On the other hand, your argument stinks of the logical fallacy called "false continuum": "The idea that because there is no definitive demarcation line between two extremes, that the distinction between the extremes is not real or meaningful".
Well, both sides are claiming superior "knowledge" while actually relying solely upon faith, so I don't think the false continuum applies. The definitive demarcation is belief in "god" vs belief in "science", is it not?
No they're not. I noticed in your first reply to me that you asked me if I could disprove God? I can't, and the majority of atheists (at least the ones I've met in many countries) adopt a far more nuanced position. I've not met a single atheist who asserted that there are no gods. I don't doubt that some exist, as some people are atheists for irrational and emotional reasons, but it's very simple to see that this completely shifts the burden of proof away from the believers. Trying to disprove a malleable figure like God is like nailing jelly to a wall.
Consider two populations:
1) Believers who assert 100% certainty in the existence of God 2) Non-believers who assert 100% certainty in the non-existence of God
Based on American demographics, I'd expect group one to be larger both in raw numbers and as a percentage of its parent group. Would you disagree?
If we accept that the extremes at either end are disproportionate then you do appear to have a continuum fallacy in the making. Your demarcation also presents the false dichotomy that science and belief are opposing positions.
The reason why it shouldn't be belief versus science is that the two are not mutually exclusive in terms of society and individuals. Yes, science relies on materialism, but people are perfectly capable of holding religious beliefs while at the same time grasping and accepting important scientific concepts. It's true that increased education appears to correlate with reduced religious belief, but I don't see that as making believers out to be incompetent or dumb. It does mean though that attempts to scientifically disprove religious claims are like nailing jelly to a wall. The Exodus, as described in the Bible, almost certainly did happen on that scale. One could show a lack of archaeological evidence, and the oddity of the Egyptians not thinking to record an event that would have seen their population and livestock absolutely decimated, and their god-like ruler killed. A believer could argue that the lack of archaeological evidence for a Hebrew exodus, on the scale described in the Pentateuch, can be explained by God sending Azrael to go hoover-up the detritus left by the itinerants, and on his way back to Heaven had him stop by Egypt to remove all records (The Egyptians were noted record keepers) to a large chunk of their population being killed or wandering off. If this believer were teaching archaeology or history to a class then I'd say they would indeed be incompetent if they provided such an esoteric and poorly evidenced theory.
A better demarcation would be "belief versus non-belief". We need a clear understanding of where the burden of proof lies, and it's certainly not with people who waste their lives praising a being that is almost certainly a fiction.
A dropped connection is clear evidence of attempts to circumvent DRM. The right to play the movie will be remotely revoked, but users will be invited to purchase a replacement at 20% off the recommended retail price. The CEO of Ubisoft will personally shit in to an envelope and post it to anyone purchasing Ubisoft movies.
You are supposed to trust the police, but then one of them treats you like shit. Then you end up not trusting any of them.
It is easy to criticize people for not trusting the media, but who hasn't been intentionally lied to by the media? The blame belongs on a lot of people here. Don't just blame the birthers.
It's not just about trust. It's a failure of critical and rational thinking, and people opting for news sources that'll tell them what they want to hear. Plenty of these wingnuts trust Fox News because the channel will give them exactly what they want to see. The Internet has blurred the lines somewhat, with people pointing to blogs and any random site as being authoritative - simply because it happens to agree with their own beliefs.
It's a country in which the governor of Texas has repeatedly appealed to citizens to telepathically urge an omnipotent invisible deity to change the weather for the state. To borrow an analogy from Sam Harris, would Perry's appeal for divine intervention be any more insane if he asked that people communicate with God by talking in to a hairdryer? It shouldn't really be any more insane. The elephant in the room here is the idea that any kind of communication is possible with some invisible all-powerful being, yet people who believe they can talk to God would almost certainly consider Perry to be mad if he added the hairdryer to his request.
So long as it's culturally acceptable to proudly hold irrational beliefs it's difficult to imagine how people like the birthers really can be sidelined and ignored? Birthers are just one symptom. We have the anti-vaxxers, 9/11 truthers and God knows how many other nutjobs who receive far too much consideration and acceptance. There's a real need here to school people in rational and critical thinking. That doesn't mean being anti-religious, but certainly one would hope that with critical thinking people would realise that such beliefs are best kept as a personal thing in much the same way that a man's fondness for dressing up as a schoolgirl and getting his arse paddled is certainly harmless fun, but probably not something he can demand respect for in the public square.
Well one intellectual argument would be that their recommendation of abstinence is more effective than condoms. Now if you want to leave the intellectual realm and be more practical you certainly can argue that abstinence won't be popular, and I would agree so, but then again condoms don't seem very popular in regions plagued by AIDS either. Both abstinence and condoms are rejected by many in these regions of the world. Practicality aside, abstinence remains an intellectually more effective solution..
All of you've done here is to assert that abstinence is the intellectually more effective solution if one ignores the obvious practical issues in implementing it. You didn't explain how abstinence being a more effective option would justify the lies Catholics have told about condoms? It would seem more effective to apply both strategies, as people who fail at abstinence can at least get some measure of protection via condoms.
The Pope is a murderous bastard, and all Catholics are complicit in his dogma-driven death-wish for Africans.
Yes you should be able to inherit *active* copyrights or unpublished works owned by your father. In the case of the latter, if copyright has expired then just alter the works sufficiently to create a work that would in itself qualify for copyright protection. This is how people can hold a copyright on a reproduction of The Art of War.
If an opera only becomes popular after death, or if a song only becomes popular when it's out of copyright protection then that's just hard luck or poor planning. The onus is on the copyright owner to use the time given to exploit their rights. Seriously, that's 70 years after the death of the author for the opera itself, and 50 years after death for any audio recordings made (under UK law).
Copyright and property ownership laws deal with very different things and are granted for drastically different reasons. By conflating them you're imagining an odd situation in which a one size fits all solution can be applied. You don't understand anything about the time when copyright actually exists.
Well, if I own a house... and die... my family will own it until the universe gets cold or they sell it. No one asks if it is fair that they own it still 100 years after I'm dead.
AC had some good points. The key thing is that ownership of property is not governed by the same laws as copyright protected works; the analogy is inherently useless. One may as well claim that drivers licences can't be passed on to the next generation, so wealth too should expire on death.
Copyright is the state granting the owner of a work exclusive publishing rights for a set period of time, with some exceptions to allow others to reproduce parts of the work under specific circumstances. With each extension there must be clear justification for this, and in return we should be receiving additional rights. For example, in return longer copyright periods could only be granted to products that are not protected by DRM. Let the content producers choose the package that suits them, j - just don't let them have everything their own way.
Copyright protections are already way longer than they should have ever been. Content producers shouldn't be able to churn out a load of stuff that'll continue to support them in retirement. Licence the content and invest the proceeds in a pension.
Yeah. There are two reasons to respect copyright law:
1) Laws and the penalties associated with breaking them. 2) Morality, either respecting the right or content owners or the principle of rule of law.
These ever extending periods, and obstruction of legal rights through DRM and laws that prevent the removal of DRM for backup or shifting to a new media format, makes increasingly difficult to justify abstaining from piracy out of respect for content owners. As it stands I have to hit torrents if I want to back-up some of my DVDs that have protection I can't bypass. That's not so I can run off copies for friends and family - it's just for making a sodding backup or shifting the format so I can bring my movies on a drive when I travel on business.
I added Matthew 4:7 as this is the verse most likely to be referenced by people using this particular get out of debate free card. Kind of runs contrary the later claim by Jesus that if any two believers agree to something then God will make it happen. We should be thankful that such power doesn't exist; if it did then the universe would have by now been destroyed many times over by some nutjob or a carelessly phrased prayer.
The introduction of water was a good idea. Some kind of barrier to contact between members of a species is a pretty good trigger for macroevolution. It's like languages. Everyone in a town speaks the same language, and over hundreds of years the language may change, but all residents of the town will understand it. Build a wall through the town so that contact between the two halves is impossible, and leave them that way for a few hundred years. Knock the wall down and then see how easily they communicate? Probably not very well, and it'd be worse if they're left for thousands or tens of thousands of years.
That's pretty much it in a nutshell. It's really only religiously motivated people who accept microevolution on the understanding that some kind of magical barrier preserves the inviolable nature of species. Presumably Jesus tosses the shield around when he's not busy keeping electrons in orbit.
Is reusing the same password (as in the case of HBGary) considered negligent?
One would hope so. In Europe anyway the data registrars could get pretty snarky if a data controller were to negligent with personal data. Compliance does vary though. My bank does a decent job, while food delivery places tend to be pretty piss-poor. If you have a phone number of someone and a name, and you'd like to find their address, use the local pizza places. Assuming that person orders pizza, chances are if you give the name and number of that personal, the guy on the phone will give you the address. Been pretty rare to find someone here who won't tell me my address, and I don't even to get sneaky with it.
Doesn't that kind of require at least three seemingly unfounded assumptions?
1) The assumption that purchasing details were stolen 2) Kroger Co. is lying about what was disclosed (otherwise why should we castigate them for being unable to announce something before it was known) 3) It'll be less damaging to have to make two separate announcements, thus prolonging the media story, than a single announcement covering all of what they currently know
You'd be dismayed at how often people actually believe that the guy behind the counter or on the end of a tech support line is the best target for a discussion about corporate policies and general unhappiness with capitalism and assorted laws of physics. The latter came up more than once in tech support. I declined to alter the universe at a fundamental level.
You're doing it wrong if Facebook is by default making your email address completely public, or you're not the kind of person to worry too much anyway about this kind of thing. Why not have a nice cup of tea and wait for the next story to pop out?
(which admittedly they had historical ties to and substantial movement wanted back)
Which in the context of the original version seems more an afterthought than an acknowledgement that the wishes and activities of the zionist groups were pretty damned relevant at the time. Had Zionist movements already been trying to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine long before the Balfour Declaration?
So yes, there was a substantial movement amongst the Jewish people that wanted the state of Israel there. But the blame for actually creating a country surrounded by enemies rests primarily with those that did it, not those that just wanted it.
Yes, but I get the impression that you're overstating British involvement while understating the roles of other actors. The British government made an absolutely stupid decision to support an independent Jewish state in Palestine. As well as the British government there were groups who both wanted Israel and had the ability to influence the decisions. Hell, anyone who supported the formation of Israel is responsible, even if that support was little more than moral in nature. How many people support the death penalty without ever having pulled the lever? It's one guy on the scaffold, and a lot of people stood behind him. There's also the risk in blaming the colonial masters that it hinders serious attempts to deal with the here and now. Bad shit was done back then, and is still being done now. I've no love for either side in the argument, and if I had a button that would instantly make certain regions vanish from this planet I couldn't say that I wouldn't use it. In some places the religious and tribal bullshit is so deeply ingrained that it's difficult to imagine how to bridge the gaps.
I see some similarities between Northern Ireland and Israel. It's too late to uproot the people now, and to do so would appear to be blaming the current generation for decisions mad by earlier generations. The Israelis have got to deal with their settlers and the more rabid elements of zionism. They have to be held seriously accountable and living in a neighbourhood of butthurt nutters doesn't justify everything they do. In turn the Palestinians have to accept that in reality their neighbours don't give a shit about them. They're a convenient excuse and a lightning rod for arab butthurt, and they'd be better served by a pragmatic approach to the situation. The only way Israel is going away is if Israeli arabs manage to outbreed jews (which isn't exactly a fast process) or in a war that's likely to leave the victors with little more than a big smoking crater and far fewer mouths to feed. If they don't manage to reach some kind of understanding then I hope that they mutually annihilate one another as soon as possible. Better now with nukes than with whatever weapons we'll have in 20 years time.
There are certain parts of the world that could be sucked in to the bowels of the earth with nothing of value being lost save some interesting lamb dishes.
Well, yeah, but context comes in to it. Slavery is illegal and considered immoral in most modern countries, yet George Washington had slaves. Washington becomes a bad guy, at least in this regard and by current standards. Discussion of specific examples is probably more useful than a vague notion. "Many" is a weasel word. It's purpose here is to indicate a large quantity of something that hasn't even been defined, but all we need to know is that it's a lot of something that's really bad.
You risk giving the impression that the Allies suggested Palestine, to which the Jews responded "Wow, we never even considered that as a location!!!" Other locations were considered, but given Jewish history it seemed almost inevitable that Palestine would be the location. I don't think that there was a lot of enthusiasm anyway for hosting this new home, but the lucky Palestinians got volunteered. The Torah accounts are pretty amusing. Not so much a case of being given land by God, more being told by God to go kick the shit out of those people so the Jews could take their their land. A bit me giving you a $10000 for your birthday, and then handing you a gun and mask, and pointing you in the direction of the nearest bank.
CEOs are beholden to shareholders and not their company's employees or customers.
I only have a problem with that in cases where a company has a de facto monopoly. This would be very likely in privatised public transport and utilities companies. In those cases the companies, if privatised, should be done so with a very clear contract and regulation to prevent them from milking their customers. In many of those cases though, where it's kind of impossible to have true competition, I think that privatisation is more about short-term fund raising and providing a nice windfall for friends of the party.
I've no problem with Joe Blow Sandwich Company replacing meat in their sandwiches with stuff that's legally meat but pretty crap. The market decides on the level of quality it wants - with regulation ensuring that basic safety and ethical minimum standards are met. Joe Blow is prevented by law from staffing its sandwich mills with children. Again though that's where the public has to decide what it wants? Are we happy to buy stuff from a company that treats its employees like shit, and sends all of its workforce overseas, simply because the products are nice or cheap?
If the CEO is responsible primarily to shareholders, it doesn't mean that Joe can make his shareholders oodles of money by replacing ham with "I can't believe it's not ham". I agree though that a move to short-termism is bad, in both economics and politics.
They really should team-up. McBride's foray in to profit through litigation was pretty successful, apart from the destruction of SCO and his having to carry a handgun.
Australia could have added ED to their long list of sites being blocked to protect the sensibilities of their citizens. They instead chose to contact a US based site to warn/threaten them. Australia didn't have to call for extradition for their intended results to be made quite clear. It's not enough to for Australia to block this content; they want someone in a different country to abide by Australian law. How is this not a case of Australia applying its laws outside of its borders?
Fine if both countries have equivalent laws, in which case the Australians could ask the U.S. to prosecute their own laws. In this case though it'd be like Germany asking that a random Spanish guy take down a holocaust denial site that he never specifically intended to be accessed within German borders. It would be different if our Spanish friend was running a business selling his junk to Germans, in which case he either needs to abide by German law, or stop specifically targeting German users. Even then it's kind of shaky. It'd seem more sensible to prosecute Germans who break the law by buying his stuff.
What does a hooker do to earn $5000 per hour? Make cheese sandwiches during sex, but with gold instead of cheese? For that price it'd have to at least include a journey in to space.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, both sides are claiming superior "knowledge" while actually relying solely upon faith, so I don't think the false continuum applies. The definitive demarcation is belief in "god" vs belief in "science", is it not?
No they're not. I noticed in your first reply to me that you asked me if I could disprove God? I can't, and the majority of atheists (at least the ones I've met in many countries) adopt a far more nuanced position. I've not met a single atheist who asserted that there are no gods. I don't doubt that some exist, as some people are atheists for irrational and emotional reasons, but it's very simple to see that this completely shifts the burden of proof away from the believers. Trying to disprove a malleable figure like God is like nailing jelly to a wall.
Consider two populations:
1) Believers who assert 100% certainty in the existence of God
2) Non-believers who assert 100% certainty in the non-existence of God
Based on American demographics, I'd expect group one to be larger both in raw numbers and as a percentage of its parent group. Would you disagree?
If we accept that the extremes at either end are disproportionate then you do appear to have a continuum fallacy in the making. Your demarcation also presents the false dichotomy that science and belief are opposing positions.
The reason why it shouldn't be belief versus science is that the two are not mutually exclusive in terms of society and individuals. Yes, science relies on materialism, but people are perfectly capable of holding religious beliefs while at the same time grasping and accepting important scientific concepts. It's true that increased education appears to correlate with reduced religious belief, but I don't see that as making believers out to be incompetent or dumb. It does mean though that attempts to scientifically disprove religious claims are like nailing jelly to a wall. The Exodus, as described in the Bible, almost certainly did happen on that scale. One could show a lack of archaeological evidence, and the oddity of the Egyptians not thinking to record an event that would have seen their population and livestock absolutely decimated, and their god-like ruler killed. A believer could argue that the lack of archaeological evidence for a Hebrew exodus, on the scale described in the Pentateuch, can be explained by God sending Azrael to go hoover-up the detritus left by the itinerants, and on his way back to Heaven had him stop by Egypt to remove all records (The Egyptians were noted record keepers) to a large chunk of their population being killed or wandering off. If this believer were teaching archaeology or history to a class then I'd say they would indeed be incompetent if they provided such an esoteric and poorly evidenced theory.
A better demarcation would be "belief versus non-belief". We need a clear understanding of where the burden of proof lies, and it's certainly not with people who waste their lives praising a being that is almost certainly a fiction.
A dropped connection is clear evidence of attempts to circumvent DRM. The right to play the movie will be remotely revoked, but users will be invited to purchase a replacement at 20% off the recommended retail price. The CEO of Ubisoft will personally shit in to an envelope and post it to anyone purchasing Ubisoft movies.
You are supposed to trust the police, but then one of them treats you like shit. Then you end up not trusting any of them.
It is easy to criticize people for not trusting the media, but who hasn't been intentionally lied to by the media? The blame belongs on a lot of people here. Don't just blame the birthers.
It's not just about trust. It's a failure of critical and rational thinking, and people opting for news sources that'll tell them what they want to hear. Plenty of these wingnuts trust Fox News because the channel will give them exactly what they want to see. The Internet has blurred the lines somewhat, with people pointing to blogs and any random site as being authoritative - simply because it happens to agree with their own beliefs.
It's a country in which the governor of Texas has repeatedly appealed to citizens to telepathically urge an omnipotent invisible deity to change the weather for the state. To borrow an analogy from Sam Harris, would Perry's appeal for divine intervention be any more insane if he asked that people communicate with God by talking in to a hairdryer? It shouldn't really be any more insane. The elephant in the room here is the idea that any kind of communication is possible with some invisible all-powerful being, yet people who believe they can talk to God would almost certainly consider Perry to be mad if he added the hairdryer to his request.
So long as it's culturally acceptable to proudly hold irrational beliefs it's difficult to imagine how people like the birthers really can be sidelined and ignored? Birthers are just one symptom. We have the anti-vaxxers, 9/11 truthers and God knows how many other nutjobs who receive far too much consideration and acceptance. There's a real need here to school people in rational and critical thinking. That doesn't mean being anti-religious, but certainly one would hope that with critical thinking people would realise that such beliefs are best kept as a personal thing in much the same way that a man's fondness for dressing up as a schoolgirl and getting his arse paddled is certainly harmless fun, but probably not something he can demand respect for in the public square.
Good stuff! Want a third attempt at answering the question?
Well one intellectual argument would be that their recommendation of abstinence is more effective than condoms. Now if you want to leave the intellectual realm and be more practical you certainly can argue that abstinence won't be popular, and I would agree so, but then again condoms don't seem very popular in regions plagued by AIDS either. Both abstinence and condoms are rejected by many in these regions of the world. Practicality aside, abstinence remains an intellectually more effective solution..
All of you've done here is to assert that abstinence is the intellectually more effective solution if one ignores the obvious practical issues in implementing it. You didn't explain how abstinence being a more effective option would justify the lies Catholics have told about condoms? It would seem more effective to apply both strategies, as people who fail at abstinence can at least get some measure of protection via condoms.
The Pope is a murderous bastard, and all Catholics are complicit in his dogma-driven death-wish for Africans.
Yes you should be able to inherit *active* copyrights or unpublished works owned by your father. In the case of the latter, if copyright has expired then just alter the works sufficiently to create a work that would in itself qualify for copyright protection. This is how people can hold a copyright on a reproduction of The Art of War.
If an opera only becomes popular after death, or if a song only becomes popular when it's out of copyright protection then that's just hard luck or poor planning. The onus is on the copyright owner to use the time given to exploit their rights. Seriously, that's 70 years after the death of the author for the opera itself, and 50 years after death for any audio recordings made (under UK law).
Copyright and property ownership laws deal with very different things and are granted for drastically different reasons. By conflating them you're imagining an odd situation in which a one size fits all solution can be applied. You don't understand anything about the time when copyright actually exists.
Well, if I own a house ... and die ... my family will own it until the universe gets cold or they sell it. No one asks if it is fair that they own it still 100 years after I'm dead.
AC had some good points. The key thing is that ownership of property is not governed by the same laws as copyright protected works; the analogy is inherently useless. One may as well claim that drivers licences can't be passed on to the next generation, so wealth too should expire on death.
Copyright is the state granting the owner of a work exclusive publishing rights for a set period of time, with some exceptions to allow others to reproduce parts of the work under specific circumstances. With each extension there must be clear justification for this, and in return we should be receiving additional rights. For example, in return longer copyright periods could only be granted to products that are not protected by DRM. Let the content producers choose the package that suits them, j - just don't let them have everything their own way.
Copyright protections are already way longer than they should have ever been. Content producers shouldn't be able to churn out a load of stuff that'll continue to support them in retirement. Licence the content and invest the proceeds in a pension.
Yeah. There are two reasons to respect copyright law:
1) Laws and the penalties associated with breaking them.
2) Morality, either respecting the right or content owners or the principle of rule of law.
These ever extending periods, and obstruction of legal rights through DRM and laws that prevent the removal of DRM for backup or shifting to a new media format, makes increasingly difficult to justify abstaining from piracy out of respect for content owners. As it stands I have to hit torrents if I want to back-up some of my DVDs that have protection I can't bypass. That's not so I can run off copies for friends and family - it's just for making a sodding backup or shifting the format so I can bring my movies on a drive when I travel on business.
It's a recurring escape hatch tactic for followers of the supernatural.
See these examples of people using it to explain why scientific testing of prayer is impossible:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=can+science+test+prayer+matthew+4%3A7
I added Matthew 4:7 as this is the verse most likely to be referenced by people using this particular get out of debate free card. Kind of runs contrary the later claim by Jesus that if any two believers agree to something then God will make it happen. We should be thankful that such power doesn't exist; if it did then the universe would have by now been destroyed many times over by some nutjob or a carelessly phrased prayer.
The introduction of water was a good idea. Some kind of barrier to contact between members of a species is a pretty good trigger for macroevolution. It's like languages. Everyone in a town speaks the same language, and over hundreds of years the language may change, but all residents of the town will understand it. Build a wall through the town so that contact between the two halves is impossible, and leave them that way for a few hundred years. Knock the wall down and then see how easily they communicate? Probably not very well, and it'd be worse if they're left for thousands or tens of thousands of years.
That's pretty much it in a nutshell. It's really only religiously motivated people who accept microevolution on the understanding that some kind of magical barrier preserves the inviolable nature of species. Presumably Jesus tosses the shield around when he's not busy keeping electrons in orbit.
So the Jewish conspiracy of reptile overlords in charge of Kroger can send out adverts that will in turn give them enough revenue to fund their NWO?
English, motherfucker, I don't speak it.
*Been pretty rare to find someone on a pizza line here who won't tell me my address, and I don't even to get sneaky in my questioning.*
Is reusing the same password (as in the case of HBGary) considered negligent?
One would hope so. In Europe anyway the data registrars could get pretty snarky if a data controller were to negligent with personal data. Compliance does vary though. My bank does a decent job, while food delivery places tend to be pretty piss-poor. If you have a phone number of someone and a name, and you'd like to find their address, use the local pizza places. Assuming that person orders pizza, chances are if you give the name and number of that personal, the guy on the phone will give you the address. Been pretty rare to find someone here who won't tell me my address, and I don't even to get sneaky with it.
Doesn't that kind of require at least three seemingly unfounded assumptions?
1) The assumption that purchasing details were stolen
2) Kroger Co. is lying about what was disclosed (otherwise why should we castigate them for being unable to announce something before it was known)
3) It'll be less damaging to have to make two separate announcements, thus prolonging the media story, than a single announcement covering all of what they currently know
You'd be dismayed at how often people actually believe that the guy behind the counter or on the end of a tech support line is the best target for a discussion about corporate policies and general unhappiness with capitalism and assorted laws of physics. The latter came up more than once in tech support. I declined to alter the universe at a fundamental level.
You're doing it wrong if Facebook is by default making your email address completely public, or you're not the kind of person to worry too much anyway about this kind of thing. Why not have a nice cup of tea and wait for the next story to pop out?
(which admittedly they had historical ties to and substantial movement wanted back)
Which in the context of the original version seems more an afterthought than an acknowledgement that the wishes and activities of the zionist groups were pretty damned relevant at the time. Had Zionist movements already been trying to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine long before the Balfour Declaration?
So yes, there was a substantial movement amongst the Jewish people that wanted the state of Israel there. But the blame for actually creating a country surrounded by enemies rests primarily with those that did it, not those that just wanted it.
Yes, but I get the impression that you're overstating British involvement while understating the roles of other actors. The British government made an absolutely stupid decision to support an independent Jewish state in Palestine. As well as the British government there were groups who both wanted Israel and had the ability to influence the decisions. Hell, anyone who supported the formation of Israel is responsible, even if that support was little more than moral in nature. How many people support the death penalty without ever having pulled the lever? It's one guy on the scaffold, and a lot of people stood behind him. There's also the risk in blaming the colonial masters that it hinders serious attempts to deal with the here and now. Bad shit was done back then, and is still being done now. I've no love for either side in the argument, and if I had a button that would instantly make certain regions vanish from this planet I couldn't say that I wouldn't use it. In some places the religious and tribal bullshit is so deeply ingrained that it's difficult to imagine how to bridge the gaps.
I see some similarities between Northern Ireland and Israel. It's too late to uproot the people now, and to do so would appear to be blaming the current generation for decisions mad by earlier generations. The Israelis have got to deal with their settlers and the more rabid elements of zionism. They have to be held seriously accountable and living in a neighbourhood of butthurt nutters doesn't justify everything they do. In turn the Palestinians have to accept that in reality their neighbours don't give a shit about them. They're a convenient excuse and a lightning rod for arab butthurt, and they'd be better served by a pragmatic approach to the situation. The only way Israel is going away is if Israeli arabs manage to outbreed jews (which isn't exactly a fast process) or in a war that's likely to leave the victors with little more than a big smoking crater and far fewer mouths to feed. If they don't manage to reach some kind of understanding then I hope that they mutually annihilate one another as soon as possible. Better now with nukes than with whatever weapons we'll have in 20 years time.
I thought the same when I saw the following story:
UN staff beheaded as Afghans rage against pastor who burnt Koran
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/un-staff-beheaded-as-afghans-rage-against-pastor-who-burnt-koran-2260108.html
There are certain parts of the world that could be sucked in to the bowels of the earth with nothing of value being lost save some interesting lamb dishes.
Well, yeah, but context comes in to it. Slavery is illegal and considered immoral in most modern countries, yet George Washington had slaves. Washington becomes a bad guy, at least in this regard and by current standards. Discussion of specific examples is probably more useful than a vague notion. "Many" is a weasel word. It's purpose here is to indicate a large quantity of something that hasn't even been defined, but all we need to know is that it's a lot of something that's really bad.
You risk giving the impression that the Allies suggested Palestine, to which the Jews responded "Wow, we never even considered that as a location!!!" Other locations were considered, but given Jewish history it seemed almost inevitable that Palestine would be the location. I don't think that there was a lot of enthusiasm anyway for hosting this new home, but the lucky Palestinians got volunteered. The Torah accounts are pretty amusing. Not so much a case of being given land by God, more being told by God to go kick the shit out of those people so the Jews could take their their land. A bit me giving you a $10000 for your birthday, and then handing you a gun and mask, and pointing you in the direction of the nearest bank.
Yup, Palestine was a bad idea done badly.
Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool also.
CEOs are beholden to shareholders and not their company's employees or customers.
I only have a problem with that in cases where a company has a de facto monopoly. This would be very likely in privatised public transport and utilities companies. In those cases the companies, if privatised, should be done so with a very clear contract and regulation to prevent them from milking their customers. In many of those cases though, where it's kind of impossible to have true competition, I think that privatisation is more about short-term fund raising and providing a nice windfall for friends of the party.
I've no problem with Joe Blow Sandwich Company replacing meat in their sandwiches with stuff that's legally meat but pretty crap. The market decides on the level of quality it wants - with regulation ensuring that basic safety and ethical minimum standards are met. Joe Blow is prevented by law from staffing its sandwich mills with children. Again though that's where the public has to decide what it wants? Are we happy to buy stuff from a company that treats its employees like shit, and sends all of its workforce overseas, simply because the products are nice or cheap?
If the CEO is responsible primarily to shareholders, it doesn't mean that Joe can make his shareholders oodles of money by replacing ham with "I can't believe it's not ham". I agree though that a move to short-termism is bad, in both economics and politics.
Separated at birth?
They really should team-up. McBride's foray in to profit through litigation was pretty successful, apart from the destruction of SCO and his having to carry a handgun.
Also, unlike the US we realise and understand that our laws stop at our borders.
Yeah, sure.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/sickipedia-bid-to-shut-offensive-encyclopedia-dramatica-20100317-qdv7.html
Australia could have added ED to their long list of sites being blocked to protect the sensibilities of their citizens. They instead chose to contact a US based site to warn/threaten them. Australia didn't have to call for extradition for their intended results to be made quite clear. It's not enough to for Australia to block this content; they want someone in a different country to abide by Australian law. How is this not a case of Australia applying its laws outside of its borders?
Fine if both countries have equivalent laws, in which case the Australians could ask the U.S. to prosecute their own laws. In this case though it'd be like Germany asking that a random Spanish guy take down a holocaust denial site that he never specifically intended to be accessed within German borders. It would be different if our Spanish friend was running a business selling his junk to Germans, in which case he either needs to abide by German law, or stop specifically targeting German users. Even then it's kind of shaky. It'd seem more sensible to prosecute Germans who break the law by buying his stuff.
What does a hooker do to earn $5000 per hour? Make cheese sandwiches during sex, but with gold instead of cheese? For that price it'd have to at least include a journey in to space.