. Now it's reversed; conservatives generally adore everything about the USA, while liberals want Canada to forge its own path.
So I'd say that in modern parlance, Communism (centralized management of everything) is the opposite of Libertarianism (no centralized management whatsoever), while Socialism (using the power of the state to support individuals as needed) is the opposite of Neoconservatism (insert your own definition for neocon ideas here... mine would probably involve profanity). That's not to say that any of thse are good philosophies. Real politics always has and always will function best by blending different ideas and simply doing what works best at the time.
This goes beyond "stupid". This one goes well into the realm of free-speech issues. Campaign finance reform and lobbying are always gray areas as far as free-speech versus functioning-democracy goes, but on this the Democrats are totally in the wrong. The fact that 7 of them broke ranks is a rather clear sign of this, at a time when the Democrats should be consolidating their power and trying to show some unity.
Those who doubt that the Democrats are just a very slightly more socialist twist on the same shitty formulae as the Republicans need look no further than this kind of stunt.
People like you are why most employees everywhere are totally incompetent. You are deliberately making the Peter Principle happen -- promoting people to jobs that they CAN'T do just for the heinous crime of doing well at jobs that they CAN do. Nicely done. At least there's some justice in the fact that you have to suffer the effects of a government that operates under precisely the same principle (when it isn't falling prey to nepotism and cronyism, that is).
All I see are creepy greeters, stuff I don't want in sizes that are totally impractical, lines that are too long, and flourescent lighting that is tuned to the precise wavelength at which photons can interact destructively with the human soul (possibly 666nm, but that could just be an unfounded rumour).
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Merriam-Webster would appear to concur with me that the word "communism" can mean a "totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production". So there's no need to burn the dictionaries. Or is the Merriam-Webster dictionary not valid? Is it just a hippy tract written by a bunch of liberal wackos who have committed the heinous crime of making their dictionary relevant to real-world usage?
Incidentally, I do use these words regularly. You may not be able to reconcile a large vocabulary with not being a pedantic jackass, but I can. "Immutable" is a particularly interesting one because I picked it up in my computer science classes, where it comes up quite regularly. Funny how no one here in Canada so much as blinks when people are audacious enough to use multisyllabic words.
I particularly like the comment about having "unleaded" -- as if I should be ashamed of working while I get my degree. How does it feel to know that all your education can't buy you one single ounce of respect?
Hey, it turns out that wikipedia has several relevant articles. Enlightenment may yet be within your grasp. Of course, I'd love to see so much as a single reference contradicting me; before now, I've never even heard of anyone trying to suggest that words were eternally fixed and immutable (okay, this time I'm just using that word to annoy you... maybe I'll use the words "transient" or "declarative" and ruin your entire week! Programming terminology rocks).
Language change, in general.
Semantic change, in particular.
This is such a good illustration of the fluidity of language that it demands inclusion.
I think these make a very good case. Naturally, being a pedantic jackass, your initial response will be to cast dispersions at the validity of wikipedia, but you'll note that the article about semantic change make reference to -- among other things -- The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. So much for burning dictionaries...
You're right of course -- there is no free lunch. And using MY air that I as a dumping ground for the byproducts of getting power your way is no different. Seriously man, fuck you. You really don't have even the slightest concept of how your actions affect others, of how fundamentally interconnected we all are. My kids are more likely to suffer from asthma because of the shit that's dumped into the air by neighbours that are such incredible cowards that they need a scaled-down troop transport vehicle for their daily commute. They're more likely to have serious respiratory problems because you're too much of an idiot to pay for the real cost of your power -- and the real cost of your power includes the medical bills for every child that gets a chronic lung disorder, people who any of the serious problems that arise from never seeing the sun because of smog, the lost revenue from every economically productive lake that is acidified to the point where life can not grow there, the lost revenue from every working forest that is scoured for a strip-mine, etc.
You'll ultimately have to start paying hefty, hefty taxes to pollute the commons, whether directly or indirectly. And you've just got to learn to deal with that. It's not stealing from you, it's making you pay the real costs.
But if you disagree, how about you let me dump my trash on your lawn where you can clean it up? Or how about I just run the vent from generator into one of the windows of your house? Because that's what coal and gas power are doing; they just do it on a distributed scale that affects everyone. Most of those people get absolutely no say in the matter. If I switch to nuclear and drive an electric car, will the state start keeping smog off of my property and out of the air that I breathe? Until they do, YOU FUCKING OWE ME. My lung tissue isn't free -- if anything, you're getting it at a bargain-rate price.
Yeah, but the odometer displayed European miles, which are actually 0.002 lightyears each. Good luck getting even the second digit to turn over. *snort*
Let's be honest now -- outside of a political science classroom, how often do you hear the word "communism" used to refer to Marx's ideas, and how often do you hear the word "communism" used to refer to the system of politics and economics in North Korea, Cuba, China, or the USSR? You know exactly which is the common usage -- the usage that is meaningful in the language that we speak. You know which usage people will assume you are using in casual conversation. Similarly, capitalism -- in the vernacular -- has nothing to do with Adam Smith and everything to do with what the guy at the service station will use as an excuse when you bitch that gas prices are too high. Most people who talk about capitalism have never even HEARD of Adam Smith, and wouldn't have the slightest idea what his ideas were. They use the word to denote something rather different.
Now I remember exactly why I didn't take philosophy classes, and why "philosophy major" is synonymous with "pedantic jackass" at almost every university on Earth.
- Lebensraum for me and my children
- Access to the oil-fields of central Asia
- Preventing the enemy from installing ICBMs just a few miles off our shore
- Control of the mediterranean tin trade
- Forcibly opening a market to our products
- They're-different-than-us-and-that-pisses-me-of
f -because-deep-down-I'm-still-a-retarded primate
- Etcetera
Many of these conflicts were wrapped in religious or racial terms. But religion and race were absolutely tertiary. It all actually comes down to politics.All war is political. It can never be any other way. And Bin Laden is just a particularly bloody-minded and ineffectual politician (any politician that has to live in a cave is a failure). Think about it this way: anyone who releases propaganda is a politician. Pat Robertson? Totally political. He doesn't give a shit about god (if he did, he wouldn't use the lord's name in vain on a daily basis). He's just a big blowhard who's trying to exert political influence. When Bush babbles like a retarded chimpanzee about being God's personal messenger on Earth, that's just his way of duping idiots into voting for him. When Bin Laden grossly misinterprets and selectively edits the Koran, he's just trying to get chumps to do his dirty work for him.
The dangerous bacteria are ones that live in people (or other mammals) already. when you get exposed to these bacteria, they have the upper hand because they're already adapted to living in the mammalian colon, but your immune system hasn't adapted to keep that bacteria under control. And the bacteria may not be perfectly adapted to your system, so it may over-produce itself or its byproducts, making you sick -- something that your own native flora usually don't do.
Frankly, I'm surprised European cheese producers have never launched a WTO grievance over our bizarre pasteurization laws, which mostly just keep European cheeses out of our markets. Research has shown that pasteurizing cheese increases the chances of a pathogenic strain of bacteria taking hold, since there will be no competing bacteria to inhibit the pathogen's development should one take hold.
I'd comment on the cigars too, but I'm not American so it wouldn't really mean anything. At the job I do to pay for school, I sell several cuban cigarillos a day (and usually at least one pack of American cigars). Ironically the cubans that we have are of very low quality, so the Americans sell rather better -- entire packs at a time rather than singles. Funny how these things work out.
Bin Laden is an entirely different manner of thing. If Al Qaeda wanted to slaughter the infidels, they'd just DO it. There are more than enough Americans living abroad that they could kill thousands every month. But that's not what they want. They want to accomplish a particular set of political goals: they want America to abandon Israel, they want America to remove it's military bases from "the holy land" (ie: the entire middle east), and a few other bits of ridiculous nonsense. And what has happened? America now has a major military presence in Iraq and an increased military presence in other allied middle-eastern nations. America is now less likely than ever to turn against Israel -- Israel is the West's ace in the hole. A trump card to played if things ever get too desperate. And an entire muslim government has been basically destroyed (the Taliban isn't quite out of it yet, but they're close). Pakistan is practically a puppet of the US now, and that kind of tolerant atmosphere can only lead to horrors like bilateral trade deals and human rights agreements.
So what we see is that Bin Laden has accomplished precisely the opposite of anything that is, from the perspective of Islamic extremists, positive. Radical Islam has taken a severe blow; there is now MORE democracy and LESS Islamic theocracy in the world. Being a muslim is on about the same level as having leprosy throughout most of the world. The "holy land" is being trampled by boots that have "Made in America" written in relief in the sole.
So what do we call people like Osama Bin Laden, who fuck up so completely and utterly? To call them doofuses is about as nice as it gets. Most other suitable terms would not be appropriate to use in front of children.
Meanwhile, the Bush government has accomplished EXACTLY what they have intended to, more or less. They have used fear to control the American people. They have used patriotism, cowardice, religion, bigotry, lies, and non-stop propaganda to dupe the people into waging a war. The goal? To let companies like Halliburton rape the United States for trillions of dollars in tax money. Funny how most of the major members of the Bush government are closely tied to the businesses that are being paid out of YOUR pocket for the reconstruction of Iraq, huh?
Everything that's happened has been in accordance with what is best for people like Bush and Cheney. Even when their government falls, America will still be in Iraq, and will still be stealing money from YOUR pocket to pay Bush and Cheney's business interests to rebuild Iraq. They'll be making incredble amounts of money for years or decades to come. Actually holding power is irrelevant once they've gotten things lined up how they want them.
Bush and Cheney are the ones that set the trap. The victims? Muslims (who are trapped in the middle of all of this). The American people -- who are having their hard-earned income stolen with basically NOTHING to show for it. And I'd even go so far as to say the Republican party -- who are gradually becoming Pariahs because of the corruption and evil of the GOP. As much as I oppose Republican politics, I can't help but feel bad for sane and reasonable Republicans, who are being blamed for what a handful of greedy monsters and religious psychopaths are doing.
You know, you'd think that if accountants can figure out how to count things and get consistent results, democracy would be a no-brainer. Maybe I'm giving Humans too much credit...
Yeah, but that would make them not worth half a shit in a tin can. Anyone who would deliberately do their job badly in order to get money that will supposedly let them do their job well... that's a group that isn't worth a whole lot. Meanwhile, half a shit in a tin can is at least worth a good laugh, and possibly more where post-modern art is involved.
I think that's EXACTLY the purpose of the NSA. The CIA monitors foreign threats, the NSA domestic threats. The FBI is just a variant of the police. They're more about trying to disrupt crimes in progress and capture people that have already committed a crime. The NSA is the one that is supposed to monitor for serious domestic plots and conspiracies and avert them ahead of time.
Any big group that operates as part of a government, particularly a government as enormous as that of the USA, WITHOUT extensive public oversight, will be hopelessly crippled by earmarking, cronyism, and all other manner of corruption and incompetence. I mean, if the NSA was worth half a shit in a tin can they'd have been able to stop people like McVeigh, Kaczynski, or the doofuses* that thought it would be a good idea to hijack a few planes.
A handful of really bright people working on a project that they truly care about can perform miracles of creativity and insight. If governments really want to get things done, they need to focus more on identifying those people and giving them the support they need -- whether it's a research grant, a loan with which to start a small business, or even just an environment where creativity and hard work are appreciated and respected. A "keep up the good work" now and then can go a long, long way (a woman I talked to who worked in HR suggested that a bit of respect and encouragement could easily avert 90% of the labour issues that her department dealt with BEFORE they became severe enough that HR had to waste time and money on them).
* Doofuses? Just look how well that has worked out for their feelow Muslims... their 70 virgins are probably going to turn out to be 70 desperate truckers with a taste for the dark meat...
Language changes all the time. Basic underlying concepts change. We use ancient words to describe things that people in the ancient world could never have understood. They used these same words in ways that are long forgotten, and which we would not and possibly could not recognize. So yes, when I say that Communism refers to a totalitarian system of state ownership, I am using the current meaning of that word. The meaning that 99.9% of the world uses. You can go around using the old definition and making no sense to anyone but yourself and a few other pedantic nobodies that refuse to accept change, but who's the real winner? The point of language is to communicate successfully. So you either use the definitions of words that are accepted by the society of which you are a part, or you don't communicate successfully and end up in a lot of arguments with people that you ultimately agree with, just because you were too much of an ass to bother learning how English is used NOW.
There was a recount in this case because STATE LAW DICTATED THAT IT BE SO. Are you seriously suggsting that Ohio does not have the right to perform recounts, just because it offends your political sensibilities? Ohio should tolerate election fraud just because other states may have abused the recount process? No offense (just kidding, offense is totally intended), but fuck you. Fuck you right in the ear. Recounts are awesome. I'll take a hundred recounts, if the alternative is the selection of the head of state by a council of presidential appointees. If it requires a hundred recounts and total openness about the results of every single ballot, well then good. It's about time.
These traitors have already admitted that they broke the law, and rigged the recount. It doesn't matter who won -- they rigged the recount and broke the law. The interfered with the democratic process. They need to hang. It's as simple as that.
I know you're bitter that America is turning against the politics of cowardice, torture, paranoid delusions, and perpetual warfare -- but that's just progress, and you've got to learn to accept with it. The world described in 1984 was supposed to be a dire warning of things to come, not a proposal for the utopian society.
Even proper nouns change in meaning over time. It's an unfortunate reality, and one that makes any examination of history a dicey prospect without a proper grounding in linguistics.
This is just one of those pieces of nonsense that idiots blather about. It makes no fucking sense. What does the right to form an armed militia have to do with not dying, not becoming a slave, or not being denied the right to pursue happiness? The police and government control whether or not you can do those things, and if you even SUGGEST that you will use a gun to influence their decisions, you'll lose your liberty, you'll lose any and all opportunities to pursue happiness, and you'll quite likely lose your life.
Don't misunderstand me: I support peoples' right to own guns. The first amendment IMPLIES the second -- owning a gun makes some degenerate psychopaths happy, and banning guns goes against the idea of liberty.
But suggesting that having a gun will protect you when the government bans the things that make you happy? That's just stupid. Being able to marry would make a lot of homosexuals happy, and so the first-amendment suggests that they should be allowed to do so. Nevertheless, no amount of guns will make it happen. Japanese-Americans were locked in concentration camps during WW2 -- if they had tried to protect their liberty using guns, they would simply have gotten themselves killed. If you are arrested for a crime that you didn't commit, do you think that having a gun, either in your hands or those of a militia, will make the slightest difference? If you challenge the government's right to use deadly force, you DIE. PERIOD.
The first amendment stands or falls alone. The second is just a relic of revolutionary times. It means absolutely nothing anymore. If guns are to remain legal, it has to be on the basis of freedom, not on some stupid fantasy about being able to protect yourself from the power of state. To wield power against the state, you would need tanks, bombs, rockets, planes, ICBMS, etc. Having guns wont help you anymore than having field rations or combat fatigues will.
Frankly, I can't believe that the democrats that loved. I can't believe that there are only 20 or so bloggers that criticise the democrats. I thought they were substantially more contemptible than that.
Or maybe you can READ THE DAMN ARTICLE next time. If you had read it, you would know that the legislation only applies to professional bloggers who are paid more than $25,000 a year to promote a political position. This is VERY different than simply trying to regulate all blogging. Not that it's a good idea, mind you. Voting it down was a very sensible move. Campaign finance reform is important and necessary, but it can't come at the cost of free speech, even when that free speech is for-pay.
Lobbyists are pretty much the bane of democracy. That alone is reason enough to lock them in the stocks and have them soundly caned.
To be clear, astroturfing is undeniably a heinous activity. Trying to usurp democracy is the kind of thing that should get people lynched. But the answer here is to ELECT PEOPLE THAT AREN'T RETARDS (yes, that would mean occasionally voting for the guy that DOESN'T have the better haircut, but there it is). Anyone that isn't collosally stupid and incompetent can see through astroturf. Trying to micromanage bloggers is pretty much the exact opposite of a good answer in this case. It's not only a violation of free speech, it's a completely intractable problem. It's like trying to herd cats ... hundred of thousands of cats ... with nothing but a taser and the carboard-tube from a roll of wrapping paper.
The democrats had their hearts in the right place ... just not their heads. Their heads were someplace terrible and foul. Possibly up their asses, but then again, even the dumbest of asses has the occasional nugget of sense hidden away in its folds somewhere. I can't even think of where their heads were at while developing such a ridiculously monstrous piece of legislation.
* (Actually, I hate guns. But I don't particularly care if other people want to own a tool that is far more likely to be used on themselves or their family than it is on anyone else. As long as gun-owners are held legally responsible being dumbasses or for allowing their guns to fall into the hands of criminals, there's no problem, eh?)
You don't consolidate "a power". You consolidate "power". That is, you demonstrate that you can get things done. And isn't that the point of congress? If the Democrats want to control congress, they have to get things done. If they can't pass a simple bill, then they have no power, and will find themselves standing in the food-stamp line at the grocery store soon enough. And that's why trying to pass a stupid bill that members of your own party don't support is an enormous mistake. I'd say exactly the same thing if the republicans tried to pass a bill and it was voted down by other republicans. That's the kind of thing that causes entire political parties to die in many countries. More's the pity that the Republican and Democratic parties DON'T die...
The meaning of these terms changes in time. Consider the fact that liberal and conservative, in Canada, used to refer to precisely the opposite of what they do now. Conservativism in Canada was originally, for all intents and purposes, a political ideology of remaining as separate as possible from the USA in every regard. Liberalism embraced most things American. Now it's reversed; conservatives generally adore everything about the USA, while liberals want Canada to forge its own path.
So I'd say that in modern parlance, Communism (centralized management of everything) is the opposite of Libertarianism (no centralized management whatsoever), while Socialism (using the power of the state to support individuals as needed) is the opposite of Neoconservatism (insert your own definition for neocon ideas here ... mine would probably involve profanity). That's not to say that any of thse are good philosophies. Real politics always has and always will function best by blending different ideas and simply doing what works best at the time.
Those who doubt that the Democrats are just a very slightly more socialist twist on the same shitty formulae as the Republicans need look no further than this kind of stunt.
People like you are why most employees everywhere are totally incompetent. You are deliberately making the Peter Principle happen -- promoting people to jobs that they CAN'T do just for the heinous crime of doing well at jobs that they CAN do. Nicely done. At least there's some justice in the fact that you have to suffer the effects of a government that operates under precisely the same principle (when it isn't falling prey to nepotism and cronyism, that is).
All I see are creepy greeters, stuff I don't want in sizes that are totally impractical, lines that are too long, and flourescent lighting that is tuned to the precise wavelength at which photons can interact destructively with the human soul (possibly 666nm, but that could just be an unfounded rumour).