I think this is a very interesting way of bringing and old, maybe ancient, method of teaching back to the fore again.
If I recall correctly, Socrates taught by answering questions and encouraging new ones, not just spouting knowledge according to a set curricula, like we do today.
If used well, this strikes me as having a real impact for learning, and teaching, in a more natural way. I for one would love to see more of this kind of thing going on and being acknowledged as a legitimate and effective way to teach and learn.
In my case (in Ohio) it was low flying aircraft measuring the distance and an officer at the side of the road waving me to pull over based on the results (along with several other drivers and a patrol car at the side for those who chose not to stop...).
I was pretty bothered by what I saw as a cheap stunt for money, so I went to court on the principal of it, after reading up on speeding ticket defense and the city's speed ordinance at the local University Library. Present at the hearing was the officer at the side of the road and the assistant city prosecutor. Here's a nut-shell of how it went:
Prosecutor to police officer: How fast was the defendant going? Officer: The defendant was clocked at -- Me: Objection, your honor. Judge: Yes, young man? Me: The officer doesn't know how fast I was going. Based on the complaint issued to me in writing here, he was relying on an aircraft pilot's measurements. The pilot is not here; that makes the officer's testimony hearsay. (Prosecutor approaches Judge after talking with officer) Judge: Young man, would you agree to an extension 10 days from now until the pilot can be summoned? Me: Respectfully, no, your honor. That date would put the hearing beyond the 30 day time-line for disposal of this case, which is the end of this week. Judge: young man, would you like your case dismissed? Me: yes, your honor. Judge: case dismissed.
Know the basics of the law in your case. Sometimes it can end up being on your side, as long as your willing and able to take the time to research it and appear in court.
I understand you have strong and sincere feelings about the parent posting, but I feel it's unfair to frame the poster's comments as construing his wanting to be judge and jury on what constitutes patriotic dissent.
People who deliberately spread unprove-able smear campaigns saying, like GWBush ditched his military service with the air national guard, or that Obama wasn't born a citizen on US soil are being irresponsible hate mongers, in my opinion. Is their speech protected? Absolutelty. Is is promoting responsible public discourse? No. Is it "patriotic?" *I* don't think so (although supporting their constitutional right to say it IS).
SCOTUS has a series of rulings on what is considered to be protected speech and I wont debate that here (I agree with most of what they say, not that my opinion makes a whole lot of difference there).
I'm fairly sure the GP has a problem with anything he considers to be "misinformed fear-mongering, blatantly FUD-spreading speculation, and purposeful yet meaningless obstruction..." and so do I. I'm also sure you can cite numerous examples of lies and misinformation about those on the right (like tea partiers, for example) and you would not consider this to be "patriotic."
I'm willing to be he considered the following to be "patriotic" dissent:
1) non-violent Vietnam protests 2) non-violent Civil rights protests (many were violent because police simply beat/water hosed, or - in the case of Kent State, SHOT the protesters) 3) loudly proclaiming, via social media, opposition to lies about public figures on the left or right and/or the causes they support.
The problem, as you allude to, lies in what would ultimately follow from trying to regulate speech on it's ethical merits (or lack thereof)
As I see it, your argument is a red herring, because the GP never suggested this. I believe he was talking about passing his own personal judgment on what *he* thinks is *patriotic* dissent and how people should engage in rational, civil discourse on matters they disagree with. You may not agree with his doing this, but he still has the right to do it. I support his right to do this.
And I support your right to strongly and loudly disagree with him.
Welcome to the age of social media on the internet, where not only does stuff *not* stay secret for long, it spreads faster and farther than ever before, and to people who otherwise wouldn't give a fit because a friend or family member they care about *does*.
This is the magic of still living in a (semi) free society.
The only way you would ever have a free market is if the average person always fully understood both the product/service that is being sold AND any contract that goes along with it. Even that wouldn't be enough. You would then need for all people, as individuals, to be willing to boycott a company (even in the absence of a competitor) and bring it to its financial knees and to be willing to do this over even minor abuses. They must do this individually and not as the result of some organization's decision, and nearly all of them must do so. Then if a corporation even remotely looks like maybe it is screwing someone over, it gets faced with its own bankruptcy and made an example of. This will put other corporations on notice, proving to them that anything resembling bad-faith or malfeasance absolutely will not be tolerated and will be punished at all costs.
Under your idea of doing things, no corporations would exist, because they would not be able to get the working capital from prospective shareholders to accomplish anything meaningful; they'd be too worried about losing their investments to the next lawsuit-de-jour, whether justified or not.
I'm not saying corporations don't do bad things - there's a mountain of evidence to show they do. When they do, they should be held accountable. But there is such a things as going to far, over reacting or creating an environment so stifling that no innovation can take place.
Let's take a deep breath and see how this plays out, shall we?
If small time farmers can prosper using this system in one of the poorer country in Latin America, this could bode very well for fair-trade types of practices and businesses, as well as micro-lenders, all over the world.
A certain company called "Netflix" already has this service (with limited shows available) and wants your business, for as little as $9.95 per month. Maybe they'll buy out HULU and incorporate the business model.
With advanced apologies to those out there who are suffering from PTSD....:
The A.P.A., after having held a deliberative emergency session, has decided to expound upon and give an official label to "bitterness" as a mental illness in much the same way that "shell shock" has been more appropriately renamed to Post Traumatic Stress Disoreder.
Bitterness shall henceforth be know as: Negative Experiential Perception of Reality Syndrome (NEPRS). It is best explained by the following image:
The only real solution to this issue is to buy an HP business laptop, which can be downgraded to XP and does have XP driver support. The problem is they cost twice as much for comparable hardware (although their business laptops are are very well built - I have an NC8000 and it's an excellent machine).
I was heavily eying an HP DV7T, but it only comes with VISTA; HP offers no XP drivers for it.
So once again, I'm building my own windows XP box, only this time I'll be using the 64 bit version.
When I have to use a laptop, I'll just keep using my NC8000 (it does have 2 gigs of ram and a 128meg graphics card) until windows 7 comes out, unless that too, proves to be a travesty.
I loved diablo II before LOD came out with all their completely lame immunities for the monsters (especially the bosses) such as:
Immune to fire Immune to cold Immune to physical etc.
Then there was my personal favorite: Immune to magic
I loved playing on my own computer, but I loved playing even more on-line as long as my character could stand a chance going at it solo or with one (1) friend.
Now you need a team that is godly in strength, which usually means hacked items and a fair amount of griefers who could fsuck it up for everyone from time to time unless you played in a private game and one didn't get let in. It really sucked to be ranked 9th on the hard core ladder after months of playing only to be slaughtered by herded, frenzied, maniacal cow bosses in a trap on the cow level, or in a denial of service attack in a game.
I also found that with each new update/patch, every single class got nerfed in some way except for barbarians, who got progressively stronger.
So yeah, I hope they don't repeat some of the mistakes from D2.
Ma Bell is no dummy. You don't get to be a powerful corporation by making dumb decisions; They asked SCOTUS to take the case because they know there is, based on the history of the court, a very good chance there will be a ruling in their favor:
Remember, we're talking about a court which said it's OK to patent a genome, and that if a GM crop happens to blow into your farm, *you* are responsible for it, and have to completely remove it at your expense:
Oh, so you don't really understand Darwinism. Unless you get heart disease or have a stroke before you hit sexual maturity, this is irrelevant. For almost everyone--even the obese--health complications don't get extreme enough to kill you with a high statistical probability until you're well past your sexual prime, and getting there is all that Darwinism cares about. Maybe I'm way off base here, but I'm not sure *you* really understand Darwinism.
If I understand it correctly, Darwinism is not just about surviving to reproduce, but seeing to it that offspring are able to survive and reproduce themselves, thus perpetuating the species and your genetic line in particular. The odds are not necessarily in your favor if you merely survive to the point of reproducing and then die.
"I can sue you because it's Friday. All I have to do is show why it being Friday hurts me, and why I think it's your fault, and it becomes an actionable 'offense'."
Causality does not *neccesarily* imply responsibility. But in this case, I think even a six year old would agree what Lori Drew did to that clinically depressed 13 year old teen was wrong.
To me, it wasn't just wrong, it was mean - evil.
Should she face criminal prosecution under this statute? Probably not. But there's definitely grounds for a civil suit against her.
"Responsibility comes when the action you did was intrinsically a crime (regardless of the consequences)."
I don't know about you, but for me, "Responsibility" is about: A) owning up to your mistakes B) making amends (to the extent that it's possible to do so) C) learning from it - making myself a better person and/or the world a better place.
If everyone only took responsibility for "crimes," things they could potentially be prosecuted for (or sued) in a court, how much worse off the world would be?
"Nobody is going to be walking around with freakin' defibrillator pads on their chest and a Microsoft Guardian Angel in their pocket."
Probably not, but what if it automatically text messaged a 911 service with this information and a the phone used GPS to give their exact location as well?
I realized I took your statement out of context with my previous reply and lost my cool. I can see now you it looks like you were talking about copyright litigation specifically.
Slashdot Mirror
I think this is a very interesting way of bringing and old, maybe ancient, method of teaching back to the fore again.
If I recall correctly, Socrates taught by answering questions and encouraging new ones, not just spouting knowledge according to a set curricula, like we do today.
If used well, this strikes me as having a real impact for learning, and teaching, in a more natural way. I for one would love to see more of this kind of thing going on and being acknowledged as a legitimate and effective way to teach and learn.
I wish him and the viewers all the best.
In my case (in Ohio) it was low flying aircraft measuring the distance and an officer at the side of the road waving me to pull over based on the results (along with several other drivers and a patrol car at the side for those who chose not to stop...).
I was pretty bothered by what I saw as a cheap stunt for money, so I went to court on the principal of it, after reading up on speeding ticket defense and the city's speed ordinance at the local University Library. Present at the hearing was the officer at the side of the road and the assistant city prosecutor. Here's a nut-shell of how it went:
Prosecutor to police officer: How fast was the defendant going?
Officer: The defendant was clocked at --
Me: Objection, your honor.
Judge: Yes, young man?
Me: The officer doesn't know how fast I was going. Based on the complaint issued to me in writing here, he was relying on an aircraft pilot's measurements. The pilot is not here; that makes the officer's testimony hearsay.
(Prosecutor approaches Judge after talking with officer)
Judge: Young man, would you agree to an extension 10 days from now until the pilot can be summoned?
Me: Respectfully, no, your honor. That date would put the hearing beyond the 30 day time-line for disposal of this case, which is the end of this week.
Judge: young man, would you like your case dismissed?
Me: yes, your honor.
Judge: case dismissed.
Know the basics of the law in your case. Sometimes it can end up being on your side, as long as your willing and able to take the time to research it and appear in court.
I understand you have strong and sincere feelings about the parent posting, but I feel it's unfair to frame the poster's comments as construing his wanting to be judge and jury on what constitutes patriotic dissent.
People who deliberately spread unprove-able smear campaigns saying, like GWBush ditched his military service with the air national guard, or that Obama wasn't born a citizen on US soil are being irresponsible hate mongers, in my opinion. Is their speech protected? Absolutelty. Is is promoting responsible public discourse? No. Is it "patriotic?" *I* don't think so (although supporting their constitutional right to say it IS).
SCOTUS has a series of rulings on what is considered to be protected speech and I wont debate that here (I agree with most of what they say, not that my opinion makes a whole lot of difference there).
I'm fairly sure the GP has a problem with anything he considers to be "misinformed fear-mongering, blatantly FUD-spreading speculation, and purposeful yet meaningless obstruction..." and so do I. I'm also sure you can cite numerous examples of lies and misinformation about those on the right (like tea partiers, for example) and you would not consider this to be "patriotic."
I'm willing to be he considered the following to be "patriotic" dissent:
1) non-violent Vietnam protests
2) non-violent Civil rights protests (many were violent because police simply beat/water hosed, or - in the case of Kent State, SHOT the protesters)
3) loudly proclaiming, via social media, opposition to lies about public figures on the left or right and/or the causes they support.
The problem, as you allude to, lies in what would ultimately follow from trying to regulate speech on it's ethical merits (or lack thereof)
As I see it, your argument is a red herring, because the GP never suggested this. I believe he was talking about passing his own personal judgment on what *he* thinks is *patriotic* dissent and how people should engage in rational, civil discourse on matters they disagree with. You may not agree with his doing this, but he still has the right to do it. I support his right to do this.
And I support your right to strongly and loudly disagree with him.
I sent the same letter
at the Federal Reserve and declare their intentions, or be subject to stiff fines.
Furthermore, the IRS would like to remind bank robbers that failure to declare their (illegal) income will result in additional tax penalties.
yeah, buddy.
Welcome to the age of social media on the internet, where not only does stuff *not* stay secret for long, it spreads faster and farther than ever before, and to people who otherwise wouldn't give a fit because a friend or family member they care about *does*.
This is the magic of still living in a (semi) free society.
The only way you would ever have a free market is if the average person always fully understood both the product/service that is being sold AND any contract that goes along with it. Even that wouldn't be enough. You would then need for all people, as individuals, to be willing to boycott a company (even in the absence of a competitor) and bring it to its financial knees and to be willing to do this over even minor abuses. They must do this individually and not as the result of some organization's decision, and nearly all of them must do so. Then if a corporation even remotely looks like maybe it is screwing someone over, it gets faced with its own bankruptcy and made an example of. This will put other corporations on notice, proving to them that anything resembling bad-faith or malfeasance absolutely will not be tolerated and will be punished at all costs.
Under your idea of doing things, no corporations would exist, because they would not be able to get the working capital from prospective shareholders to accomplish anything meaningful; they'd be too worried about losing their investments to the next lawsuit-de-jour, whether justified or not.
I'm not saying corporations don't do bad things - there's a mountain of evidence to show they do. When they do, they should be held accountable. But there is such a things as going to far, over reacting or creating an environment so stifling that no innovation can take place.
Let's take a deep breath and see how this plays out, shall we?
If small time farmers can prosper using this system in one of the poorer country in Latin America, this could bode very well for fair-trade types of practices and businesses, as well as micro-lenders, all over the world.
Good luck, amigos!
That was well thought out and well said. My (virtual) hat is off to you.
A certain company called "Netflix" already has this service (with limited shows available) and wants your business, for as little as $9.95 per month. Maybe they'll buy out HULU and incorporate the business model.
With advanced apologies to those out there who are suffering from PTSD....:
The A.P.A., after having held a deliberative emergency session, has decided to expound upon and give an official label to "bitterness" as a mental illness in much the same way that "shell shock" has been more appropriately renamed to Post Traumatic Stress Disoreder.
Bitterness shall henceforth be know as: Negative Experiential Perception of Reality Syndrome (NEPRS). It is best explained by the following image:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vinegar_Tasters
"I don't know about where you are, but in Ohio automatic speed camera fines do not go on your driving record."
They don't. But for some amusement, try to renew your plates or license without paying the fines and see where that gets you.
Also, in most municipalities in Ohio, these types of fines are civil rather than criminal in nature, so the fines don't expire. Ever.
The only real solution to this issue is to buy an HP business laptop, which can be downgraded to XP and does have XP driver support. The problem is they cost twice as much for comparable hardware (although their business laptops are are very well built - I have an NC8000 and it's an excellent machine).
I was heavily eying an HP DV7T, but it only comes with VISTA; HP offers no XP drivers for it.
So once again, I'm building my own windows XP box, only this time I'll be using the 64 bit version.
When I have to use a laptop, I'll just keep using my NC8000 (it does have 2 gigs of ram and a 128meg graphics card) until windows 7 comes out, unless that too, proves to be a travesty.
I loved diablo II before LOD came out with all their completely lame immunities for the monsters (especially the bosses) such as:
Immune to fire
Immune to cold
Immune to physical
etc.
Then there was my personal favorite:
Immune to magic
I loved playing on my own computer, but I loved playing even more on-line as long as my character could stand a chance going at it solo or with one (1) friend.
Now you need a team that is godly in strength, which usually means hacked items and a fair amount of griefers who could fsuck it up for everyone from time to time unless you played in a private game and one didn't get let in. It really sucked to be ranked 9th on the hard core ladder after months of playing only to be slaughtered by herded, frenzied, maniacal cow bosses in a trap on the cow level, or in a denial of service attack in a game.
I also found that with each new update/patch, every single class got nerfed in some way except for barbarians, who got progressively stronger.
So yeah, I hope they don't repeat some of the mistakes from D2.
You got it spot on:
Ma Bell is no dummy. You don't get to be a powerful corporation by making dumb decisions; They asked SCOTUS to take the case because they know there is, based on the history of the court, a very good chance there will be a ruling in their favor:
http://tinyurl.com/4pugrm
http://tinyurl.com/2klpc3
http://tinyurl.com/2pafg6
Remember, we're talking about a court which said it's OK to patent a genome, and that if a GM crop happens to blow into your farm, *you* are responsible for it, and have to completely remove it at your expense:
http://tinyurl.com/3onetv
http://tinyurl.com/4rh5wb
I think it's more likely it'll be 6-3, although 5-4 is, indeed, all it takes.
Even though you were being tongue-in-cheek, you hit the nail on the head.
Humans are contributing to global warming. More so now than ever before, and with more people than ever before.
Saying "fat" people do it by up to 15% more (or greater) is besides the point. It's also divisive and does nothing to solve the problem.
If I understand it correctly, Darwinism is not just about surviving to reproduce, but seeing to it that offspring are able to survive and reproduce themselves, thus perpetuating the species and your genetic line in particular. The odds are not necessarily in your favor if you merely survive to the point of reproducing and then die.
We already have plenty of Phat Farms in the USA, like the Playboy Mansion, Hollywood, and L.A.
Oh, sorry, you said "fat" farm. My bad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761573003
http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/friday_the_13th.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/02/0212_040212_friday13.html
Good luck with that line of reasoning, by the way.
"I can sue you because it's Friday. All I have to do is show why it being Friday hurts me, and why I think it's your fault, and it becomes an actionable 'offense'."
You could certainly try.
Such a case would lack "standing" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_(law) (since I didn't "make" the day: "Friday") and other tort requirements. The case would be thrown out or summarily dismissed and you'd be left vulnerable to a counter suit for frivolous litigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation. By me.
You'd probably lose, too.
Yes, Yes, I understand your point about there being too many lawsuits. Do you think Ms. Meier's family would be frivolous to sue here?
"Causality does not imply responsibility"
Causality does not *neccesarily* imply responsibility. But in this case, I think even a six year old would agree what Lori Drew did to that clinically depressed 13 year old teen was wrong.
To me, it wasn't just wrong, it was mean - evil.
Should she face criminal prosecution under this statute? Probably not. But there's definitely grounds for a civil suit against her.
"Responsibility comes when the action you did was intrinsically a crime (regardless of the consequences)."
I don't know about you, but for me, "Responsibility" is about:
A) owning up to your mistakes
B) making amends (to the extent that it's possible to do so)
C) learning from it - making myself a better person and/or the world a better place.
If everyone only took responsibility for "crimes," things they could potentially be prosecuted for (or sued) in a court, how much worse off the world would be?
Change begins with me.
"The family, on the other hand, has a legitimate case which they should take to the civil courts."
That is most certainly the best course of action to take.
This prosecution is an example of what the road to hell is paved with.
"Nobody is going to be walking around with freakin' defibrillator pads on their chest and a Microsoft Guardian Angel in their pocket."
Probably not, but what if it automatically text messaged a 911 service with this information and a the phone used GPS to give their exact location as well?
I know, it's not that simple. But it is an idea.
I realized I took your statement out of context with my previous reply and lost my cool. I can see now you it looks like you were talking about copyright litigation specifically.
My apologies.
"We have 2 out of 3 presidential candidates who voted to cede the decision to declare war from the congress to the president"
Vote for the one who didn't.