Everyone should go back and read about what the NSA program has been collecting. There are no dossiers in the programs that have recently come to light; it's metadata, and in some cases raw data. The phone information, for example, is which numbers called which other numbers and for how long. It's not like a credit report where there is derivative information; they go to the database when they want to look up associations between entities. Creating dossiers on hundreds of millions of people at random is hugely wasteful, since (conservatively) 99.9999% of the time it'd be a total waste of time and the person would never be of interest. The NSA isn't dumb when it comes to this stuff, ethical concerns about whether they should be doing it aside.
Your whole premise is based on what has recently come to light. What has most people concerned is what hasn't come to light. I would suppose that the FBI isn't dumb either and yet they kept files on millions of people without strong reason to during Hoover's reign.
You say that creating dossiers on hundreds of millions of peole is hugely wasteful. I would agree, but then again, DASD is cheap and when has the government been known to be frugal in its endeavors, especially when it involves secret operations?
No, saying that there is complexity and more than one opinion is not judgemental. Calling something controversial is a judgement statement. When used as an adjective in the manner it was used, it is a judgemental statement. When saying that politics is a controversial subject it is not. In the former one is making a statement about somebody's choice to give birth. The latter is describing the subject matter.
Put differently, you should be able to put other judgemental adjectives in the sentance and it should still make sense if it is judgemental. So, from the original you could say "What's appalling to me is choosing to have a baby with defects" or "What's wonderful to me is choosing to have a baby with defects." Neither of those adjectives work in the politics statement without changing it from describing the subject to becoming a judgemental statement.
Words have meaning and how we use them have further meaning. You may want to believe that the original poster was really trying to say "What is a complex subject because there is more than one opinion to me is choosing to have a baby with defects." However,you would most likely be alone in that interpretation.
Microsoft's own internal studies are showing somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of BSODs on XP/Vista/7 were not due to the OS, but directly due to graphics drivers.
And yet, many of those drivers are certified by Microsoft, so I have no doubt that the vendor is at fault, but then why did Microsoft certify the driver?
In reality, though, as a consumer, I really don't care whose fault it is. If my computer is not working, it's not working and the manufacturer and Microsoft can point fingers at each other all day long. Maybe that's why more and more people are paying the Apple tax instead of the Microsoft tax.
Of course, what is missing and hard to find about the Common Core Standards is they were started by the government (state governors association, I believe) to standardize curriculums and teaching methods accross the states with one of their key reasons being to hold down education costs. That has since been removed from the website, but the CCS was not about improving educational standards but cost containment.
How will they do that? Pay teachers less and pay Pearsons more. You want to improve education in America? Find out how the 1% educate their kids. It won't be cheap, but you do get what you pay for.
What a cop-out! From the article "Like all technologies in the world, it depends on us how we use them," Katabi said.
People use that excuse all the time. However, when one has a reasonable expectation as to how some technology will be used, you cannot fall back on this reasoning to ease one's conscious over their own culbability in something. The scientists involved in the Manhatten project new full well how that technology would be used and had to deal with the moral implications. Today, though, the notion is technology for technology's sake with no thought of the consequences.
Well here's news to all my fellow researchers, if you develop some new technology, great, but don't hide behind your mommy's skirts and say, something like the above. You know darn well how it will be used, so take responsibility for it.
I don't me seeing something as controversial as controversial.
Explain to me how having a child with issues is better for the world, for the parents, or for me than having or adopting a child without?
I predict no response.
Your prediction would be wrong then.
If you re-read what I actually said, I made no statement as to whether these children should be born or not. I simply responded to the original poster who said:
What's controversial to me is choosing to have a baby with defects.
To which I responded:
What's controversial to me is why you or anyone else care what choice people make when dealing with the very personal issue of which children they choose to have.
If you or anyone else cannot appreciate that parents faced with these types of decisions have to make personal and tough choices, then that is the real issue. If the parents choose to keep the child, that is the choice they made on behalf of their child. If they choose not to, that is likewise, the choice they made. Until we are in their shoes, in their specific life situations, none of us can judge their actions. Calling something controversial is a judgement statement that simply isn't warranted. No more or less.
Pray tell, why is denying an existence to a healthy child that could have been born instead of a partially or fully disabled child a better option?
It's not an either or situation. If you have a disabled child, you are not denying a healthy child. Prior to conception there are zero children. At conception there is one child. That child is either healthy or disabled, but like Schroedinger’s cat, we don't know until we look. (That is true even if the mother or father have a predisposition for a genetic abnormality, at least for most abnormalities).
You seem to be insinuating a line of reasoning that borders on fallacy. We don't know the full extent to which ALS is caused by the individual contributing factors. We don't even know if the genetic factors that seem to be partly responsible for it in many cases in any way contributed to his mental prowess. The same Stephen Hawking might have never developed ALS if his early life had been different. Given a slightly different prenatal and childhood development, genetically the same Stephen Hawking could have developed ALS without getting the brilliance in exchange. And many other people grew into brilliant minds without suffering from ALS.
There's no reason to assume that a yet-unborn child that to your knowledge will get born disabled or preconditioned for disability with certainty will have an offsetting factor (such as scientific brilliance) with any higher probability than that a healthy child would be gifted.
There is a genetic marker for ALS on chromosome 21 (I think) and a specific test for it. Although it does not run in families, it can be tested for in utero. As such, it would qualify in this discussion would it not? Even if a child born today is predestined to have ALS, just because they will not have the scientific brilliance of Hawking, are you stating that they should not be allowed to live? That sounds like an argument to kill them off unless they have some benefit for society.
They matter. But show me one parent that would willingly choose a disabled child upon conception instead of a healthy one if given an option. Go on, just try.
Again, that is an impossible argument, of course every parent would want their children to be healthy. However, if the mother and father have the dominate genetic traits that will lead to disabilities, it really doesn't matter how many tries they get, their children will have those traits. If only one does, then it is still better than a 50/50 chance the child will, depending on the marker. Even if neither do, there is still a 10% likelihood that there will be a disability.
But, what your question really should be is of asking parents that have had a disabled child and what their views are about it. Would they have preferred their child had never been born? And while there are those that would agree with that sentiment, there are those that would not. Which comes back to the original question of Why you or anyone else care what choice people make when dealing with the very personal issue of which children they choose to have.
As you seem to be arguing so strenuously, it is a very personal issue that unless you are directly involved with it you cannot begin to make that choice for somebody else.
I was using the original poster's language. Out of curiosity, why did you not respond to his post? You have taken the argument and twisted into torture and murder. Society has established rights to protect the individual against such things and come up with punishments for violations of those rights. The two are not at all the same.
You are correct that I would object to murdering my child (or any child). Where you logic fails is the assumption you make that every disability is equivalent to torturing your child or that the child will live their life in agony and discomfort. If it is justified to not allow a disabled child to be born, why not kill all the disabled people so they, too do not have to be tortured and live in agony?
Genetic diseases can be terrible, can cause suffering and very often can be an inconvenience to living a full life (whatever that phrase truly means). Angelina Jolie has a genetic disease that gives her a predisposition to breast and uterine cancer. Should she never had been born because of this? Stephen Hawkings, disease is much more serious, should he had not been allowed to be born? All of these soldiers coming back from war without a limb are okay, but a child that will be born without a limb is not?
Your argument falls short. Acts of the will committed by people (murder and torture) versus the child in utero who has made no malicious act whatsoever. We are all genetically disabled in some way or another, we just don't call it that. Instead, we have a family history of heart disease, or stroke, or diabetes or 100s of other things. So, if the goal is to eliminate pain and suffering through genetic manipulation, it's not going to work.
Maybe, the answer is not trying to predict who should be allowed to born or not, but for those who truly are suffering and in agony, for society to help ease their suffering. A first step would be in recognizing that all human beings, regardless of their disabilities are valued.
why you or anyone else care what choice people make when dealing with the very personal issue of which children they choose to have.
Probably because they never ask the children. Yes, it's personal, but the voices of those people who matter most are never taken into consideration.
When you figure out a way to do that, you'll win a Nobel Prize. However, you point out two things, these children are 1) people and 2) they matter, so why would denying them an existence be in their best interest?
While I am not accusing you of this, very often people who put forth this argument are either doing so because of the burden that they would see on themselves as a parent, or the burden on society (assuming they give up the child I would guess), but not on the child being a person who matters.
I wonder if Stephen Hawking had been able to have been given the choice, would he have chosen to live or not? It seems that his life, genetically flawed as it is, although very different from most people's, certainly has been fulfilling. As you, yourself stated, children with disabilities are people and they matter.
What's controversial to me is choosing to have a baby with defects.
What's controversial to me is why you or anyone else care what choice people make when dealing with the very personal issue of which children they choose to have.
I think Mint was a fork of Ubuntu 10 when because they were adding Unity to Ubuntu 11. I could be wrong, I switched to Mint 12 when Ubuntu 11 came out. But it would mean Mint is technically based off Ubuntu, but not the version of Ubuntu that's getting Mir.
As long as Mint continues to use the current Ubuntu repositoriies, it is still based off the current version. There is no technically about it.
I have had 6 happy years using you every day. You showed me so many things - the world of Linux I never knew. I will never forget the time we've shared.
But you've you've changed. You're not the OS I once loved. I'm sorry to have to tell you this. I don't wish to hurt you. But I have to tell you the truth...
I've switched to Mint.
So what will Mint use for its display server since it is basically built on top of Ubuntu?
This is probably the most incoherent argument I've read today. There is literally no combination of sentences that forms a cogent line of reasoning.
I appreciate you're angry at the decision for some reason, but perhaps you need to calm down and rewrite what your thoughts are once it's a little easier for you to write rationally.
I'm not angry at the decision. I'm pointing out the incositancy of the Anonymous Coward in comparing Scalia to the Taliban because he disented. His actuall reason for disenting was that he felt that the SCOTUS lacked authority under the constitution to issue a ruling. The entire court agreed with him on the Prop 8 ruling, but for some reason that doesn't lead one to be accused of being a Taliban.
The AC hid his identity from slashdot and compared anybody who disagreed with the findings to the Taliban. Personally, I find that offensive. Maybe that is what you mistook for anger.
Civil Union is a 20th century term. I challenge you to find any reference to such in the history books prior to the 20th century. It's always been called marriage and religion has no claim on the word. Religion is pretty much irrelevant to marriage here in the US. You have a Wedding in church. The state is the one who issues your marriage license. One is optional. The other is not.
Of course it is a 20th century term. But you are wrong on marriage and religion. While it is true that marriage existed long before religion, since the existence of the Holy Roman Empire. Europe, Africa and the western part of Asia all had the same definition, because there was not a difference between church and state, so for 1,000 year marriage has been a religous concept. Don't believe me, then read about Henry the VIII. If marriage was just a civil thing, Thomas Moore would not have lost his head.
Whether religion is irrelevant or not to marriage in the US is besides the point. Freedom of Religion is a constitutionally protected right and infringing on that right is the same as infringing on any other right. If if one accepts that religion is irrelevant today, though, our modern society has religous concepts embeded in it, including marriage (some states have Holy Matrimony on their marriage licenses). Why can't you marry your first cousin? It's against the law. Long before they knew anything about genetics, first cousins were considered by the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire to be one's brother or sister. As such, marrying your first cousin was the same as committing incest. The fact that such relationships often resulted in birth defects were proof from their god that it was wrong and punishable. In the age of enlightenment into moderntimes, we codified that religious practice into our secular laws and forbid the practice. That doesn't change it's religious roots, though.
As for state issued marriage licenses, again check your history books. While marriage licenses began in the middle ages they were issued by the Churches. These often took the form of banns. Much later 18th century, civil govenrmetns started to issue them, mainly for property rights (Prior to the use of marriage license, it was the word of the couple that was relied upon. Of course, if the couple split up, it became his word versus her word.)
So, to make a long story short, yes, Civil Union is a modern term. A modern term is needed to drop all of the baggage associated with the old term. Just like we all drive cars instead of horseless carriages, modern times require modern terminology.
As for a church wedding and state marriage license, that is only partially true. If you immigrate from a country that church weddings (ie Catholic Church) are the norm, you will not have a marriage license. You will have a certificate from the church itself. That marriage is 100% legal in the US. If you were married in Hawaii or Alaska prior to them becoming a state, you are also 100% legally married. Nine states recognize common law marriage where no marriage license is required and in those states you can be married in a church and still not have a marriage license.
But I do agree that a church wedding is a legal marriage, not because the church says it is but because the government says it is.
I think people are too ready to make the concession of handing the word "marriage" over to the sectarians when the root of the establishment of marriage is civil and not religious. I personally don't think secular people should make concessions to the sectarians at all let alone over who you love or to whom you choose to make a legal contract with.
Concessions to the church on the grounds of redefinition of the word marriage smacks of Jim Crow to me. If people want to have non sanctioned religious union ceremonies, they are more than welcome to that already, but marriage is now, has been, and always should be the milieu of the the state.
If we're going to go down that road, it really seems like the church should be making the concessions to the state and not the other way around. I've never heard anyone argue for "sectarian unions" so why should civil liberties be the ones to cede the word when the church has inappropriately co-opted the word. As always, you do have some good points though, thank you.
That is only partially true. While in the abstract, marriage existed long before organized religions, by the middle ages, in Western Europe, the Church and State were one under the Holy Roman Empire. Much our modern laws and concepts come from that period and marriage is no different. So in the West and every country that was settled by Europeans or the Catholic Church, marriage has been handed down in one very particular way, at least for the past 1000 years. So, yes, marriage existed before then, but from the end of the dark ages until recently, it has been viewed by most of society, even atheist countries, one way.
The religious definition of marriage, at least in the West has pretty much been unchanged in that entire period. What has changed is the non-religious notion, so I do not see why you would hold the position that churches should change their definition.
As for Civil Unions, look at what the argument is, from the government perspective (thus leaving out the emotional arguments). Should gay couples have the same civil rights as heterosexual couples? The answer is yes. So initially we are talking about something civil. Now, the traditionalists will say that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and the progressives will say it is a union between any two people. So marriage is about a union.
Thus, we have a government recognition of certain rights bestowed upon two people when they enter into a Civil Union. It does not matter what their gender, race or creed. The government is blind to those things. The government is also free to recognize a religious ceremony (ie marriage) as a legal form of civil union (just as they recognize them as a legal form of marriage now) or they can leave them as a religious ceremony and people will need to go to the courthouse to garner the rights estabilished in through a civil union and then go to a church if they want a religious ceremony (many countries do this now).
Forcing religions to abide by a new definition of a term they have used consistently for 1000 years simply won't work. First and foremost, the government has no power to force religions to recognize any marriages. If married Catholics have certain "rights" in the Catholic Church, the government cannot force those rights be granted to married Baptists? Nor can the government force churches to accept members who don't follow their teachings.
The gay community understands this. Today's rulings and all of the same sex marriage rulings have zero impact on churches. Those that are in favor of gay marriage already perform those ceremonies, even in states that don't recognize same sex marriages. Those that are opposed don't. By forcing the change in the definition of the word marriage only serves to antagonize the churches and push them further away. Polls show that many church goers are in favor of civil unions but not in changing the definition of marriage. If the concern is really about equal acces under the law (civil rights), then
Just that if someone wants to protect the term "marriage" from gays by turning the government backed marriages into civil unions and only allowing churches to do "marriages", they will be suprised that it wont prevent gays from getting married.
The issue isn't about protecting the term "marriage" from gays. The actual issue is about equal protection under the law. That is a civil rights issue. Whether one needs to change the definition of marriage to achieve that or to use a different term is secondary.
The churches do have every right to defend their definition of marriage. While marriage existed long before the church, it was the marriage of church and state (no pun intended) through the Holy Roman Empire (ie. the catholic church) the gave midevil Europe its widespread understanding of marriage that has been spread everywhere that the european colonies spread, including the US. So, while, marriage existed prior to christianity, our modern notion of marriage, like it or not, has its roots in the christian concept of marriage (some states in the US even have Holy Matrimony on their marriage licenses!).
Whether people want to admit it or not, religion heavily influenced the development of the US and most western countries. Even if that influence has weakened in recent years, the roots of religion permeate just about everything in our modern society. As such, it makes more sense to drop the baggage associated with the word marriage and use the modern term Civil Union. For one, it better describes the legal arrangement and leaves no doubt that it is something recognized by the civil authorities.
But, the moment the discussion moves from civil rights and equality under the law and changes to things like redefining the word marriage, well, then we are just as guilty as the churches who strive to hold on to their position. Rights should be granted to everybody, but nobody should be able to force their definition on another group, religious or otherwise.
A thousand times NO. The word "Marriage" is NOT owned by any religious group. It was first and foremost a civil term. It was incorporated into a religious ceremony until the 1500's in Christian circles. Marriage was known in the bible but largely considered a private matter that didn't involve the church. Why should a civil union surrender to the demands of a religion that is usurping the word Marriage?
If you want to use the argument that marriage is a civil issue that has been corrupted by religion, then you would find that even in ancient primitive societies what would be recognized as marriage was always between men and woman (sometimes one of each, sometimes one man with multiple women). So, to use that argument to bolster an argument for same sex marriage and damn the religious folk, would actually be more in line with what the religious folk are saying, whether christian or not.
That is why it simply makes more sense to throw out marriage all together as it has too much baggage and define a modern concept to fit what we mean in the 21st century. Most of the world has seemed to gone with the term Civil Union to describe the recognition by the civil authorities of the legal relationship between two people. Of course, the US is free to do what they want and most likely won't follow what the rest of the world does, but since the US is late to the game and the other countries have already decided how to deal with the issue, maybe we could just learn from their example.
Because until gay people can be married their relationship will always be second class. Less than the relationship of a straight couple. That was the point of this ruling, in fact.
If this is about civil rights, as it is purported to be, it is about individuals, not about their relationship. Anybody who needs a piece of paper from the government to validate their relationship with another human being is why their relationship is second class, not because of the definition of some word.
Marriage has about as much to do with christianity as toilet paper does to taking a shit. People were shitting long before it's invent and won't stop when it goes out of style.
If you really want to make concessions we should abolish all marriages and get the church out of the institution entirely.
While the first paragraph you make has a lot of wisdom, your last sentence does not. Why does anything a church do or say about church ceremonies bother you? Church marriages only bestow legal rights because the government says they do. It is the government that should get out of the marriage business since it is so cluttered with other baggage and enter the civil union business because it better describes the legal situation of what is happening from the government's position. Dropping the language of marriage, means the government can do what it likes with civil unions. As for church marriages, there are two choices either they can remain a purely religious ceremony but you still need a government sanctioned civil union for the legal benefits formerly known as marriage or the government is free to recognize church marriages as an acceptable form of civil unions, just like they recognize them now as a legal form of marriage.
You will find examples of both solutions in various countries throughout the world. And if people had left out their own personal agendas and focused on the civil rights issues, the US would probably have already chosen one of those two solutions instead of trying to fight a losing battle over what the definition of the word marriage is.
Marriage gives you certain benefits - taxes, insurance rates, access rights, etc - that no other 'grouping' does.
You're never going to get government out of all of the things that marriage gives benefits to.
Rights are given by the government. If marriage gives you extra rights, then the government says what those are.
Actually, for the fast majority of people, the closer the two people's income is, the less tax benefit there is for married couples and for many, marriage is a tax penalty. Insurance rates? well that might be in your state, but for auto insurance it applies to males under age 26, after that its about the same. Homeowners is no different, same with life insurance. Spouses can get health insurance through some employers, but that is quickly changing, at least the employer subsidizing it. By access rights, I assume you mean visitation rights in a hospital, you can have that if you are listed as the medical decision maker (different terms in different states). Access rights for children require a biological connection or a court order, so that is no different.
Almost everything "granted" by the government related to marriage is available without marriage. The only thing not possible and something the government can't grant in the first place is social acceptance. Same sex couples now can have a legal document saying that their relationship is real. That doesn't mean, however, that others will accept it. Just like after the civil rights laws in the 60s were passed, didn't mean that people suddenly embraced our African American brethren.
Acceptance of same sex couples will have occurred with or without this ruling and any couples requiring this ruling to validate their relationship have deeper issues. Neither of those are something the government can fix.
I for one want the government out of marriage. Let the churches deal with "marriage"
Now having said that. If 2 gay people want to live together and have the same rights that current married couples get, I dont see why that should not be allowed. I also think that if 2 people simply live together they should get the same rights, "love" should never be the deciding factor when it comes to giving tax breaks to people or even worse tax money to people.
The real question is why do we have these archaic laws anymore? They were created when the husband worked and the woman stayed home and raised the kids. That is not the reality for most people anymore. Here is a simple solution - 1) change the tax code so people are taxed on what they are earned, period. 2) you want to make sure your "partner" gets your goods upon your death, then either hold property jointly or have a will. 3) you want your "partner" to be able to make medical decisions for you and visit you in the hospital, then give them medical power of attorney. 4) you want your "partner" to make legal decisions for you, then give them durable power of attorney."
With the exception of changing tax code and health insurance laws (which the affordable health care act is already doing), that pretty much covers all of the rights bestowed by marriage.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
You should no more be able to deny rights to people because of their sexuality than you should be able to deny the right of blacks to vote and hold property.
That Scalia dissented means he's not looking at the right parts of the Constitution but is just being selective.
Believing one group should be able to dictate the rights of another group makes you no better than the Taliban.
Pretty strong words comparing people who were opposed to changing the definition of the word marriage to being members of the Taliban. I guess you would hold that all of those European and South American governments that solved this issue by getting out of the marriage business and only having the government involved with Civil Unions are also no better than the Taliban?
As for Scalia, here is what he said: "We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America."
So, for the DOMA case, by your rules, he is like the Taliban. For the Prop 8 case, the entire court said they didn't have jurisdiction, so I guess, again, by your rules, the entire SCOTUS is like the Taliban. Oh, wait, they are only like the Taliban if you disagree with their decision -- on prop 8 they are freedom fighters.
It is amazing that these experiments continue to confirm current theories. I was hoping they would find some strange thing that didn't fit, so we could understand why current theories don't explain everything. Maybe next time.
It could just be that, particularly when dealing with particle physics, one can only find what one is looking for. Or put differently, you are unlikely to discover something that the theories don't predict, because all of the equipment and tests have been designed to confirm what the theories predict. Of course that is how the scientific method is supposed to work. You come up with a hypothesis, you devise and experiment to test that hypothesis, you repeat it numerous times to confirm the results.
In short, these experiments are designed to confirm existing theories. Now that we know that four quark particles exist, that part is no longer theoretical and new theories can be built on that fact.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone should go back and read about what the NSA program has been collecting. There are no dossiers in the programs that have recently come to light; it's metadata, and in some cases raw data. The phone information, for example, is which numbers called which other numbers and for how long. It's not like a credit report where there is derivative information; they go to the database when they want to look up associations between entities. Creating dossiers on hundreds of millions of people at random is hugely wasteful, since (conservatively) 99.9999% of the time it'd be a total waste of time and the person would never be of interest. The NSA isn't dumb when it comes to this stuff, ethical concerns about whether they should be doing it aside.
Your whole premise is based on what has recently come to light. What has most people concerned is what hasn't come to light. I would suppose that the FBI isn't dumb either and yet they kept files on millions of people without strong reason to during Hoover's reign.
You say that creating dossiers on hundreds of millions of peole is hugely wasteful. I would agree, but then again, DASD is cheap and when has the government been known to be frugal in its endeavors, especially when it involves secret operations?
No, saying that there is complexity and more than one opinion is not judgemental. Calling something controversial is a judgement statement. When used as an adjective in the manner it was used, it is a judgemental statement. When saying that politics is a controversial subject it is not. In the former one is making a statement about somebody's choice to give birth. The latter is describing the subject matter.
Put differently, you should be able to put other judgemental adjectives in the sentance and it should still make sense if it is judgemental. So, from the original you could say "What's appalling to me is choosing to have a baby with defects" or "What's wonderful to me is choosing to have a baby with defects." Neither of those adjectives work in the politics statement without changing it from describing the subject to becoming a judgemental statement.
Words have meaning and how we use them have further meaning. You may want to believe that the original poster was really trying to say "What is a complex subject because there is more than one opinion to me is choosing to have a baby with defects." However ,you would most likely be alone in that interpretation.
Microsoft's own internal studies are showing somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of BSODs on XP/Vista/7 were not due to the OS, but directly due to graphics drivers.
And yet, many of those drivers are certified by Microsoft, so I have no doubt that the vendor is at fault, but then why did Microsoft certify the driver?
In reality, though, as a consumer, I really don't care whose fault it is. If my computer is not working, it's not working and the manufacturer and Microsoft can point fingers at each other all day long. Maybe that's why more and more people are paying the Apple tax instead of the Microsoft tax.
Of course, what is missing and hard to find about the Common Core Standards is they were started by the government (state governors association, I believe) to standardize curriculums and teaching methods accross the states with one of their key reasons being to hold down education costs. That has since been removed from the website, but the CCS was not about improving educational standards but cost containment.
How will they do that? Pay teachers less and pay Pearsons more. You want to improve education in America? Find out how the 1% educate their kids. It won't be cheap, but you do get what you pay for.
What a cop-out! From the article "Like all technologies in the world, it depends on us how we use them," Katabi said.
People use that excuse all the time. However, when one has a reasonable expectation as to how some technology will be used, you cannot fall back on this reasoning to ease one's conscious over their own culbability in something. The scientists involved in the Manhatten project new full well how that technology would be used and had to deal with the moral implications. Today, though, the notion is technology for technology's sake with no thought of the consequences.
Well here's news to all my fellow researchers, if you develop some new technology, great, but don't hide behind your mommy's skirts and say, something like the above. You know darn well how it will be used, so take responsibility for it.
I don't me seeing something as controversial as controversial.
Explain to me how having a child with issues is better for the world, for the parents, or for me than having or adopting a child without?
I predict no response.
Your prediction would be wrong then.
If you re-read what I actually said, I made no statement as to whether these children should be born or not. I simply responded to the original poster who said:
What's controversial to me is choosing to have a baby with defects.
To which I responded:
What's controversial to me is why you or anyone else care what choice people make when dealing with the very personal issue of which children they choose to have.
If you or anyone else cannot appreciate that parents faced with these types of decisions have to make personal and tough choices, then that is the real issue. If the parents choose to keep the child, that is the choice they made on behalf of their child. If they choose not to, that is likewise, the choice they made. Until we are in their shoes, in their specific life situations, none of us can judge their actions. Calling something controversial is a judgement statement that simply isn't warranted. No more or less.
Pray tell, why is denying an existence to a healthy child that could have been born instead of a partially or fully disabled child a better option?
It's not an either or situation. If you have a disabled child, you are not denying a healthy child. Prior to conception there are zero children. At conception there is one child. That child is either healthy or disabled, but like Schroedinger’s cat, we don't know until we look. (That is true even if the mother or father have a predisposition for a genetic abnormality, at least for most abnormalities).
You seem to be insinuating a line of reasoning that borders on fallacy. We don't know the full extent to which ALS is caused by the individual contributing factors. We don't even know if the genetic factors that seem to be partly responsible for it in many cases in any way contributed to his mental prowess. The same Stephen Hawking might have never developed ALS if his early life had been different. Given a slightly different prenatal and childhood development, genetically the same Stephen Hawking could have developed ALS without getting the brilliance in exchange. And many other people grew into brilliant minds without suffering from ALS.
There's no reason to assume that a yet-unborn child that to your knowledge will get born disabled or preconditioned for disability with certainty will have an offsetting factor (such as scientific brilliance) with any higher probability than that a healthy child would be gifted.
There is a genetic marker for ALS on chromosome 21 (I think) and a specific test for it. Although it does not run in families, it can be tested for in utero. As such, it would qualify in this discussion would it not? Even if a child born today is predestined to have ALS, just because they will not have the scientific brilliance of Hawking, are you stating that they should not be allowed to live? That sounds like an argument to kill them off unless they have some benefit for society.
They matter. But show me one parent that would willingly choose a disabled child upon conception instead of a healthy one if given an option. Go on, just try.
Again, that is an impossible argument, of course every parent would want their children to be healthy. However, if the mother and father have the dominate genetic traits that will lead to disabilities, it really doesn't matter how many tries they get, their children will have those traits. If only one does, then it is still better than a 50/50 chance the child will, depending on the marker. Even if neither do, there is still a 10% likelihood that there will be a disability.
But, what your question really should be is of asking parents that have had a disabled child and what their views are about it. Would they have preferred their child had never been born? And while there are those that would agree with that sentiment, there are those that would not. Which comes back to the original question of
Why you or anyone else care what choice people make when dealing with the very personal issue of which children they choose to have.
As you seem to be arguing so strenuously, it is a very personal issue that unless you are directly involved with it you cannot begin to make that choice for somebody else.
I was using the original poster's language. Out of curiosity, why did you not respond to his post? You have taken the argument and twisted into torture and murder. Society has established rights to protect the individual against such things and come up with punishments for violations of those rights. The two are not at all the same.
You are correct that I would object to murdering my child (or any child). Where you logic fails is the assumption you make that every disability is equivalent to torturing your child or that the child will live their life in agony and discomfort. If it is justified to not allow a disabled child to be born, why not kill all the disabled people so they, too do not have to be tortured and live in agony?
Genetic diseases can be terrible, can cause suffering and very often can be an inconvenience to living a full life (whatever that phrase truly means). Angelina Jolie has a genetic disease that gives her a predisposition to breast and uterine cancer. Should she never had been born because of this? Stephen Hawkings, disease is much more serious, should he had not been allowed to be born? All of these soldiers coming back from war without a limb are okay, but a child that will be born without a limb is not?
Your argument falls short. Acts of the will committed by people (murder and torture) versus the child in utero who has made no malicious act whatsoever. We are all genetically disabled in some way or another, we just don't call it that. Instead, we have a family history of heart disease, or stroke, or diabetes or 100s of other things. So, if the goal is to eliminate pain and suffering through genetic manipulation, it's not going to work.
Maybe, the answer is not trying to predict who should be allowed to born or not, but for those who truly are suffering and in agony, for society to help ease their suffering. A first step would be in recognizing that all human beings, regardless of their disabilities are valued.
why you or anyone else care what choice people make when dealing with the very personal issue of which children they choose to have.
Probably because they never ask the children. Yes, it's personal, but the voices of those people who matter most are never taken into consideration.
When you figure out a way to do that, you'll win a Nobel Prize. However, you point out two things, these children are 1) people and 2) they matter, so why would denying them an existence be in their best interest?
While I am not accusing you of this, very often people who put forth this argument are either doing so because of the burden that they would see on themselves as a parent, or the burden on society (assuming they give up the child I would guess), but not on the child being a person who matters.
I wonder if Stephen Hawking had been able to have been given the choice, would he have chosen to live or not? It seems that his life, genetically flawed as it is, although very different from most people's, certainly has been fulfilling. As you, yourself stated, children with disabilities are people and they matter.
What's controversial to me is choosing to have a baby with defects.
What's controversial to me is why you or anyone else care what choice people make when dealing with the very personal issue of which children they choose to have.
X11 since it doesn't and will never use Unity.
But KDE and Gnome 3 are moving to Wayland and Mint's interface is built on top of Gnome 3.
I think Mint was a fork of Ubuntu 10 when because they were adding Unity to Ubuntu 11. I could be wrong, I switched to Mint 12 when Ubuntu 11 came out. But it would mean Mint is technically based off Ubuntu, but not the version of Ubuntu that's getting Mir.
As long as Mint continues to use the current Ubuntu repositoriies, it is still based off the current version. There is no technically about it.
Dear Ubuntu,
I have had 6 happy years using you every day. You showed me so many things - the world of Linux I never knew. I will never forget the time we've shared.
But you've you've changed. You're not the OS I once loved. I'm sorry to have to tell you this. I don't wish to hurt you. But I have to tell you the truth...
I've switched to Mint.
So what will Mint use for its display server since it is basically built on top of Ubuntu?
This is probably the most incoherent argument I've read today. There is literally no combination of sentences that forms a cogent line of reasoning.
I appreciate you're angry at the decision for some reason, but perhaps you need to calm down and rewrite what your thoughts are once it's a little easier for you to write rationally.
I'm not angry at the decision. I'm pointing out the incositancy of the Anonymous Coward in comparing Scalia to the Taliban because he disented. His actuall reason for disenting was that he felt that the SCOTUS lacked authority under the constitution to issue a ruling. The entire court agreed with him on the Prop 8 ruling, but for some reason that doesn't lead one to be accused of being a Taliban.
The AC hid his identity from slashdot and compared anybody who disagreed with the findings to the Taliban. Personally, I find that offensive. Maybe that is what you mistook for anger.
Civil Union is a 20th century term. I challenge you to find any reference to such in the history books prior to the 20th century. It's always been called marriage and religion has no claim on the word. Religion is pretty much irrelevant to marriage here in the US. You have a Wedding in church. The state is the one who issues your marriage license. One is optional. The other is not.
Of course it is a 20th century term. But you are wrong on marriage and religion. While it is true that marriage existed long before religion, since the existence of the Holy Roman Empire. Europe, Africa and the western part of Asia all had the same definition, because there was not a difference between church and state, so for 1,000 year marriage has been a religous concept. Don't believe me, then read about Henry the VIII. If marriage was just a civil thing, Thomas Moore would not have lost his head.
Whether religion is irrelevant or not to marriage in the US is besides the point. Freedom of Religion is a constitutionally protected right and infringing on that right is the same as infringing on any other right. If if one accepts that religion is irrelevant today, though, our modern society has religous concepts embeded in it, including marriage (some states have Holy Matrimony on their marriage licenses). Why can't you marry your first cousin? It's against the law. Long before they knew anything about genetics, first cousins were considered by the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire to be one's brother or sister. As such, marrying your first cousin was the same as committing incest. The fact that such relationships often resulted in birth defects were proof from their god that it was wrong and punishable. In the age of enlightenment into moderntimes, we codified that religious practice into our secular laws and forbid the practice. That doesn't change it's religious roots, though.
As for state issued marriage licenses, again check your history books. While marriage licenses began in the middle ages they were issued by the Churches. These often took the form of banns. Much later 18th century, civil govenrmetns started to issue them, mainly for property rights (Prior to the use of marriage license, it was the word of the couple that was relied upon. Of course, if the couple split up, it became his word versus her word.)
So, to make a long story short, yes, Civil Union is a modern term. A modern term is needed to drop all of the baggage associated with the old term. Just like we all drive cars instead of horseless carriages, modern times require modern terminology.
As for a church wedding and state marriage license, that is only partially true. If you immigrate from a country that church weddings (ie Catholic Church) are the norm, you will not have a marriage license. You will have a certificate from the church itself. That marriage is 100% legal in the US. If you were married in Hawaii or Alaska prior to them becoming a state, you are also 100% legally married. Nine states recognize common law marriage where no marriage license is required and in those states you can be married in a church and still not have a marriage license.
But I do agree that a church wedding is a legal marriage, not because the church says it is but because the government says it is.
I think people are too ready to make the concession of handing the word "marriage" over to the sectarians when the root of the establishment of marriage is civil and not religious. I personally don't think secular people should make concessions to the sectarians at all let alone over who you love or to whom you choose to make a legal contract with.
Concessions to the church on the grounds of redefinition of the word marriage smacks of Jim Crow to me. If people want to have non sanctioned religious union ceremonies, they are more than welcome to that already, but marriage is now, has been, and always should be the milieu of the the state.
If we're going to go down that road, it really seems like the church should be making the concessions to the state and not the other way around. I've never heard anyone argue for "sectarian unions" so why should civil liberties be the ones to cede the word when the church has inappropriately co-opted the word. As always, you do have some good points though, thank you.
That is only partially true. While in the abstract, marriage existed long before organized religions, by the middle ages, in Western Europe, the Church and State were one under the Holy Roman Empire. Much our modern laws and concepts come from that period and marriage is no different. So in the West and every country that was settled by Europeans or the Catholic Church, marriage has been handed down in one very particular way, at least for the past 1000 years. So, yes, marriage existed before then, but from the end of the dark ages until recently, it has been viewed by most of society, even atheist countries, one way.
The religious definition of marriage, at least in the West has pretty much been unchanged in that entire period. What has changed is the non-religious notion, so I do not see why you would hold the position that churches should change their definition.
As for Civil Unions, look at what the argument is, from the government perspective (thus leaving out the emotional arguments). Should gay couples have the same civil rights as heterosexual couples? The answer is yes. So initially we are talking about something civil. Now, the traditionalists will say that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and the progressives will say it is a union between any two people. So marriage is about a union.
Thus, we have a government recognition of certain rights bestowed upon two people when they enter into a Civil Union. It does not matter what their gender, race or creed. The government is blind to those things. The government is also free to recognize a religious ceremony (ie marriage) as a legal form of civil union (just as they recognize them as a legal form of marriage now) or they can leave them as a religious ceremony and people will need to go to the courthouse to garner the rights estabilished in through a civil union and then go to a church if they want a religious ceremony (many countries do this now).
Forcing religions to abide by a new definition of a term they have used consistently for 1000 years simply won't work. First and foremost, the government has no power to force religions to recognize any marriages. If married Catholics have certain "rights" in the Catholic Church, the government cannot force those rights be granted to married Baptists? Nor can the government force churches to accept members who don't follow their teachings.
The gay community understands this. Today's rulings and all of the same sex marriage rulings have zero impact on churches. Those that are in favor of gay marriage already perform those ceremonies, even in states that don't recognize same sex marriages. Those that are opposed don't. By forcing the change in the definition of the word marriage only serves to antagonize the churches and push them further away. Polls show that many church goers are in favor of civil unions but not in changing the definition of marriage. If the concern is really about equal acces under the law (civil rights), then
Just that if someone wants to protect the term "marriage" from gays by turning the government backed marriages into civil unions and only allowing churches to do "marriages", they will be suprised that it wont prevent gays from getting married.
The issue isn't about protecting the term "marriage" from gays. The actual issue is about equal protection under the law. That is a civil rights issue. Whether one needs to change the definition of marriage to achieve that or to use a different term is secondary.
The churches do have every right to defend their definition of marriage. While marriage existed long before the church, it was the marriage of church and state (no pun intended) through the Holy Roman Empire (ie. the catholic church) the gave midevil Europe its widespread understanding of marriage that has been spread everywhere that the european colonies spread, including the US. So, while, marriage existed prior to christianity, our modern notion of marriage, like it or not, has its roots in the christian concept of marriage (some states in the US even have Holy Matrimony on their marriage licenses!).
Whether people want to admit it or not, religion heavily influenced the development of the US and most western countries. Even if that influence has weakened in recent years, the roots of religion permeate just about everything in our modern society. As such, it makes more sense to drop the baggage associated with the word marriage and use the modern term Civil Union. For one, it better describes the legal arrangement and leaves no doubt that it is something recognized by the civil authorities.
But, the moment the discussion moves from civil rights and equality under the law and changes to things like redefining the word marriage, well, then we are just as guilty as the churches who strive to hold on to their position. Rights should be granted to everybody, but nobody should be able to force their definition on another group, religious or otherwise.
A thousand times NO. The word "Marriage" is NOT owned by any religious group. It was first and foremost a civil term. It was incorporated into a religious ceremony until the 1500's in Christian circles. Marriage was known in the bible but largely considered a private matter that didn't involve the church. Why should a civil union surrender to the demands of a religion that is usurping the word Marriage?
If you want to use the argument that marriage is a civil issue that has been corrupted by religion, then you would find that even in ancient primitive societies what would be recognized as marriage was always between men and woman (sometimes one of each, sometimes one man with multiple women). So, to use that argument to bolster an argument for same sex marriage and damn the religious folk, would actually be more in line with what the religious folk are saying, whether christian or not.
That is why it simply makes more sense to throw out marriage all together as it has too much baggage and define a modern concept to fit what we mean in the 21st century. Most of the world has seemed to gone with the term Civil Union to describe the recognition by the civil authorities of the legal relationship between two people. Of course, the US is free to do what they want and most likely won't follow what the rest of the world does, but since the US is late to the game and the other countries have already decided how to deal with the issue, maybe we could just learn from their example.
Because until gay people can be married their relationship will always be second class. Less than the relationship of a straight couple. That was the point of this ruling, in fact.
If this is about civil rights, as it is purported to be, it is about individuals, not about their relationship. Anybody who needs a piece of paper from the government to validate their relationship with another human being is why their relationship is second class, not because of the definition of some word.
Marriage has about as much to do with christianity as toilet paper does to taking a shit. People were shitting long before it's invent and won't stop when it goes out of style.
If you really want to make concessions we should abolish all marriages and get the church out of the institution entirely.
While the first paragraph you make has a lot of wisdom, your last sentence does not. Why does anything a church do or say about church ceremonies bother you? Church marriages only bestow legal rights because the government says they do. It is the government that should get out of the marriage business since it is so cluttered with other baggage and enter the civil union business because it better describes the legal situation of what is happening from the government's position. Dropping the language of marriage, means the government can do what it likes with civil unions. As for church marriages, there are two choices either they can remain a purely religious ceremony but you still need a government sanctioned civil union for the legal benefits formerly known as marriage or the government is free to recognize church marriages as an acceptable form of civil unions, just like they recognize them now as a legal form of marriage.
You will find examples of both solutions in various countries throughout the world. And if people had left out their own personal agendas and focused on the civil rights issues, the US would probably have already chosen one of those two solutions instead of trying to fight a losing battle over what the definition of the word marriage is.
If you allow churches to use "marriage" as purely ceremonial term, what prevents some church wedding gays? :)
There are churches that currently marry two people of the same sex, so I'm not sure of your point.
Marriage gives you certain benefits - taxes, insurance rates, access rights, etc - that no other 'grouping' does.
You're never going to get government out of all of the things that marriage gives benefits to.
Rights are given by the government. If marriage gives you extra rights, then the government says what those are.
Actually, for the fast majority of people, the closer the two people's income is, the less tax benefit there is for married couples and for many, marriage is a tax penalty. Insurance rates? well that might be in your state, but for auto insurance it applies to males under age 26, after that its about the same. Homeowners is no different, same with life insurance. Spouses can get health insurance through some employers, but that is quickly changing, at least the employer subsidizing it. By access rights, I assume you mean visitation rights in a hospital, you can have that if you are listed as the medical decision maker (different terms in different states). Access rights for children require a biological connection or a court order, so that is no different.
Almost everything "granted" by the government related to marriage is available without marriage. The only thing not possible and something the government can't grant in the first place is social acceptance. Same sex couples now can have a legal document saying that their relationship is real. That doesn't mean, however, that others will accept it. Just like after the civil rights laws in the 60s were passed, didn't mean that people suddenly embraced our African American brethren.
Acceptance of same sex couples will have occurred with or without this ruling and any couples requiring this ruling to validate their relationship have deeper issues. Neither of those are something the government can fix.
I believe there is more to it than that.
I for one want the government out of marriage. Let the churches deal with "marriage"
Now having said that. If 2 gay people want to live together and have the same rights that current married couples get, I dont see why that should not be allowed. I also think that if 2 people simply live together they should get the same rights, "love" should never be the deciding factor when it comes to giving tax breaks to people or even worse tax money to people.
The real question is why do we have these archaic laws anymore? They were created when the husband worked and the woman stayed home and raised the kids. That is not the reality for most people anymore. Here is a simple solution - 1) change the tax code so people are taxed on what they are earned, period. 2) you want to make sure your "partner" gets your goods upon your death, then either hold property jointly or have a will. 3) you want your "partner" to be able to make medical decisions for you and visit you in the hospital, then give them medical power of attorney. 4) you want your "partner" to make legal decisions for you, then give them durable power of attorney."
With the exception of changing tax code and health insurance laws (which the affordable health care act is already doing), that pretty much covers all of the rights bestowed by marriage.
You should no more be able to deny rights to people because of their sexuality than you should be able to deny the right of blacks to vote and hold property.
That Scalia dissented means he's not looking at the right parts of the Constitution but is just being selective.
Believing one group should be able to dictate the rights of another group makes you no better than the Taliban.
Pretty strong words comparing people who were opposed to changing the definition of the word marriage to being members of the Taliban. I guess you would hold that all of those European and South American governments that solved this issue by getting out of the marriage business and only having the government involved with Civil Unions are also no better than the Taliban?
As for Scalia, here is what he said: "We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America."
So, for the DOMA case, by your rules, he is like the Taliban. For the Prop 8 case, the entire court said they didn't have jurisdiction, so I guess, again, by your rules, the entire SCOTUS is like the Taliban. Oh, wait, they are only like the Taliban if you disagree with their decision -- on prop 8 they are freedom fighters.
It is amazing that these experiments continue to confirm current theories. I was hoping they would find some strange thing that didn't fit, so we could understand why current theories don't explain everything. Maybe next time.
It could just be that, particularly when dealing with particle physics, one can only find what one is looking for. Or put differently, you are unlikely to discover something that the theories don't predict, because all of the equipment and tests have been designed to confirm what the theories predict. Of course that is how the scientific method is supposed to work. You come up with a hypothesis, you devise and experiment to test that hypothesis, you repeat it numerous times to confirm the results.
In short, these experiments are designed to confirm existing theories. Now that we know that four quark particles exist, that part is no longer theoretical and new theories can be built on that fact.